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MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012
TRACK AND FIELD
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Women's relay team breaks school record
Junior Andrea Geubelle sprints down the lane before her final jump in the in the triple jump during Friday's Jayhawk Classic at Anschutz Pavilion. Geubelle broke the Anschutz record with a jump of 13.20 meters.
CHRIS BRONSON/KANSAN FILE PHOTO
mgoodwin@kansan.com
MAX GOODWIN
Junior Jesse Vaughn was hoping to reach his goal of throwing the javelin 215 feet (65.5 meters) at some point this season. Instead, he surpassed his goal by 10 feet on Saturday at the UTEP Invitational with a throw that traveled 225 feet (68.57 meters). Such a far throw that it was even a bit surprising to Vaughn himself, who said the throw will give him a boost of confidence going into the Kansas Relays.
"It gives me some confidence to go with. Hopefully the weather will be better in Kansas so we can get some really good marks." Vaughn, a native of Tucumseh, said.
According to Vaughn, the wind was gusting upwards of 38 miles per hour during the preliminary throws, creating some tricky conditions for the throwers. In the finals, the wind actually died down a little and Vaughn was able to make the best throw of his javelin career.
The weather conditions thus far this season have made it difficult for coach Stanley Redwine to judge some of his team's events.
"I think there are some events that haven't run to their potential simply because of the weather" Coach Redwine said.
There were several individual and team performances that excited coach Redwine, aside from the javelin throw from Jesse Vaughn. The women's team had a very impressive day on the track as well.
"Paris Daniels did exceptionally
well. The women's 4x100, I thought, did a phenomenal job." Redwine said. "We had some performances that certainly rank high in the nation that we're excited about."
Junior Paris Daniels improved her performance from last week's Emporia State Invitational with her best race of the year in the 200-meter, the race in which she won a Junior College national title last year. With a time of 23.13 seconds, Daniels reached the B-provisional qualification mark for the Olympic trials in June. At the time, Daniels was unaware of what exactly she had accomplished.
"I actually didn't even know" Daniels said. "My teammates, as we were getting off the bus told me that I made the B-mark for the Olympic trials."
Daniels also ran the first leg of the women's 4x100-meter relay for her team, which ran a school record time of 44.45 seconds. Long jumper and spinner junior Francine Simpson ran the second leg and passed to junior Danesha Morris. By the time it was sophomore Diamond Dixon's turn to finish off the relay, the team already had a large lead. Dixon ran into a strong head wind to achieve the school record and victory for the four girls.
"I think we'll get better as the season goes on." Daniels said of her 4x100-meter relay team, fully aware that they had just set a new school record.
BASEBALL
- Edited by Caroline Kraft
Kansas ends losing streak with victory against Texas A&M
MAX LUSH
mlush@kansan.com
Suffering from an eight-game losing streak and playing the No. 2 team in the country, the Kansas baseball team (13-23, 3-9) needed a solid start from junior starting pitcher Thomas Taylor.
Taylor (4-4, 3-7) is the only upperclassman in the Jayhawks' starting rotation. The team needed him to lead Sunday afternoon against the Texas A&M Aggies (28-8, 9-3).
Things didn't start as planned for Taylor; he gave up a run in the first inning. But then something clicked, and he started sending Aggie hitters
back to their dugout. After the first inning, only six Aggies reached base off of Taylor.
"I struggled a little bit with my command early in the game," Taylor said. "From then on out, I just tried to throw strikes and pitch to contact with the wind blowing in today."
Kansas answered with two runs
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The Jayhawk baseball team rushes to congratulate their relief pitcher, Tanner Poppe, a junior from Girard, after he pitched the ninth inning against the Aggies at Hoglund Ballpark on Sunday afternoon. Poppe withstood pressure from the jeering Aggie fans in the stadium after he allowed two Aggie runs in the ninth before he delivered a 3rd out, winning the game for the Jayhawks.
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CLAIRE HOWARD/KANSAN
But the story of the day was Taylor's ability to shut down a potent A&M offense. He threw seven innings, allowing just one run on four hits, three walks and two hit batters. Taylor also struck out four batters.
in the bottom half of the inning and never looked back. They went on to win the game 5-3.
Entering last week, A&M posted the 22nd-highest team batting average .308) and scored the 25th most runs in the country (218).
Sunday, the Aggies hit just .160 (4-for-25) off of Taylor. He used his fastball to get ahead of A&M hitters early in counts. Once he was ahead in the count, Taylor went to his off-speed pitches to help finish off hitters.
"Obviously they're a great team, they showed that the first two games," Taylor said. "We just wanted to come out here and not be afraid and just attack them. We wanted to show them that we could play with them despite our record."
The Aggies got their leadoff man on base only once in seven innings against Taylor. Junior designated hitter Matt Juengel ripped a single back up the middle.
Taylor got out of a jam with runners on first and third in his last inning; striking out the last batter he faced looking. He left the game with a 5-1 lead.
Kansas not only needed a strong
"He was lights out today," senior catcher James Stanfield said of Taylor. "Late in the game, he really hunkered down and that was huge for us."
outing from Taylor for psychological reasons, but also for physical ones. The Kansas bullpen was depleted from the two previous games in the series, and coach Ritch Price said he only planned on using Taylor and junior closer Tanner Poppe for Sunday's game.
"He had to go seven innings," Price said. "It was a two-man game, whenever Taylor left it was going to be Poppe after that."
Kansas will look to build off this victory when the team plays the Texas Longhorns in a three-game series this weekend.
"It's huge," Taylor said. "Going into Texas next weekend, this is a huge confidence boost. We just showed we can play with the best in the country, and we just have to keep that in mind."
— Edited by Caroline Kraft
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