BASKETBALL: Duke's Jason Williams wins Wooden Award. SEE PAGE 7A SOFTBALL: The team splits games to Texas A&M. SEE PAGE 7A
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SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
6A
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
COMMENTARY
MONDAY, APRIL 8,2002
Kate Eichten
keichen@kansan.com
Florida contest brings surf, seasickness
theory.
That's right — while everyone else was sitting on Wescoe Beach or in class, as a Baby Jay, I was in Daytona Beach, Fla., for the past week with the rest of the Spirit Squad. I'm even writing this column while watching the waves roll in from my balcony. Jealous?
Dude, what a week — from cornfields to waking up with foreign, rotten smells right next to your bed, to being sunburn on a beach. And that's not even half of the story.
The reason we're here? It's called the Chick-fil-A Cheer and Dance Collegiate Championship. The entire Spirit Squad — including all mascots, Crimson Girls and cheerleaders — traveled to Florida to compete against other schools. More than 150 schools competed in all divisions.
This is the competition stuff you see on ESPN with overly-peeped cheerleaders who never stop smiling. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Think pouring it on for a week long.
Each squad put in long hours over the past months coming up with stunts, routines and a skit for Baby Jay—another KU student, not me—to bring to competition.
Mascots in this competition sent in tapes months in advance as a preliminary round, and the top five were chosen to compete in finals. Each mascot was given one minute and 30 seconds to perform an original skit with props in front of an audience and a panel of judges.
Baby Jay placed fifth in the nation for mascots.
The Crimson Girls performed last Thursday and placed 13th out of 30 teams.
The cheerleaders also competed on Thursday and placed 12th out of 17 teams.
There were many rules and restrictions each team had to follow, including time limits on performances.
Each team performed well, especially considering it was the first experience for everyone at this competition.
It was a good trip except for the last night in Daytona. All I can say is, I think it might have been better to leave Saturday. The entire spirit squad decided to take a Casino Cruise on Saturday night. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The hotel we stayed in sold us the tickets, yet failed to tell us about the possibility of rough seas, getting sick and being stuck on the boat for five hours.
Us naive Kansans.
Within 50 minutes, the boat was rocking and more than half of us were sick.
It looked like the plague had hit the top deck. We had bodies lying on the floor and hanging over the edge. The bathrooms were disgusting.
It was the worst night of my life, hands down. The captain of the ship told us that if 100 people got sick and threw up that we would have turned the boat around. By 10 p.m., the count was up to 97, but unfortunately it never reached 100. As we got off the boat, a dealer said it was the worst night she had ever witnessed as far as seasickness went.
The cruise should have been renamed Hell on Water.
All-in-all, though, the trip was an experience for all to remember (well, let's hope most of us remember at least half of the trip).
■ Eichten is a Topeka sophomore in journalism.
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Senior tennis player Cheryl Mallaiah returns the ball during a recent match. Mallaiah, who played in her final home match, led the Jayhawks to a perfect conference record.
Tennis team undefeated
Two weekend wins cap a home season without Big 12 loss
By Jonah Ballow Kansan sportswriter
For the first time in eight years the Kansas tennis team went undefeated at home with victories over Missouri Saturday and Iowa State yesterday.
"To win all of our matches today makes this win and going undefeated at home so special," coach Kilmeny Waterman said. "Iowa State is a deep team we just got off on the right foot today. Going undefeated at home is a great feat since we had to play some of the top teams in the Big 12.
This team is very proud of themselves and I think they should be. We knew that we would have a tough schedule and it is gratifying to know that we have just gotten that much better as a team."
The Jayhawks have not lost to
Iowa State since 1981 and continued that streak with the 7-0 victory.
Kansas started the match strong by winning all three doubles matches. No.1 doubles team Courtney and Kristen Steinbock beat Noortje Cornelissen and Sabrina Evers 8-1, improving its winning streak to eight straight matches.
In singles play, the jayhawks won all six matches with the effort of sophomore Emily Haylock. At No. 2 singles, Haylock defeated Edna Vazquez 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 in a grueling three-set match.
the current Big 12 Conference player of the Week, Courtney Steinbock, cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Tara Goedjen at the No. 3 singles position. The match marked the 10th consecutive victory for Steinbock.
"I played all right in the first set, but I then had to concentrate and I was able to come through in the third to get the win," Haylock said.
"This was a great effort. We still have a few tough matches," Haylock said. "Hopefully we can keep our winning streak alive."
The Jayhawks earned another Big 12 victory when they defeated their rivals, the Missouri Tigers, 6-1. Kansas earned the point by winning all three doubles matches, as No. 1 doubles Courtney and Kristen Steinbock battled back from a 6-3 deficit to win 9-8(2).
The Jayhawks then took care of business in singles play by winning five of their six matches.
"When we play Missouri, there is always a lot of emotion and it is a match we want to win," coach Waterman said.
No. 33-ranked Kansas improved its record to 14-3 on the season and 8-0 in the Big 12. The Jayhawks head back on the road when they travel to Lincoln, Neb., to face the Nebraska Cornhuskers in a Big 12 battle.
Contact Ballow at jballow@kansan.com. This story was edited by Jenna Goepfert.
kansan.com
See a full list of the Tennis team's results on the Web.
Baseball team loses series against Texas
By Ryan Wood Kansan sportswriter
After winning the first or a three-game series Friday, the Kansas baseball team was unable to finish off the Texas Longhorns losing the final two games of the series Saturday.
With the losses, Kansas dropped to 13-15 overall and 2-10 in Big 12 Conference play. Texas improved to 28-9 and 7-5.
The Longhorns won the season series against the Jayhawks for the sixth straight year, dating back to the inception of the Big 12 in 1996.
Kansas' 5-3 victory Friday was highlighted by a superb pitching performance by Jeff Davis. The senior threw a complete game, allowing three runs, walking just one, and striking out two. He improved to 4-1 on the season.
"I thought I got stronger as the game went on," Davis said. "Travis [Metcalf] was great defensively in the first inning. He made a couple of outstanding plays that really saved the game when I wasn't throwing very well."
Saturday wasn't as successful for the Jayhawks. In the first game, Texas jumped to a big lead by scoring six runs in the first en route to an 8-3 victory. Senior Dan Olson (3-3) started and pitched four innings, suffering the loss. Sophomore Chris Smart pitched the final four innings, allowing just two hits and no runs.
Junior catcher Beau Thompson went 2-for-4 with a run, leading the Jayhawk offense. Sophomore outfielder Matt Triblek had the only RBI for Kansas.
Offensively, junior first baseman Casey Spanish led Kansas with two hits and his first homer of the season. Metcalf and junior shortstop Brandon Shepard each contributed two hits.
used two hits.
Senior third baseman Ryan Klocksien's RBI single and junior designated hitter Kevin Wheeler's three-run double gave Kansas an early 4-0 lead. But Texas fought back, tying the game at 4-4 in the eighth, and eventually won with a run-scoring single in the 11th.
Freshman Tom Gorzelanny (0-5) suffered the loss, working three innings of relief.
"I thought we played well defensively all weekend long," coach Bobby Randall said. "We got out to an early four-run lead but we were unable to push any more runs across. I thought our guys played their hearts out, especially after the first inning today."
Next up for the Jayhawks is a game with No. 8 Wichita State tomorrow night. Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Hogglund Ballpark.
Contact Wood at rwood@kansan.com. This story was edited by Kristi Henderson.
Track individuals finish strong in Texas
Bv Matt Norton
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas track and field team posted several strong performances this weekend at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, but left the meet unsatisfied.
Coach Stanley Redwine said he was pleased with many of the performances, and in some cases, the place the Jayhawks finished wasn't indicative of the performance.
Scott Russell earned top-5 finishes in the discus, hammer and javelin throws, setting a personal best in the discus and automatically qualifying for the NCAA championships in the javelin. The discus and hammer marks were provisional qualifiers to the championship meet as well.
Three seniors led the way for the Jayhawks.
Russell said he was surprised with his
fifth-place 181-10 throw in the discus, because he hadn't practiced it much in the last two years. He also hadn't touched a discus since the Jayhawks meet at Southern Illinois two weeks ago, because back problems kept him from throwing the 10 days prior to the meet.
"It was great to actually do something right in the discus for a change." Russell said.
In Saturday's javelin competition, Russell said he had thrown some long throws in warmup and had felt like he was ready to do well.
But confusion by the meet officials over the start time of the event caused him to wait nearly 30 minutes before he threw his first-round attempt.
The fact that the javelin approach crosses over the running track and the throwers often had to wait for races to finish before they could throw affected his rhythm, Russell said.
After squeaking into the final on his
third throw, Russell waited until his sixth and final attempt to send the javelin out 239-01 to finish second and earn a trip to nationals.
Russell wasn't quite able to overtake John Stiegeler of Oregon, last year's NCAA champion, who threw 242-11 to win the event.
Stiegeler had an advantage this weekend that he wouldn't have at the NCAA championships, because unlike Russell, he trains only for the javelin and doesn't compete in indoor events, Russell said.
Russell placed third in the hammer with a throw of 208-09.
"I can give him the early one, I guess," Russell said. "I'll worry about the later ones."
Senior distance runner Katie Eisenmenger also had a busy weekend, anchoring the distance medley relay to a second place finish Friday night before setting a new personal best in the women's 1500-meter run Saturday.
The next day, Eisenmenger ran 4:25.15 in the 1500 to finish fourth behind All-Americans Erin Sims of Texas, Karin Rooyen of SMU and Shannon Spaulding of Texas Tech.
The relay team of sophomores Laura Lavoie and Stacy Keller, freshman Kim Clark and Eisenmenger ran 11 minutes, 33.13 seconds finishing behind Texas (11:25.38) and placing third on the all-time Kansas list.
After sitting behind the leaders for much of the 1500, Eisenmenger took the lead with less than 200 meters to go before faltering in the final 50 meters.
Still, a NCAA qualifying mark is well within her reach, she said.
"As long as I can improve by a couple seconds at least, I should be able to make it," she said.
Sims won the race in 4:23.82
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