Another crazy weekend for the Tigers and another crazy Monday of work for me so that probably means another shortened musings for all of you. Don't forget to vote in the Mizzou 25 as we come down to the semis and the finals this week.
Anyway, another sport wrapped up for Mizzou this weekend in Men's Swimming. Pretty full week for the Tigers even though the school was on break this past week. Let's get to it and see how the week went.
Click 'Full Story' for musings.
Baseball:
Well...certainly not the type of week we have grown accustomed to with the baseball team. It started with the mid-week split with the Gophers up in MN. Confidence was still high going into Lubbock for the first weekend series of the conference season, and it started out alright on Friday night with another sparkling performance by Aaron Crow with a 1-0 win. Mizzou scored the run in the top of the first and never looked back. Saturday brought an end to the earned run streak, as Ian Berger gave up one earned run over 8 innings, but left with a 2-1 lead in the 9th. In came Nick Tepesch the frosh, and out went the lead and the win as Tech came back to win 3-2. On Sunday...well...I did not follow it, but I know that while we broke out of our hitting funk, our pitching fell into one. The rare walk-off grandslam gave Tech 2 of 3 on the weekend and put Mizzou now at 20-5 and 4-2 in conference.
Mizzou will come off of their 5 game road trip to play 5 at home this week, and actually 9 of their next 10. Western Illinois will be in mid-week, as well as Lincoln. Then Okie State will come to town for the weekend three, of which I plan to see Friday and hopefully Sunday as well. How will the Tigers respond to a little adversity?
Softball:
Not a great week either for the lady diamond players, as they fell in 3 of 4 in their roadtrip to Texas. Starting off the week with a loss to a decent UT-San Antonio team, they came back the next day very strong to take a 9-0 win. However, the weekend brought them down to College Station to take on #6 ranked aTm. Mizzou sent Jenn Bruck to the mound on Saturday and came away on the short end of a 5-1 decision. Sunday saw them get up early on the Aggies 4-0, but neither Stacy Delaney or Jana Hainey could hold the early lead and aTm went on for a 9-4 decision.
The week puts Mizzou at 31-9 on the season and 2-2 in conference. This week, they will start out at home with 2 games during the week against Drake, and then they will hit the road again with a road 2-game series down in Norman against OU. Another tough weekend series, as OU is 30-8 and is off to a 4-0 start in Big XII play.
Men's Swimming:
Another week of NCAA Swimming and another Mizzou diver returning to Columbia as an All-American. This time, sophomore Greg DeStephen took home 12th place on Saturday in the 3-meter diving on Saturday, good enough for All-American status. Freshman Dante Jones also made the trip to the NCAA's, and while a little inconsistent, was able to nail some big scores during the week, which as a freshman could mean some big things down the road.
Credit should be going to not only Coach Brian Hoffer, but specifically Jamie Sweeney, who now boasts two All-American divers, both of whom (DeStephen and Melnychuk) will be returning to the Mizzou Well next year. Both squads enjoy new-found levels of team success this past year, both with a very balanced but pretty young squad. Hopefully the program will take another step next season, but congrats to them for the 2007-2008 campaign.
Gymnastics:
What a season for junior Adrianne Perry, and it looks like it will should continue. She went into Norman, OK this past weekend at the Big XII Championships, and not only walked away the event winner in the floor exercise with her score of 9.900, but went on to win the all-around title with a score of 39.375. She is the first tiger to ever win the award, and the win in the floor exercise was the 4th such event win in program history in the Big XII as well. Her doing so helped lead the ladies to a 3rd place finish, tying them for their highest finish in school history in the Big XII.
Mizzou's took third in a very tight battle with a score of 195.225. OU took the win at 195.875, with Iowa State just behind them at 195.775. A tribute to how good OU is at the vault, floor and beam is that they missed on THREE of six performances on the bars, taking scores of 9.175 and 9.400. They hit every single other performance and finished with scores above 49.2 in every other event.
Sarah Shire was able to become the third Tiger win Big XII Newcomer of the Year annouced after the championships were complete. Coming up next for the Tigers will be their waiting to hear where they have been assigned for the NCAA regional competition, which should be announced later today. From there, I believe the top 2 from each site (of 4 sites total) qualify for the team competition, but I could be wrong about that. Regardless, keep an eye on Rock M for updates as they are posted.
Outdoor Track:
Yep, they pretty much roll right from one to the other in track, having just recently completed the indoor season and getting right into the outdoor season. Mizzou hosted the Missouri Relays this past weekend and saw some school records fall.
For the men, the throwers were the story for the Tigers. The hammer saw a 1-2-3 Mizzou finish with senior Jason Morris, junior Chris Rohr and senior Tyler Dailey doing the honors and the top two qualifyng for the NCAA Regionals at the end of May (that is where you qualify for the NCAA's). Rohr later came up just seven centimeters short of qualifying for the Regionals in the shot put later.
For the women, another fantastic efforts by the throwers, lead by Shermelle Nichols. Shermelle destroyed her old discus record on her way to winning the event and qualifying for regionals. The effor was the 4th best toss of the outdoor season to this point. She was then the #2 part of a Tiger 2-3-4 finish in the shot put, coupled with junior Krishna Lee
(who also threw a personl best in the discus with Nichols) and senior Liz Robe, all of whom qualified for regionals with their effort. Freshman Hope Harris qualified for the Regionals in only her 2nd meet in the javelin, and senior Sarah Burbee won the hammer throw with a personal best effort.
Mizzou will travel next weekend to Charlottesville, Va., for the inaugural Jefferson Cup, a dual-meet scored versus the University of Virginia...a fun event with our sister school.
Tennis:
In what seemed to be a theme for the weekend, the lady Tigers joined many of their athletes in the state of Texas this past weekend, taking on Tech and Baylor. Starting with Tech, the ladies fell 6-1, with the lone win coming from freshman Kaitlyn Richie in the #6 singles slot. Coming back later in the weekend, the Tigers improved but still came up short, this time against the #2 Baylor Bears, falling 5-2. Winning on the day for the ladies was Kaitlyn Richie again, this time at #5 and winning 10-8 in the 3rd set. Also taking home a win was junior Sophie Ayala in the #6 slot, winning 6-0, 6-2.
The Tigers now sit at 9-8 overall and 1-4 in conference, and the road will not get much easier, as they return home to take on the #33 Aggies on Friday and #17 Longhorns on Saturday at the Green Tennis Center.
Men's Golf:
Mizzou spent the early part of the week out in Santa Cruz, CA at the Pasatiempo Golf Club (I just liked saying Pasatiempo...Pasatiempo) and came in 9th at the Western Intercollegiate. Highlighting the effort for the Tigers was freshman William Harrold who went out to a 1st round 66 and hung on to tie for 10th for the 3 days. Junior Ryne Fisher also had a nice outing, taking 17th for the week.
Next up for the Tigers will be a special and long-awaited tournament, as the men get to host a tournament on their new home course at Old Hawthorne in the UMB Mizzou Tiger Intercollegiate Classic...if that name is not long enough for you. That will be on April 7th and 8th.
Women's Golf:
The women were out in Tuscon, AZ over the weekend at the Mountain View Intercollegiate, where they used a couple of really solid rounds to come in 5th place, just one shot behind OU and TTech for 3rd and in front of Nebraska, kansas, kansas State, Colorado and Baylor. Unfortunately, I do not have final round stats, but I can tell you that senior Maddie Auugustsson, sophomore Julia Potter and red-shirt freshman Madison Marcolla were all in contention for top 25 finishes.
Next up for the ladies will be the Canes and Cardinals Classic down in Miami on April 7th and 8th. This will be their last tournament before the Big XII Championships, which will take place the last weekend in April down at Stillwater.
Random Thoughts:
* Is there any doubt that Gus Johnson's head would have exploded had that 3 fallen to win the game? Gotta feel for Curry...there was not a whole lot more he could have done with that defensive pressure in the 2nd half.
* Good for Memphis for overcoming the fact that really very few thought they would win that game. I only say that because the minute that bracket was released and the match-up was considered, everyone talked about how unfair it was for Memphis to be playing in TX. Great job to overcome that immediate of an excuse to get to the final four.
* Baseball started last night...I really dont usually pay any attention to it until hockey and hoops are done in June...makes the season MUCH shorter that way, but the walk-off by Zimmerman was pretty cool considering it was the 1st HR by the home team in their new digs.
* New Jersey (Devils) finally snapped their losing streak this past week, and looks like they are headed to a tough 4/5 match in the east, with only about one week to go in the regular season.
* In my flipping around on Sunday I believe I heard that Carl Edwards was in 5th and then literally ran out of gas as he was getting ready to cross the finish line and got there in 9th. Not been the luckiest season for him thus far.
* So putting the court on a stage more to the middle of the Dome floor was not a very good idea in my estimation...the risk of someone getting hurt off of that is just too high for the extra seats it created.
* Chalked Final Four....my guesses are NC over kU and Memphis actually over UCLA (unless the refs want to give UCLA another game)...with NC over Memphis for the finals. You heard it here first...so be sure to go the other way.