Sports THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
KANSAS BLOWS OUT NORTHERN COLORADO
The Jayhawks defeated the Bears 15-6 at Hoglund Ballpark. BASEBALL 3B
THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2009
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KANSAS 75, ILLINOIS STATE 72
PAGE 1B
One step closer to championship
Danielle McCray guides Kansas to victory to set up title game on Saturday afternoon
BY JAYSON JENKS
jjenks@kansan.com
All season, junior forward Danielle McCray talked about being Kansas' go-to player, the one who wanted the ball in her hands with the game on the line.
Those thoughts have never been far from McCray's mind, but the situation failed to fully materialize in the season's first 34 games.
That all changed last night when McCray's late bucket sent Kansas to the Women's NIT championship game by defeating Illinois State 75-72 in front of 8,360 fans at Allen Fieldhouse.
With 39 seconds left and Kansas desperately clinging to a three-point lead, McCray grabbed her own miss and completed a three-point play with a zealous scream to give Kansas a 68-62 lead.
"She's always been a kid that's wanted to take big shots and has been capable of hitting big shots," coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "She loves the pressure and that's what great players do."
McCray has always been Kansas' best, and most consistent, scorer this season. When needed, she has taken over offensively and guided Kansas to victories.
But the magnitude of Wednesday night's game, and the sheer volume of fans in attendance, marked McCray's gutsiest performance this season.
Her three-point play allowed the Jayhawks a cushion, albeit a small one, at a time when the Redbirds were slicing into their lead. That play, the one that had everyone in Allen Fieldhouse on their feet, highlighted a night in
which McCray scored 31.1 points and grabbed six rebounds.
"When my teammates know that I'm excited, they feed off of me," McCray said. "In the second half, I think I put them on my shoulders."
McCray scored 22 points after halftime and helped Kansas build a 16-point second-half lead. But Illinois State trimmed Kansas' lead throughout the second half, getting as close as two points.
The Jayhawks struggled to score down the stretch and fatigue appeared to play a factor when they couldn't get stops late in the game.
Still, Kansas found a way to win — something that probably wouldn't have happened earlier in the season.
"Two months ago, we wouldn't have known what to do," junior guard Sade Morris said. "But we've learned a lot, like how much we have to stay together when those times get that tough."
Illinois State employed a defensive strategy focused solely around limiting the touches and disrupting the comfort levels of McCray and Morris.
And, in the beginning, the approach rattled Kansas' top scorers, who struggled to get clean attempts or simply hold on to the ball.
"I was somewhere else in the beginning of the game," McCray said. "I don't know where I was at."
Enter sophomore center Krysten Boogaard, who McCray said carried Kansas in the first half.
Boogaard was the beneficiary
SEE WOMEN'S ON PAGE 4B
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL REWIND PAGE 4B
For full coverage of the women's basketball game against Illinois State, check out the rewind on PAGE 4B.
Weston White/KANSAN
Junior guard Danielle McCray drives to the basket for a layup against Illinois State Wednesday night at Allen Fieldhouse. McCray led the layhawks with 31 points, playing all 40 minutes for Kansas, to move onto the WNIT Championship after a 75-72 victory.
SOFTBALL
Walk-off home run helps Kansas split with Missouri
BY BENWARD
bward@kansan.com
After getting run-ruled in game one by No. 11 Missouri to begin the day, the Jayhawks were in danger of being shut out again in game two. Facing a 1-0 deficit in the bottom of the seventh, the Jayhawks' bats heated up just in time.
Sophomore outfieldier Liz Kocon led off the final frame with a home run to right field to tie the score, and four batters later, junior first baseman Amanda lobe launched a home run of her own, giving Kansas the walk-off 4-1 victory.
For full coverage of the game against Missouri, check out PAGE 8B.
Softball team members cheer for a KJ battar during the game against Missouri on Wednesday afternoon. Kansas lost the first game of a doubleheader before winning the second on a walk-off home run.
SOFTBALL REWIND
After the game, coach Tracy
"For a lot of teams in our position, getting beat 8-0 in the first game, that would have been it," she said. "But we really
budge spoke highly of the resiliency of her club.
Kansas indeed shook off a rough first game, in which they were run-ruled by the Tigers in six innings. Senior pitcher Valerie
clawed our way through. The girls brushed it off and were focused on going out and getting game two."
George started strong, retiring the first nine batters she faced, fanning four. But Missouri batters got to the jayhawk ace for two runs in the fourth innings and one more in the fifth to jump out to a 3.0 lead. The Tigers then batted
"The girls brushed it off and were focused on going out and getting game two."
TRACY BUNGE Kansascoach
Jenny Terrell/KANSAN
Missouri pitcher Stacy Delaney was sharp from the circle, striking out eight, but the layhawks didn't do themselves any favors. Despite six hits in the game, Kansas left early runners on
ie Tigers then batted
around in the sixth inning, exploding for five more runs.
The lahayah didn't fare much better at the plate in game two, mustering only one hit against
base — including a squandered bases-loaded opportunity in the fourth.
Missouri freshman Kristen NottELmann through six innings. But luckily for Kansas, softball is a seven inning game — which was just enough time for the clutch hitting of Kocon and Jobe.
"I just went up there relaxed."
Kocon said. "She had already got
1.
me twice, so I just stepped back off the plate and looked for something inside."
The approach worked, as Kocon smashed a no-dubber over the right field fence. Jobe wasn't as sure that her ball had enough behind it.
COMMENTARY
"It kind of hung up there," she said. "I didn't even care if it went out, I just didn't want it to be caught - we needed that run to score."
SEE SOFTBALL ON PAGE 8B
McCray leads team to WNIT final game
In the first women's basketball game in April in school his-
lory, which was played in front of the fifth-largest crowd in school history with a trip to Kansas' first WNIT finals on the line, Danielle McCray was average. Well, average for her standards.
The only Kansan on a team whose roster stretches across borders to Saskatchewan and Serbia, it's fitting the native daughter is responsible for pushing layhawk basketball across another threshold.
McCray scored 31 points on 10-of-18 shooting, pulled down six rebounds and blocked two shots in 40 minutes. For 95 percent of the country, that's the game of a lifetime. For McCray, it was Wednesday.
Those points raised her WNIT scoring average by less than a tenth of a percentage point (from 30.67 to 30.75) and it's the sixth time she's scored at least 30 points this season.
It wasn't easy, though. McCray had only five shot attempts at halftime.
Kansas coach Bonnie Henrickson said that's the ugliest a team has made McCray play all season. I respectfully disagree.
McCray's beauty isn't in sweet jumpers or crossover dribbles, although she can do both with ease. Rather, the beauty lies in her grit and determination to overtake and out-muscle an opponent.
The Olathe East grad is at her best when she's relentlessly attacking the defense, drawing fouls and scoring seven points in the first four minutes of the second half. The 5-foot-11 guard/forward/beast is at her best when she's cleaning up her own mess to put her team up six with less than 40 seconds to play.
The Jayhawks were shaken by the Redbirds' rally, but McCray's beautifully ugly offense was the calm that kept the ship from capsizing.
After Wednesday's game, McCray shuddered at the mere thought of her friends on other teams in the Big 12 and around the country who were already working for 2010. She realizes only two teams in the country get to end their season with a win, and on Saturday Kansas can do just that.
A championship. The thought alone brightens McCray's eyes and draws her body into a tightly wound ball that's ready to explode with excitement.
Saturday will be extra-special for the honorable mention All-American. It's a chance to put her team's championship banner in the rafters and solidify herself as one of the best to ever don a Kansas jersey.
It's also her first championship game. Ever.
"I've only been a track champion," said the former shot-putter
Wednesday's game, fittingly,
ended with the ball in McCray's
hands as she tossed it high into
SEE BERN ON PAGE 5B