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Mizzou 25: Harold "Spider" Burke Regional (Quarterfinal #3)

UPDATE: Called after 78 votes. In the words of rptgwb, DC-9 'explodes' late and pulls away for the 53%-46% win. If it had stayed a 1- or 2- vote margin, I'd have kept the polls open, but 6 votes is a comfortable margin I guess.

It's Mizzou 25, the tournament to decide the best, most influential, most likable Mizzou athlete of the past 25 years! It's like Who's Now or The Greatest Highlight, only, uhh, cool.

Mizzou 25 is set up in four 8-athlete regions: the Norm Stewart Region (basketball), the Larry Smith Region (football), the Joann Rutherford Region (all sports), and the Spider Region (fan favorites). Here's the Mizzou 25 bracket in all its resplendent glory.

One region left, and then it's on to the Sweet 16! Here are the matchups for the Spider Regional...for this regional, vote with your heart, not your head.

3/10: Jed Frost (Basketball) vs Pig Brown (Football)
3/11: Devin West (Football) vs Brian Grawer (Basketball)
3/12: Demontie Cross (Football) vs Christi Myers (Volleyball)
3/13: Mark Atkins (Basketball) vs Matt Pell (Wrestling)

Demontie Cross vs Christi Myers

vs

1994-96

1999-02

Art: For many years, he was the only tackler standing between a ball carrier and the endzone, and he always made the open field tackle. For a while he was the leading tackler in MU football history.

The Boy: How hard did Demontie Cross hit? Try 9 forced fumbles in his last 22 games as a Tiger. How well did he tackle? Try 249 solo tackles in three years. When I came to school in '97, the 6'4/210 Illinois transfer was already a myth. To listen to the stories, he prevented 150 TDs by himself (the numbers almost back that up!) while playing with two separated shoulders, one kneecap, a broken ankle, and both a sports hernia and a regular hernia (whatever the difference is). He'd crush somebody, drag himself to his feet, then do it again.

I talk a lot on RMN about Success Rates and stats like that, but the definitive proof that I don't yet know what I'm talking about when it comes to defensive stats is that I'm pretty sure Demontie Cross wouldn't have scored very well when it came to Success Rates. If there were a TDs Saved category, however...Cross would be #1 all-time. And if ever there were a Tiger who deserved more team success than he got, it was Demontie.
The Beef: First...her place on the all-time list of Mizzou Volleyball players:

4th in kills
5th in kills/game
5th in attack attempts
2nd in attack percentage
2nd in blocks
2nd in block assists
1st in total blocks
2nd in blocks/game
3rd in points
3rd in points/game
8th in games played
2nd most total points in a season (2002) to Vander Kooi’s 2006

There was NO ONE who could stop her off the slide around the end because of her freak jumping ability. Christi was a part of the teams that started the run for Mizzou Volleyball to where they are now as perennial NCAA team. Added to that, she picked up the high jump in her spare time and because the coaches asked her to, and then qualified for the NCAA Championships in the outdoor season. She also STILL owns the 3rd best high jump in Mizzou history, one of only three to ever pass the six foot mark. If you are talking Mizzou Athletes, well, she certainly proved herself to be one of the best.