Tuesday, September 19, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
Freshman excels in first big game
By Zac Hunter
By Zac Hunter
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
From an outsider's perspective, there isn't much to learn by pounding an obviously inferior team.
That may be the perception of Kansas' 3-0 pummeling of Missouri-Kansas City last night at the Horejsi Family Athletic Center. UMKC obviously didn't have the fire power to hang with the 'Hawks, and at times, it appeared as if both teams were just going through the motions.
Coach Ray Bechard said after the game that neither team looked particularly sharp, but was quick to point out that there were positives that came from the match.
The first and most important positive was the increased strength from Kansas' bench. With an abdominal strain sidelining senior middle blocker Danielle Geronymo, the stage was
set for freshman middle blocker Jordan Garrison to make a name for herself in her first significant playing time of the season.
She did just that.
Having just been told of her starting role yesterday, Garrison tallied eight kills in just 14 attempts and finished with a .500 attacking percentage.
Garrison said she thought she hit the ball well, but that part of her success was the result of her teammates setting her up effectively.
"I thought I transitioned well off the net and got to my sets pretty well," Garrison said. "Molly did a great job setting and got me the ball when it was there."
Garrison said it took her the first few plays to get into the swing of play and remember what it was like to play for an extended period.
With uncertainty about
"I thought I transitioned well off the net and got to my sets pretty well. Molly did a great job setting and got me the ball when it was there."
Jordan Garrison freshman middle blocker
Geronymo's abdominal injury remaining, it looks as if Garrison might get another chance to prove herself when No. 1 Nebraska comes to town tomorrow.
However, Garrison played the roll of the consummate team player.
She said that she was prepared for whatever happened but hoped that Geronymo got better soon.
Edited by Clay McCuistion
Jordan
Garrison,
freshman mid-
dle blocker,
goes up for a
block during
last night's
game against
UMKC.
Garrison
played an
aggressive
game, her first
major game of
the season,
with a .500
attacking per-
centage. Photo
by Selena
Jabara/
KANSAN
Male gymnasts' Olympic dreams dashed
The Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia — While the Chinese huddled near the vault planning their victory party, American John Roethlisberger blew a tearful kiss to the crowd, bidding adieu to a sterling career full of accomplishments.
The only thing missing was an Olympic team medal.
The United States finished fifth yesterday at the men's gymnastics finals, never coming close to China, second-place Ukraine or Russia, which won the bronze medal the Americans thought was finally within reach this year.
Roethlisberger and his teammates tried to put a happy face on the close of the latest chapter in this long quest for success. But the stark truth is that the Americans finished in the same spot they did at the Atlanta Games.
That's four years with no move up the scoreboard on the world's grandest stage. Not exactly the departure hoped for by Roethlisberger, or coach Peter Kormann, who announced he would retire when his contract expires Sunday, Oct. 1.
"You can be a great team and finish fifth," said Roethlisberger, the 30-year-old warhorse who ended his 12-year career on the U.S. team. "The fact we're still in fifth place is a tribute to how competitive the world of gymnastics is."
The Americans still have chances at individual medals. Three of them advanced to today's all-around final, while one advanced to the vault final and one to the floor exercise final.
During moments of pre-Olympic euphoria throughout the summer, Kormann guaranteed medals for the Americans.
They finished fourth during preliminaries, less than a half-point behind Ukraine, and had every reason to believe this might really be their year.
Then the finals started, meaning the prelim scores were erased and whole new cauldron of pressure was on tap. The team didn't handle it well.
Opening on the floor, Sean Townsend stepped out of bounds on the night's very first tumbling pass. Then, Morgan Hamm skidded and nearly fell on his backside. Five-time national champion Blaine Wilson stepped out of bounds. Finally, Stephen McCain crossed the white line twice.
The hole had been dug. The Americans were in sixth place, looking for a huge routine, a great score, a fist pump or a high-five to get them back in it. By the time it finally came, they were on the second-to-last rotation — the parallel bars — too late to make up so much ground.
The most glaring mistakes came on vault, the same event that had inspired confidence in preliminaries. On his landing, McCain jammed his bad ankle into the mat and wobbled to a finish. Townsend followed
with a crash on his backside.
They were unaffordable errors in an unrelenting sport. And they basically nullified the fact that Paul Hamm fell off the high bar twice and Wilson once on the night's last rotation; the medal was completely out of reach by then.
So they left the gym sticking to their pre-Olympic vow — that a medal wasn't the end-all if the team competed with pride and heart. Still, those tears on Roethlisberger's face weren't tears of joy. He won't get another chance to win a medal.
And there's no such thing as "wait 'til next year" for the rest of them — not on the Olympic stage, where progress is measured in four-year spans.
"We went out there and fought hard," said 17-year-old Paul Hamm, who will probably be back in 2004. "I feel we did everything we could. We did our best and ended up fifth and that's just the way it is."
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