THE UNIVERSITY JAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY APRIL 17, 2009
FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2009
SPORTS 3B
WOMEN'S GOLF
Team needs to use practice rounds to excel on new course
Jayhawks will face Big 12 opponents Nebraska, Kansas State
BY HALLIE MANN
hmann@kansan.com
A fresh start and a new course await the Jayhawks this weekend at the Lady Buckeye Spring Invitational.
After a weekend off, the Kansas women's golf team will head to Columbus, Ohio, to play in Ohio State's tournament for the first time. Kansas has played Ohio State this season but not on the
Buckeyes' home course, Scarlet Course.
Junior Meghan Gockel said that the team will get a practice round on Friday to test the course. Gockel said that new course would be a good challenge for the team.
"We've gotten better at how we play our practice rounds and how we use them to plan for the actual tournament," Gockel said.
Coach Erin O'Neil also said that the practice round would be important for the team to learn as much as they could about the new course.
"This is a really good course to play on even though we haven't had the chance to try it out yet," O'Neil said.
LADY BUCKEYE INVITATIONAL
Course: Scarlet Course - 6.228 yards; par 72
Tournament low score-record; 849 strokes (Auburn University,
2006)
Tournament Champions 2008: Kent State, 885 strokes
Though the team had a weekend off, O'Neil said that most of the girls spent the time practicing and spent this week's practices regrouping and evaluating the past few tournaments.
"We've been thinking about what we want to accomplish and improve on," O'Neil said. "We're ready to get out and play this weekend."
Gockel had similar sentiments and said that the team had been focusing on its mental game by trying to stay positive and not get caught on the minor things. Gockel said she had been working on her putts and her shot game in general.
"Each member of the team has been working on their own little things to get better." Gockel said.
Coming off its break and fine-tuning at practice, Kansas will be up against two Big 12 opponents, Nebraska and Kansas State,
among a field of 15 teams.
Two weeks ago, Kansas took fourth, when it played Kansas State, which placed ninth in the Susie Berning Maxwell Classic. Nebraska also took ninth
in Lubbock, Texas. O'Neill said that the team had been steadily improving over this season and that she thought the team would
at their last tournament. The Mountain View Classic.
"We've been thinking about what we want to accomplish and improve on."
ERIN O'NEIL Coach
O'Neil said this would be a good warm-up before the Big 12 Championships next week
do well at both tournaments.
"It's all really coming together at the right time for us," O'Neil said.
The Lady Buckeye Spring Invitational will have a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. Saturday and
Sunday. Live stats and results will be posted to golstat.com throughout the weekend.
— Edited by Sam Speer
St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Thursday. The Cardinals beat the Cubs 7-4.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MLB
Duncan returns to lineup
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO — Chris Duncan is back and better than ever — at the plate, anyway.
Despite some adventuresome fielding, the St. Louis Cardinals are happy to have Duncan back in the lineup everyday.
"When he's healthy, he's clutch," manager Tony La Russa said Thursday after Duncan atoned for some adventurous fielding with a home run, two singles and three RBIs in the Cardinals' 7-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs.
In winning for the seventh time in eight games, St. Louis struck first in a 16-game season series against its longtime rival. The Cubs' frustration showed when Milton Bradley was ejected for arguing a called strike in the sixth inning.
St. Louis, which leads the league in scoring, battered five Chicago pitchers. Duncan, back after missing the second half of last season with a degenerative disk in his neck, is batting .389 with 10 RBIs.
La Russa said. "You see it the way he plays, the way he runs the bases, the way he defends, the way he takes at-bats. He's never going to give in."
"His toughness is off the charts."
Duncan's two-run homer gave St. Louis a 3-1 lead and he followed Yadier Molina's go-ahead single in the seventh with a hit of his own to make it 6-4.
Things didn't go as smoothly for Duncan in left field. He failed to catch a popup that led to the Cubs' first-inning run off of Adam Wainwright and he dropped a routine fly to get Wainwright in trouble in the sixth.
Instead, Bradley ended up being the angry one.
Ever combative and combustible, the Cubs' newest $30 million acquisition got in umpire Larry Vanover's face after the strike-three call.
He left the clubhouse before the media was allowed to enter and was unavailable for comment. When asked about Bradley's reaction to Vanover's call, Cubs manager Lou Piniella said only: "What do you
want me to say?"
Making his first start of the year for the Cubs, Sean Marshall left after five innings with a 4-3 lead. The bullpen then imploded, as has been the case often this season, wasting Kosuke Fukudome's three-run homer.
Aaron Heilman served up Kahil Greene's tying homer in the sixth, David Patton (0-1) walked pinch-hitter Joe Thurston to lead off the seventh, Neal Cotts gave up Duncan's run-scoring single and Angel Guzman allowed Brian Barden's eighth-inning homer.
Twice, a perturbed Piniella instructed pitching coach Larry Rothschild to make changes on the mound. Piniella, who like most managers usually makes such moves himself, later got more agitated when asked about it.
"I'm not trying to make a point about anything. You guys want to make a big deal out of who makes pitching changes. It doesn't matter. What matters is when the pitcher comes into the ballgame that he gets some outs."
MEN'S GOLF
Seniors await last regular season tournament
BY CHRISTIAN LUCERO clucero@kansan.com
This weekend's Texas A&M Aggie Invitational has a different meaning for each member
of the KU men's golf team. For senior Walt Koelbel, it presents a challenge to show the rest of the field what he can do in his last regular season tournament.
"There's a little bit of extra pressure in this tournament to give a little extra effort," Koelbel said.
And for sophomore Nate Barbee, the tournament is an opportunity to give the seniors a proper sendoff before the conference tournament.
"Obviously we want to do well for our seniors, we're just going to play hard and do what we can for them," Barbee said.
Coming off a tough finish last week in North Carolina, Koelbel
NATE BARBEE Sophomore golfer
said the squad is looking for more than a victory.
" This weekend it's really important to start building momentum with consistent work."
worry about winning." Koelbel said.
Both Koelbel and Barbee said that the range of teams competing in this week's tournament would be a glimpse of what will
face them in the Big 12 tour- ment. The Aggie Invitational feature a total of five Big 12 teams, a fact Barbee noticed right away.
"Having a solid finish here would give us confidence going into next weekend." Barbee said.
That confidence will be necessary to disprove the lajhawk's
This weekend's tournament will feature a different scoring
"Getting rid of big numbers, especially coming down the stretch, will help us be more consistent," Koelbel said.
"Getting rid of big numbers, especially down the stretch, will help us be more consistent."
No. 11 scoring average in the Big 12. Koelbel, arguably KU's most consistent performer on the season, has ideas about what the team needs to do improve its performance.
WALT KOELBEL Senior golfer
system than what the men are used to. The system, known to the golfers as a six-count-five, means KU will have six golfers competing in the tournament while the top five scores for each team are counted.
"With this type of system, every shot counts so we really need to pick our game up to be successful this weekend," Barbee said.
— Edited by Justin Leverett
The KU tennis team will be playing its last two regular-season games of the season this weekend before the Big 12 Championships begin April 23.
TENNIS Kansas faces ranked teams for last two regular matches
Kansas will encounter No. 32 Texas, a team it has never defeated, at noon Saturday and No. 35 Texas A&M at 11 a.m. Sunday. Both dual matches will take place in Lawrence at First Serve Tennis, 5200 Clinton Parkway.
The Jayhawks are eighth in the Big 12 with a conference record of 4-5 and an overall record of 10-10. The Longhorns and the Aggies are second and third, respectively, in the conference.
These will be KU seniors Edina Horvath's and Yuliana Sivistun's last two regular-season matches of their NCAA careers.
Horvath does not think that history has to repeat itself.
"They are both very good teams. They are tough and consistent on the court. Last year we lost against them in very close matches, but it does not mean anything because I think we got tougher and better since last year," Horvath said.
Horvath said that she thought that she and her teammates would have a good chance of defeating Texas and Texas A&M if they "compete against them very hard and give our heart and 100 percent on the court."
Justin Hilley
9th Annual Lawrence Earth Day Celebration
(weather permitting, no rain date)
11:00 am: Parade down Massachusetts St. (7th to 11th)
Parade hosted by KU Environs
11:30- 4:00 pm: Celebration in South Park
Free Admission!
- Informational booths
- Live music
- Butterfly garden demonstration
- Food Vendors
Children's activities
◆ And much, much more!
City of Lawrence WASTE REDUCTION & RECYCLING
- South Park tree ID tour
More Earth Day activities listed at:
www.LawrenceRecycles.org
This weekend start things off right.
...only at THE HAWK
FRIDAY
$3.50 Double Bacardi & UV vodka drinks
$2.50 Domestic Bottles
$2.75 Premium Bottles
SATURDAY
$3.50 Double Skyy, Jim Beam & Captain Morgan drinks $2.00 Big Beers
BAR OPENS AT 2 PM ON FRIDAY!
WWW.JAYHAWKCAFE.COM
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