Sports
KANSAS SEES A LOSS AT WYANDOTTE LAKE
Jayhawks finish third in inaugural Big 12 Championship. ROWING 16B
MONDAY,MAY 4,2009
WWW.KANSAN.COM
REGRETS BUILD AS GRADUATION NEARS
Desire to be more physically active stacks up. MORNING BREW I 2B
'TWO OUT OF THREE AIN'T BAD'
**Buck Afenir, senior catcher, swings at a pitch in Friday's game against the No. 9 Sooners in Norman, Okla. The Jayhawks went on to win Friday and Saturday's games but lost on Sunday 10-9. Tony Thompson has 14 home runs on the season, just four half of the single season record.**
Elizabeth Nalewaik/The Iowa State Daily
Jayhawks nose out No.9 Sooners
PAGE 1B
BY JOSH BOWE
jbowe@kansan.com
It wasn't the ending Kansas wanted to settle for, but as the saying goes, "two out of three ain't bad."
The Jayhawks showed mental toughness over the weekend on the road, taking two out of three from the No. 9 Sooners. Everyone on the team, including coach Ritch Price, wanted the sweep badly, but Price took a step back to realize what his young Jayhawks had accomplished after the 10-9 Sunday loss in extra innings.
"I think it showed that we've made really good progress," Price said. "We played good defense and we swung the bats pretty good."
The first two games saw the Jayhawks excel in their usual areas. Solid starting pitching, timely hitting and shutdown pitching from the bullpen provided the formula
for success over the weekend.
Price was especially adamant about the bullpen.
"Our bullpen was special all weekend and they've been doing it for us all or" Price said
"I think it showed that we made really good progress."
"And they were very good again this weekend."
against the Sooners potent lineup.
Ridenhour didn't even make it past
the first inning as he was shelled
for six runs. Luckily, junior right-
hander Brett Bollman and freshman right-hander Colton Murray came in to right the ship and pitched a combined eight plus effective innings.
RITCH PRICE Kansas coach
On Sunday, the bullpen probably pitched a little earlier than expected. Freshman starter Lee Ridenhour wasn't sharp again
"I thought Bollman was special and Murray was special." Price said. "They gave us an opportunity to win."
Sophomore third baseman Tony Thompson certainly gave the Jayhawks a great opportunity to win as well. Thompson clubbed two more home runs on Sunday to give him 14 on the season, four shy of the single season record. Thompson finished with a career high six RBI as well and his third multi home run game this season.
Thompson's second home run came on a 3-0 count as well. It is common for coaches to have their hitters to take the next pitch, hoping to draw a walk. But Price decided to give
Thompson the green light, knowing Thompson would see a fastball strike.
"It helped me a lot that even with a 3-0 count and we were down that he gave me a shot to swing if I had a good pitch,"
lead in the fifth inning.
"It helped me a lot that even with a 3-0 count ... he gave me a shot to swing if I had a good pitch."
Thompson did, and he powered the ball over the right field fence, giving the Jayhawks a 9-7
TONY THOMPSON Third basemen
Thompson said. "I took advantage of it and was seeing the ball real well today."
"We were pretty
We were pretty happy with the first two games, but was kind of a bummer that we didn't pull out the third one," Thompson said. "We battled pre-
SEE BASEBALL ON PAGE 8B
SOFTBALL
Cyclones blow past Jayhawks in Ames
BY BEN WARD bward@kansan.com
Unable to ride the momentum from the victory over Texas A&M on Thursday, Kansas softball stumbled against Iowa State (25-28, 7-11) over the weekend in Ames. The Jayhawks closed out their regular season by a Cyclone sweep 7-2 and 3-1.
The two losses placed more uncertainty on the post-season for Kansas (21-30, 6-11), who will now have to participate in the play-in game on Friday to begin the Big 12 Tournament.
"It's really frustrating," sophomore outfielder Liz Kocon said. "We had a good shot to get either the fifth or sixth seed in the Big 12 and we blew it."
The Jayhawks saw neither the solid pitching nor the clutch hitting against the Cylcones that they had seen during their three-game winning streak.
The Cyclones smacked Kansas'
Koon got the Jayhawks started when she blasted a solo home run in the fifth, but the Cyclones came right back on the offensive. ISU rallied to score three more runs in the fifth to extend their lead to 7-1. On the game, Iowa State raked up 11 total hits for their seven runs.
pitches around in game one, aided by strong winds in the ballpark. ISU started the scoring with back-to-back home runs in the third inning to take a 4-0 lead.
Senior outfielder Dougie McCaulell later added a solo shot for Kansas, her first of the season, but the rest of the team was shut down by Cyclone pitchers — managing only three hits.
The Jayhawks fared better from the circle in game two, but still couldn't produce at the plate.
Junior pitcher Sarah Verelkla started the game for Kansas, tossing two scoreless innings before
Senior spinner Nickesha Anderson ears into the fourth leg of the women's 4x100 relay at the Kansas Relay in Anil
SEE SOFTBALL ON PAGE 3B
TRACK & FIELD
Weather costs Jayhawks another chance to qualify for regionals
BY JASON BAKER
jbaker@kansan.com
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
With severe thunderstorms and a tornado threat, the Arkansas Twilight meet was canceled. It was the layhawks' third outdoor meet that has been canceled because of inclement weather.
Kansas tried to extend its list of regionally qualified athletes in Arkansas on Friday. But, Mother Nature had some plans of her own.
The Missouri Relays in March and Nebraska's Open in Lincoln, Neb., last week were also canceled because of weather.
"It's disappointing that the athletes didn't get the opportunity to compete this weekend," coach Stanley Redwine said. "They wanted to go out and compete though the rain came, the lightning came and the tornado siren came."
Redwine said the meet was ultimately canceled for safety reasons.
About half of the field events and all but two of the track events were canceled; the two track events that did take place were the 4x100 relay events, which the women's team participated in.
"It was definitely the best thing to do, unfortunately they didn't get to compete." Redwine said.
Howard said that less than 10
Seniors Nickesha Anderson and Victoria Howard, junior Aubree Dorsey and sophomore Kendra Bradley were able to get a victory running a time of 45.76 in a downpour of rain.
SEE TRACK ON PAGE 3B
COMMENTARY
Jayhawks' tourney chances increase
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Kansas was a bubble team. Rivals.com, in its latest projection of the 64-team NCAA Tournament, snuck the Jayhawk baseball team in as a three seed, and one of its last five teams to make the field. Expect all that to change when the projections are released today.
When the layahws went out this weekend and earned their biggest series victory of the season — yes, even considering the sweep of then-No. 1 Texas at the Hog — they firmly thrust their name into the postseason discussion.
After showing an inability to win a road series against an inferior team (see: Texas Tech two weekends ago), Kansas silenced its doubts in resounding fashion in Norman, Okla. Kansas used big first innings and (surprise, surprise) brilliant pitching performances to win two of three against No. 9 Oklahoma.
With just two series left in the regular season — at surging Missouri and against No. 16 Kansas State, in which they play one game in Manhattan and two in Lawrence — the breakthrough on the road was an absolute must for the Jayhawks, whose 23-3 home record has been offset by a disappointing 7-11 mark on the road.
Kansas, which fell in extra innings in the final game of the series Sunday after taking the first two games 5-4 and 9-5, may have finally gotten its name written in ink on the NCAA bracket.
The bracket is split up into 16 four-team regionals, from which one team advances to a super regional. All the jayhawks want right now is to be penned into one of those 64 slots, because anything can happen from there. Last year's national champion Fresno State came out of its regional as the fourth seed before going on a miracle run to the title.
But the Jayhawks' series victory against the Sooners this weekend did more than all but solidify their chances to become a postseason team. This weekend proved to the Jayhawks, and to their potential opponents, that they have the ability to take on some of the best competition in the country and win.
But to win in the postseason, Kansas will need to win on the road. Rivals.com had Kansas in, before this weekend, as the three-seed in the Atlanta Regional, hosted by Georgia Tech. Baseball America had it as the four seed in Houston, hosted by Rice. No matter where they end up, the Jayhawks won't be hosting, which means they will have to knock off a higher-ranked team at least once, likely twice, away from home.
Before this weekend, they couldn't win two of three on the road no matter the opponent. But now, the Jayhawks may have the confidence to make some noise come June.
Edited by Grant Treaster