Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The Royals throw a wild pitch and the Devil Rays win.
Sports
SEE PAGE 2B
Pro Basketball
Friday
May 7, 1999
Section:
B
Page 1
Allen Iverson won the 1999 NBA scoring title by defeating Shaquille O'Neal.
SEE PAGE 5B
Student Athletes
Page 1
Tutors can make the difference between a student athlete's success or failure.
SEE PAGE 3B
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Kansas infielder Brandon O'Neil dives back toward first base to avoid the Oral Roberts pitcher's attempted pick-off. O'Neil successfully stole second base on the next pitch. Photo by Matt J. Daugherty/KANSAN
Kansas done in by Oral Roberts in 'one inning'
Batt Mtait
sports@kansas.com
Kansas sportswriter
Twenty minutes before game time, first baseman Chad King sat in the dugout with his warmup jacket on expecting not to play. By game time, King was added to the line-up in place of Ryan Klocksien, and during the game King delivered.
"Great addition, wouldn't you say," Coach Bobby Randall said.
King, a senior, has been the Jayhawk's regular first baseman all season long, but last night he was initially benched in favor of the freshman. Using that as motivation King delivered two hits, including his fifth home run of the season, three RBI and made a stellar play at first base to rob Oral Roberts' left fielder Eric Vandeventer of a base hit.
However, despite King's performance, the Jayhawks fell 6-4 in another closely contested game.
The game saw that one big thing that King talked of, but it was an Oral Roberts five-run fourth.
"Our pitching was all right, our hitting was all right and I thought we played pretty well," King said. "But we didn't have anything outstanding. It's going to take one big game or one big play."
"That was a winnable game," King said. "We were in it until the last inning, really only the one big inning hurt us."
That inning saw two Golden Eagle home runs, one Jayhawk error and all but knocked starter Pete Smart out of the game.
Smart pitched a career-high six innings, allowing eight hits and striking out five, but surrendered six runs that were the difference.
Reliever Brian Schriner came in to finish the game and pitched well over the final three innings. Schriner allowed no hits, no runs and struck out three in relief of Smart, but the Kansas offense couldn't buy a break.
Occasionally the Jayhawks threatened, but any Kansas rally was thwarted by a bad break. With runners on first and second in the eighth inning, John Nelson (Kansas' leading hitter) stepped to the plate and lined a shot to first base. The ball was snared by the Oral Roberts first baseman, he tagged the bag for the double play and the inning, and consequently the threat was over.
"We just can't drive in runs," Randall said. "We should've scored more runs tonight, and we left too many men on base. It was the same old story, we just struck out too many times with men on base."
The Jayhawks struck out nine times last night, adding to the previous school record of 440 strikeouts this season.
These two teams will do battle again tonight at Hoglund Ballpark before hitting the road for two games this weekend at Oral Roberts. Freshman Dan Olson is expected to start for Kansas. Olson's last start came against Kansas State on May 1. He allowed only one run on four hits, but was pulled from the game in the sixth after striking out five.
The loss drops the Jayhawks to 11-38 on the year and moves them to within one loss of tying another for most losses in a season.
Tonight's game will start at 7 p.m.
— Edited by Matt Merkel-Hess
WATER SKI CLUB RISES TO THE TOP
story by mike miller • photos by matt j. daugherty
Skimming along the water at 30 miles per hour, Hannah Jorgenson hits the ramp and flies through the air, her skis point up and away from her body.
On good jumps, Jorgenson keeps her skis straight and her legs underneath her when she hits the water.
when she competes for the Kansas water ski club team, the bad jumps tend to outnumber the good jumps, but that's what Jorgenson loves about it.
"The first time I ever jumped. I was at a tournament, and I ate it," she said. "But I popped up and loved it. It's an adrenaline rush."
On bad jumps, her legs sway, her arms flail and she swallows about five gallons of water.
Jorgenson, Denver senior and club president, is one of 65 members who participate in about nine tournaments throughout the year
though the majority of the season is in the fall, spring gives the members time to practice, braving the ice-cold water at Mo Kan Lake.
The team rents time at Mo-Kan from a professional team which uses the lake in summer. Right off the eastbound lanes of Kansas Highway 10 near Twin Oaks golf course, the lake is used for water sking only. The team practices there from 2 to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
"Basically what you see on ESPN is what we do," said team captain Kyle Brule, Kansas City.
See KU on page 3B
Track to warm up in Iowa before conference meet
By Mike Miller
By Mike Miller
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Though a meet is scheduled next weekend at Emporia, the Iowa Invitational is the last big competition before conference. But don't expect the Jayhawks to do anything unusual.
The men's and women's track teams travel to Ames, Iowa today and will compete in the Iowa Invitational, one of two tune-ups before the Big 12 Conference meet.
"We'll concentrate on doing particular things with individuals to prepare them for conference," Coach Gary Schwartz said. "We just want to keep them progressing along to peak in a couple weeks."
Which means that few athletes will compete in multiple events, and some runners will decrease workloads and focus on speed events.
Sophomore Charlie Gruber, ranked ninth nationally in the 1,500 meters and tenth in the 800 meters, will run the 800, focusing on his shorter event.
"We're not really sure where in the conference we want to run Charlie yet," Schwartz
said. "We don't want to make any decisions about conference until we have to."
Gruber also holds the top time in the Big 12 in the 1,500 and has the second fastest time in the 800.
But Gruber is not the only Jayhawk ranked nationally.
— Edited by Matt Merkel-Hess
Freshman Andrea Bulat is ranked sixth in the lavelin.
Sophomore Andrea Branson is ranked fifth in the pole vault and has the top pole vault mark in the Big 12. Her vault last weekend of 12-9 1/2 was her highest since April 10, which made her confident for the rest of the season.
while senior Candy Mason is ranked fifth in the pole vault.
"I see myself going over 13 feet the rest of the year," she said.
Kansas will not enter any relays this weekend to decrease further wear and tear.
sophomore Scott Russell, who will compete in both the javelin and the hammer throw. Russell is ranked fifth nationally in the javelin and 16th in the hammer throw, but dominates the Big 12 rankings. He is ranked first in the hammer, second in the javelin, third in the discus and eighth in the shot put.
The only athlete competing in multiple events this weekend is
Jake LeTournou, back-up quarterback for the Kansas football team, will compete in the javelin for the first time this year. He was a late addition in the season and practiced for the first time this week.
Commentary
Barry Sanders missing camp, tired of losing his father says
His thighs are as big as basketballs. His stance portrays the athletic prowess he is known to possess.
Despite all the hoopla that surrounds him when he returns to Wichita, Barry Sanders still makes time for the lesser-known people — seeing his sister play basketball, watching his cousin walk across the stage at graduation.
His presence in the stands at the Wichita North gym — where he must have once sat as a student cheering at a pep assembly — creates a distraction. Not only are the fans gawking at him, the girls on the court are, too. His sister stops to talk to him in the middle of a play. The ball sails past her out of bounds.
Sanders has been a class act in the world of sports since his 1980 Heisman Trophy win. So what has happened to him during the off season?
Officials in the Lions' front office say they haven't heard from Sanders since the off season. He didn't attend a
Erin Thompson
sports@kansan.com
mandatory minicamp held April 23-25 at the Silverdome.
A class act like Sanders playing hooky from training camp is like Allen Iverson winning the NBA scoring title — oh, wait a minute. Something must be askew in the Detroit front office to keep Sanders away. Or maybe he's just tired of losing.
Speaking of Wichitans, I had a friend once tell me that all great athletes could be linked back to Wichita. I don't know if I'd go as far as to say all, but he brought up some interesting points. Barry Sanders, Wichita North. Lynette Woodard, arguably the greatest female basketball player ever, graduated from Wichita North. The greatest miler, Jim Ryun — Wichita East grad. So much for the obvious.
That's what Sander's father, William, told The Associated Press. He said his son was "sick of losing, sick of the whole situation."
Who can blame him? Despite compiling 15,268 yards in his 10 seasons with the Lions, the Lions continue to lose. Last year, they ended with a 5-11 record.
Now for the obscure — Michael Jordan played in the McDonald's All-American game at Wichita State's Henry Levitt arena.
I just hope Sanders doesn't retire and sticks around long enough to break Walter Payton's career rushing record, of which he is just 1,458 yards short.
What about the up-and-coming stars of the athletic world? Oh yeah, that's taken care of. Darren Dreifort, one of the Dodgers' top pitchers, pitched for Wichita State.
Why is the Kansas baseball team so bad? Not enough country music. Every baseball team I've ever been around that experiences any degree of success listens to country music.
Who knows? Couldn't hurt the team's record any.
While I don't know any of the baseball boys, a friend who hangs out with them quite frequently has assured me they do not listen to country music.
Thompson is a Wichita senior in journalism.