You know, I always find it tough and a little strange to try to sit down Monday morning and say ANYTHING unique or original over what has been said already. So, I decided to not read any of the articles out there, thus somehow convincing myself that whatever I am saying is both unique AND original. Hey...it makes sense in my own head.....oh yeah, and sorry about last week. As I mentioned in another post, I was typing this out and somehow managed to delete everything in the text box without the hopes of recovering it. So...lesson learned, and this will be cut and pasted from Word.
And wow does this get long when seasons start to overlap :-)
Click 'Full Story' for the rest.
Football:
I suppose I will try not to answer The Boy’s questions before he asks them on the weekly roundtable/how else can we embarrass ourselves piece. With that in mind, I was, shall we say, intrigued to see how the game this past weekend played out. Yes, in years past, this was some sort of trap game, and I was glad to see us come right out, put up two TD’s and pretty much salt it away right there. Chase Daniel played an amazing quarter, and then did HAVE to do much else from there. I will say I enjoyed seeing as many defensive players get time (except for Andrew Gachkar....would have liked to have seen him, just because I love his size and speed) and perform like they did (namely John Stull, Luke Lambert and Del Howard...more on that later). In the end though, I would have (obviously) preferred to see a better effort out there on defense, though we did it when it mattered. Time will tell if Iowa State turned some sort of corner last week vs. Oklahoma and continued it with us, or if this was a spike. In the end, and like I said at the beginning of the season, a win is a win and I will take it.
Moving on to this coming weekend, damn you Texas Tech. Damn you first off for making me look bad (though I think EVERYONE looked bad on that pick), but more so for giving CU some sort of momentum. You should have kicked the crap out of them at home, and that should have been enough to start to the ending process of their season. Now, you have a still VERY young team with a little momentum coming home to try to stay alive in the north, but also hoping to further their bowl resume. The crowd (such as it is out there) will be jacked (or otherwise chemically-altered) up for this game, and winning on the road in the Big XII is always a chore (more on that later as well). That being said, for me it will come down to how the defense reacts to losing Pig Brown. As ZouDave and I talked about this past weekend, losing him very much mirrors losing Brian Smith last year, though I still believe (even if Dave disagrees with me) losing Brown does not hurt as much as losing Smith did last year as we have more and proven depth back there. However, William Moore will need to be big and overcome the nagging injuries he has, Justin Garrett will need to get healthy and Del Howard will need to continue to improve. If the D does not get down on themselves for losing their leader, I still think we are 2 TD’s better than CU out there. Will it happen? Guess we will see at 5:30 p.m. next Saturday....
Soccer:
One thing you can honestly say about the Mizzou Tigers this year in conference is that they have yet to lose in regulation. That being said, their OT loss at home against middle of the road Iowa State was a tough one, one that the team did not need. Falling 1-0 in OT in a cold night at Walton Stadium was interesting since the team did not score for the first time all season. Even playing some of the top teams in the country (and beating a couple of them); they scored every game until this one. The team was able to turn it around and get back on track against the lowly Huskers on Sunday afternoon at home again, taking the match 3-1 for their 6th win on the season in conference and 12th overall. The game was in doubt for a good portion, as there was no scoring early before NU broke on the board in the 29th minute. Mizzou would strike back before the half to tie it on the first goal of the season from Mallory Frost....yes...if you were paying attention; Mallory Frost was the starting goalie most of the season for the Tigers. She started at forward and was able to answer the Husker goal with one of her own. The team put it away in the 2nd half with the 10th goal of the season from Sophomore Michelle Collins, and the added a late goal from Sophomore Kristen Andrighetto, her 12th on the season. Andrighetto added an assist on the 2nd goal, pushing her point total on the season to 32 points (12 and 8 assists).
One more win would give Mizzou their most conference wins ever, and could not come at a better time, as Mizzou will travel to Lawrence on Friday to take on kansas. A win would not only give the Tigers another three points in the Border War, but would also clinch 2nd place overall in the conference (aTm took first this past weekend). Texas (who holds a tie breaker of Mizzou on the legs of their OT win) is one point back, so only a win would clinch it for sure (unless UT falls at home against Colorado). As for the pending Big XII tourney, I do not believe Mizzou can fall further than 3rd in the tourney, but the bottom is all over the place, as Mizzou’s possible opponent will not likely be decided until after the dust settles. Mizzou will retain their top 20 ranking for the week certainly, and have performed well all season. One last run through the Big XII’s and (pending) NCAA’s would really give the team a lot of momentum, as they had to say goodbye to a senior who does not play (injury) and a manager on Senior Day as they had not others, proving the youth of the team.
Volleyball:
Well, it is not going to be easy, but I suppose the team still has a shot at extending their season past the regular season play (and there is no post season conference tournament, which I guess always struck me as odd). Mizzou earlier in the week fell to a ranked kSU team at Hearnes 3-0, but were able to not only rebound, but also avenge an earlier (and devastating) home loss to kansas by squeezing out (another) 5-game winner. Tatum Ailes had a SICK game, with 32 digs, becoming the first player in Mizzou history to record 100 games with double-digit digs (out of 111). The All Conference defensive specialist showed why she will likely hang on to the award with a crazy effort. Na Yang led the offense with 22 kills for the match.
On to the remaining schedule, Mizzou will (likely) be lambs to the slaughter this coming week with a trip to Lincoln on Wednesday. After that, and staring a 6-8 conference record in the face (at that point), Mizzou will have three very winnable matches vs. Baylor, at Tech and vs. Iowa State. Win those three, and they will be 9-8 coming down the home stretch with two big road matches looming at aTm and at Oklahoma. Win one of those, close with Colorado at home and they will be 11-9, just like they were last year, when they went to the NCAA. Will that be the exact formula? I have no idea, but it will put them where they were last year when they made it, so I figured it would be a nice start.
Wrestling:
A quick blurb as the team had their unofficial "wrestle-offs" this past Sunday at Hearnes.
Some interesting things came out of the event, though I do not believe all of these items will prove to hold when the season starts, but here they are.
• RS Frosh Tony Pescaglia beat John Olanowski (I DO believe this will hold) at 125
• Ashtin Primus took a forfeit from Josh Wagner at 149, but I believe Primus redshirts this year and waits behind the senior
• At 155, Emanuel Brooks "upset" Mike Chandler, but I believe Chandler will hold the spot come the season
• Nice to see Raymond Jordan win by fall, even if it was over one of our own at 184.
• Max Askren with an easy win at 197, hopefully the first of many.
• Dom Bradley won at 275, but not over Mark Ellis. Hopefully someone reading this will comment and let us know perhaps what the story is.
First match for the grapplers will be in 2 weeks on Friday, November 9th at Rider, and then a TOUGH match at "giant killer" Hofstra that Sunday.
X-Country:
We already went over their results earlier in the weekend For the men, there was only one senior in their top seven, with 2 juniors, a soph (Dan Hedgecock) and 3 frosh or RS Frosh, so lots of young depth. For the ladies, 3 seniors placed in the top 7, with 2 juniors, a soph and a frosh (Kinsey Farren). Up next for the team will be the return to Peoria where they ran so well for the NCAA Regional in two weekends.
Swimming:
The women traveled to Lawrence this past weekend (the men only have UT and aTm as conference opponents) and took down the Hawks for only the 2nd time in 25-meet history, pulling away in the end 162-138. Pacing the ladies was sophomore Colleen Gordon who came from the back in the 1000 meters early in the meet to set the tone. It would appear Mizzou won this meet more with depth than first place finishes, but the team swam well and should bolster their already #20 ranking this coming week.
Up next for both teams will be the Mizzou Dual Challenge when both the men and women host Drury, SIU, SMS, Illinois and Va Tech. The Tech ladies are currently ranked #25, while the SIU and SMS ladies hold the #8 and #14 rankings in the mid-major class respectively. For the men, SMS is #7 and SIU #13 in those same rankings.
Golf:
The Mizzou Men took a fairly young team (only one senior) safely out to San Diego last week and turned in their best finish of the fall season, taking 3rd at the Sycuan College Invitational. Junior Peter Malnati was high finisher for the Tigers, taking 7th overall with a last round which featured six birdies. Up next for the men as their fall season winds down is the Wolverine Intercollegiate at the start of next week down in Florida.
For the ladies, they traveled to New Mexico to take on some major teams at the Price’s Give ‘Em Five Intercollegiate (I did not make that up) and came away 7th for the tournament. Another young squad faired well, as the top finisher for the women was sophomore Julia Potter, who took 4th for her third straight top-5 finish of the fall season. Sophomore Michelle Morgan also took home a top 20 finish, coming in 19th. For the women, they are currently living the good life down in Las Vegas competing in the Las Vegas Collegiate through Wednesday of this week.
Random Thoughts:
• Good for the Red Sox, and especially on behalf of my grandmother who is as die-hard as they come and gets to see them win again
• Good for Jonathan Papelbon for MULTIPLE inning+ outings in the W.S. I know we won’t get back to the days of 3 inning saves, but nice to see someone take that mantle from Rivera (especially as he winds his career down.)
• Though I have been to neither, I would be curious to put a night time LSU home crowd vs. the night time, white-out Penn State home crowd.
• Yes, the Trinity play was the craziest thing I have ever seen, though not enough is being made of the PERFECT bounce the ball took on the last lateral...that really was the key to the entire thing.
• Mizzou is 9th.....just strange. And I love how everyone is talking about how the top 10 did not really have any upsets, which while true, was also in a week where numbers 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 16 all lost.
• The RB was UGA is a hoss...and the celebration and kicking off from the 7 1/2 yard line is pretty funny.
• My boy Mike McLeod from Yale is still crushing, and is up to 1277 yards on the season for the undefeated Bulldogs
• HOW oh HOW oh HOW did NO ONE think to get the Indy/New England game on prime time next weekend (though with the 4pm east coast start, the overrun will be close, but still)
• MAN do the Rams, Dolphins and Jets all suck. If not for the fact that the Dolphins and Jets play each other again and the Colts do play the Pats, there was a good chance we could have had 2 undefeated and 2 winless teams this season.
• Will Cuban buy the Cubs in time to sign A-Rod? We shall see....
• Basketball starts this week....how the hell is it November already?
• Anyone who prays that long for the health of someone else deserves to have a prayer sent up for them, so for whatever it is worth....God bless YOU Chase Patton.