Monday Musings - The Post Season Edition

That's right folks...with the last pitch of the Mizzou/CS-B game yesterday afternoon, the regular season for Mizzou sports has ended.  Three sports remain with active participants, as Baseball starts it's Big XII Championships, Outdoor Track completed the Big XII Championships and Softball moves along in the NCAA Championships.  Was a pretty solid week and weekend for the Tigers as Men's Golf drew to a close as well with a good performance.  Let's get to the Musings, which will likely be more linking than writing

Softball:

First off, thanks to everyone who spent the weekend checking in and out of the Live Threads.  The NCAA was nice enough to provide some very solid live-video feeds and we were fortunate enough to take advantage of it.  Special thanks to Andy 01 who picked up the slack for me when I was away from the computer.

So, first off, let's get to the Live Thread Links in case you feel the need to relive any of the action from the weekend:

• Day 1 - Bradley upsets Depaul and Mizzou/Illinois only play for 14 minutes
• Day 2 - Mizzou goes back-to-back over Illinois and Bradley before Depaul does the same over the same
• Day 3 - Chelsea Thomas battles for a thrilling 1-0 win on a Rhea Taylor 6th inning solo shot

Where does that leave us?  With #2 UCLA making equally quick work of their regional, the TIgers will be headed to LA for the Super Regional, which is a best two out of three series contested next weekend.  And yes, this is a terrible draw for the Tigers, one they certainly did not deserve based on their final ranking and RPI.  The teams did play earlier in the season out in San Diego, with UCLA taking the game in their final at bat over Thomas.  The pitching depth Mizzou has will certainly play to their benefit in this format of multiple games, and if the bats can wake up some, UCLA did give up more than two runs in each game they played in their own regional.  We will have MUCH more on this matchup later this week in "Know your Opponent" pieces.  But to enjoy the moment, the team is now 48-9, which is a record number of wins for the program, and they have won their last seven games in a row, only giving up two runs in those games with Thomas winning five of those.

Baseball:

Light week for the Tigers, who were only scheduled for three games and only ended up playing two, winning them both against Cal State-Bakersfield.  In the end, getting a game cancelled was probably not the worst thing in the world, since every win the Tigers got this weekend dinged their RPI just a hair.  The Tigers had their Friday tilt cancelled when the hand of God blew through on Friday night.  That took Kyle Gibson out of the starting roll on Saturday, as Scooter Hicks led off Johnny Wholestaff, sort of.  He threw four extremely solid innings before giving way to Nick Tepesch, who was decent through 3.1  McCormick provided the bridge to Buehler, who was OK in closing out the 4-2 win.  Kyle Mach was 3-4 with a couple of RBI's as the Tigers got out to a 4-0 lead by the 5th and never looked back.

On Sunday, Mr. Wholestaff was again in action, and saw some decent outings from one Mr. Ian Berger (3 innings, 2 hits and 3 K's) and Kyle Gibson (1 shutout inning) before winning a pretty wild one 8-5.  The Tigers had to come back from an early 4-0 deficit and then held off CS-B for their 32nd win of the season.  Kyle Mach had three more hits (was 6-9 on the weekend) and Greg Folgia struck with 3 RBI's to lead Mizzou at the plate.

Now sitting at 32-23 and 16-11 in conference, the Tigers will now advance to the Big XII Tournament later this week.  Thanks to kU crushing k-State last evening, the Tigers finished the Big XII third  and they will be joined in their mini-group with #2 OU, #6 aTm and #7 TTech.  The Tigers faced all three at home, winning one against OU, two against aTm and all three against TTech.  We will have plenty more on this to come later this week.

Men's Golf:

The season draws to a close as senior Peter Malnati availed himself quite well at the NCAA Regional Championship where he participated as a single and finished his three rounds tied for 21st. 

Outdoor Track:

The Championships were contested down in Lubbock, TX, and the Tigers started off the action on Friday evening with a bang, taking home both the men's and women's hammer throw.  Senior Chris Rohr was dominant winning another title, destroying all records in the process.  He'd also add a 7th place in the shot put.  For Lee, this was her first Big XII title in her illustrious career.  Mizzou would have two ladies place in the heptathlon with Kaela Rorvig placing 2nd and Lauren Begany coming in 6th.  For the men, sophomore Lars Rise turned in a 4th place finish in the decathlon while junior Nick Adcock finished 8th to point as well.  Junior Brian Hancock came in third in the pole vault, while junior Daniel Hunter finished the same in the high jump.

Yesterday, the meet would wrap up with the Tigers taking home some additional championships, as junior Shannon Leinart won the 800 meters for the women.  Krishna Lee also finished an amazing weekend with a 2nd place in the shot put.  The final scoring would have the men placing 5th (missing 4th by a point) and the women placing tied for 7th and both beating out kU (12th and 10th) for some of the final Border Skirmish points of the year.

Coming up This Week:

The Big XII Championships in baseball will kickoff Wednesday morning, and I am sure you will be able to follow all of the action here.  The softball team will start their action later in the weekend, and those games will be contested on Pacific time.

Random Thoughts:

• I know I said it the other day during the Softball Live Thread, but that was one hell of a horse race on Saturday
• The Oregon Ducks Ultimate Frisbee team had their season suspended for not wearing pants during a game....
• If you get the chance, watch a little lacrosse Saturday afternoon in the national semifinals...great sport
• Will be in Chicago next weekend, so it is likely the Monday Musings will turn into Tuesday Talkings.  Will be my first time hitting the Shedd Aquarium, Architectural Tour and the Museum of Science and Industry.  But perhaps most importantly, it will be a chance to bring back some Capital Beer and eat Dunkin Donuts.
  
• The Saturday Night Live "Just Shorts" special from last night was just great because it showed the Synchronized Swimming short which almost never gets shown anywhere and is maybe the funniest thing ever on TV.  I almost died last night watching "Deckwork"
• Oh...and Peyton Manning pegging kids was great too
• Mets stayed pretty hot this week, but are getting dinged up in the process with Reyes out and Delgado likely out for some time to come
• I am still not sure Lebron James will lose the rest of this season...especially because I dont understand how Orlando only has Howard shooting the ball less than ten times per game.
• So there is little chance I will see "The Hangover" put the part with Mike Tyson and Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" made me laugh for awhile