Monday, October 16, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section B·Page 3
Sophomore midfielder Britania Valento dribbles the ball in Kansas' game against Southwest Missouri State earlier this season. The Jayhawks lost a pair of matches this weekend, 3-0 to Texas A&M on Friday and 5-2 to Texas yesterday. Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Kansas loses twice in Texas
By Yoshitaka Ebisawa
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
For the first time this season, the Kansas women's soccer team didn't split its weekend games, but the outcome wasn't the way the team had expected.
The Jayhawks (7-9, 3-5 Big 12 Conference) fell to two conference foes in the Lone Star State this weekend — suffering a 3-0 shutout loss against Texas A&M Friday in College Station, Texas, and a 5-2 defeat against Texas yesterday in Austin, Texas.
Texas forward Abby Gutowski completed a hat trick and midfielder Lauren Field added two goals as the Longhorns whipped the Jayhawks.
"We did not play very well today, and they did," said Kansas coach Mark Francis after yesterday's game against Texas. "They are a very good teamWe have to regroup and bounce back next weekend."
Kansas' first goal came after Gutowski made the game 2-0 with her first two goals. Just minutes before halftime, senior midfielder Katie Lens buried a shot on junior forward Natalie Hoovegd's assist. The goal was Lents' first this season.
G. Guerrieri
"It was important that we were able to score three goals in the
Texas A& M coach
After Texas added three more goals, senior forward Colleen Colvin scored her fourth goal this season with senior forward Lindsey Horner's assist. The goal made Colvin the all-time leading goal scorer in the program, with 11.
Freshman goalkeeper Sarah Gonzalez made her fourth start this season and stopped eight shots in the losing effort.
Friday's game was also nightmare for Kansas but blissful for Texas A&M freshman forward Kristen Strutz, who scored two goals — including her first with the Aggles — and added an assist during a 3:18 span in the first half.
"It was important that we were able to score three goals in the first half," said Texas A&M coach G. Guerrieri. "It allowed us opportunity to rest some of our players that have been getting most of the minutes."
Strutz's first goal came in the 21st minute, when she collected Texas A&M forward Heather Ragsdale's pass and drilled it to the lower-left corner of the Kansas goal. Less than two minutes later, Strutz scored her second goal on Amber Childers' cross pass. Strutz then set up a scoring chance about a minute later, feeding Ragsdale, who touched the ball past Gonzalez and tailed it into an empty net.
Although Kansas held the Aggies scoreless for the other 86,42 the 'Hawks didn't really have a chance to strike back. The team managed only five goal attempts, while Texas A&M fired 20 shots at the Kansas goal.
With the weekend's two losses, Kansas' first berth in the Big 12 tournament remains uncertain. The berth depends on the other conference teams, but the Jayhawks may need one more win against a conference foe. They have to finish in the top eight in the conference to earn a tournament berth.
Kansas will return to Texas this weekend, playing against a non-conference team, North Texas, Friday in Denton, and a conference foe, Baylor, on Sunday in Waco.
- Edited by Clay McCuistion
Jayhawks run well, continue to improve
The Kansas cross country teams' season-long trends continued Saturday at the Chili Pepper Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark.
Freshman Laura Lavoie and junior Brent Behrens were once again the top finishers for the Jayhawks, and both the men and women improved on their team performances.
"I continue to see great improvement in both our men's and women's teams every time we race," said Kansas coach Stanley Redwine. "Our athletes
continue to work hard and when one runner doesn't run well, another seems to step up for our team."
The Kansas men finished sixth out
or 23 teams in the men's team standings, while Abilene Christian, Arkansas, and Iowa rounded out the top three.
Saturday was the Kansas men's first experience in a 10K race this season.
Redwine said earlier in the week that Saturday would be a grueling test on the men's endurance.
Behrens' time of 31:18 earned him 27th place. Juniors Brian Blachy, Mark Menefee and senior Charlie Gruber all finished within five seconds of each other, just behind Behrens in 38th, 40th, and 41st, respectively.
"We ran a really competitive race on
the men's side." Redwine said. "We packed well as a team and our goal is to continue working our way up in the pack."
The Jayhawk women placed 9th out of 25 teams Saturday, and Lavoie sustained her streak of being the top finishing Jayhawk woman in every meet this season.
Lavioe finished 32nd individually,
posting a time of 22:54 in the 6K race.
Sophomores Katy Elsemager,
Bridget Morrisie and Eve Lamborn
also placed in the top 60 for the
Jav Hawks.
"Laura did an excellent job today," Redwine said. "The pack was close, but we need to be a little closer to the front. I feel Katy Eisenmager stepped up for this team today and ran a fine race."
Saturday's meet was the final competition for Kansas before the Big 12 Conference Championships. Redwine said the Chili Pepper Invitational was great preparation and the Jayhawks were in their prime for the Conference Championships.
"This was a good tune-up for us before conference," Redwine said. "We beat a few conference teams today and that should give us confidence in two weeks. This team, both men and women, will be ready for the conference meet."
The Jayhawks will have two weeks to prepare before heading to Boulder, Colo., for the Big 12 Championships on Saturday, Oct. 28.
— Ryan Malashock
Doubles team edged in finals
By Brandon Stinnett
Special to the Kansan
One match separated two Kansas men's tennis players from a championship trophy on Saturday in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championships in Stone Mountain, Ga.
The doubles team of junior Rodrigo Echagaray and senior Ed Dus reeled off three straight victories Friday and Saturday, advancing to the finals of the consolation doubles bracket.
But Baylor's Reiner Nuerohr and Mark
Williams foiled the team's title bid, handing Echagary and Dus a 7-5, 3-6, 8-3 defeat.
"It was really close," Ehagaray said. "It could have gone our way, but they played well at the end of the match, so they deserved to win."
KANSAS
TENNIS
After losing in the tournament's first round on Friday, Echagaray and Dus rebounded with a 6-4, 6-1 straight sets victory against Georgia's Chad Carlson and Bo Hodge. They followed that with a tough three-set victory, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, against Stanford's team of Ali Ansari and Scottie Scott in the quarterfinals Friday night.
"The opening match today was a big win," said Kansas men's coach Ross Nwachukwu. "That will help their rankings — they beat a very strong team. The second match was tougher, but our guys figured out a way to win the big points when it mattered. Any win against a team from Stanford, the defending national champions, carries a lot of weight."
Kloppert and Jean Simon on Saturday morning.
Echagaray and Dus advanced to the finals with a 7-6 (6), 6-3 win against Texas' Ronald
nwachukwu said Echagaray and Dus deserved credit for bouncing back with three wins after the first-round loss.
"Of course they're disappointed about losing to Baylor," Nwachukwu said. "But that's no reason to hold their heads down. They played a great tournament."
Echagarray advanced to the second round of the singles bracket on Friday before losing in straight sets, 6-2, 7-6 (6), to James Shortall of Mississippi, the nation's 19th-ranked player.
Kansas competes in the ITA Region V Championship this weekend in Tulsa, Okla.
"The other guy played well, so there was nothing I could do," Echagaray said. "He served very well."
The Kansas women's tennis team also was in action this weekend as freshman Emily Haylock captured the No. 4 singles flight title yesterday in the eighth annual Hurricane Tennis Invitational in Tulsa.
Haylock breezed through the competition, losing just one set in three matches. She defeated Tulsa's Mariana Barrios 6-3, 7-6 (4) in the finals.
Haylock won another title in the tournament as well. She and sophomore Kim Lorenz teamed up and won the No.2 doubles crown on Saturday by knocking off Tulsa's Bianca Posada and Aleksandra Durska, 8-4, in the championship match.
"Emily really came into her own and didn't lose a match in either singles or doubles," said Kansas women's coach Kilmeny Waterman. "This will be good for her confidence and a great jumping-off point for the rest of the season."
— Edited by Clay McCuistion
Goalkeeper helps Wizards win league
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Kansas City Wizards scored a clumsy early goal, survived some strange bounces and rode the play of goalkeeper Tony Meola to their first Major League Soccer championship.
The Wizards beat the Chicago Fire 1-0 yesterday, winning the league Cup. Miklos Molnar scored in the 11th minute and Meola added the game's MVP award to the season MVP trophy he won Friday.
After the final whistle, Meola fell on his back, hands to his face, while the rest of the team jumped on him.
"We came out determined to win," he said. "We knew we had a team to win."
Meola made 10 saves, three in the final 10 minutes. He dived right to stop John Wolff in the 82nd, cradled a close-range attempt from Dema Kovalenko in the 83rd and got his chest in the way of a 13-yard bullet from Hristo Stoitchkov in the 86th
It was the record fifth shutout of the playoffs for Meola, the U.S. national team goalkeeper at the 1990 and
1994 World Cups. Meola also set league records with 16 shutouts during the regular season and a scoreless streak of 681 minutes over eight games.
The game pitted the league's best offense (Chicago) against its best defense (Kansas City). Predictably, Chicago outshot Kansas City 22-6, but the Fire couldn't get a shot past Meola.
This was the first Major League Soccer Cup without three-time champion D.C. United, making RFK Stadium a neutral site. Still, the game drew 39,159 fans.
Like many soccer finals, the game was mostly tight and tense and hardly a showcase of great plays. Molnar's goal wasn't exactly a classic, while teammate Chris Klein botched a 'breakaway that could have made it 2-0 in the first half.
One of Chicago's best scoring chances resulted from a misfired shot, and another came on a funky bounce after a blocked free kick.
Molnar's goal came after Klein made a nice run down the right wing. Klein's cross was fanned by Kansas City's Preki, then Chicago's Jesse Marsch had the ball on his foot but didn't clear. With the ball rolling in the box, Molnar finally pushed it off the right post and into the net for his fifth goal of the playoffs.
Stotttchkov, the fire's flamboyant Bulgarian star, called for the ball early and often and argued with the referee when calls didn't go his way.
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