6B SPORTS
VOLLEYBALL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2009
Kansas places second in Jayhawk Invitational
Jayhawks lose to Florida International
Jerry Wanq/KANSAN
Junior outside hitter Karina Garlington slays the ball past a Lipscomb blocker. Garlingen led the team with 20 kills, her seventh career match where she has reached 20-plus kills. The Jayhawks defeated the Lady Bisons 3-1.
BY ZACH GETZ
zgetz@kansan.com
Seeing Florida International celebrate its Jayhawk Invitational victory over the weekend left a bad taste in the mouth of the Kansas volleyball team.
"It feels terrible to have someone come onto your court and win your tournament," senior middle blocker Paige Mazour said. "But that's exactly what we are going to try and do next week."
Junior outside hitter Karina
Garlington said coach Ray Beachard
laid down a very simple goal for the team: Celebrate on Arkansas' home court during the Arkansas Tournament next weekend.
Kansas went 2-1,
finishing second in the
tournament, and improved to 4-2 for
the season. Mazour,
Follow Kansan sports writer Zach Getz at twitter.com/zgetz.
alongwithjunior defensive specialist Melissa Manda, made the Jayhawk Invitational All-Tournament Team.
Kansas defeated Lipscomb the first match of the tournament 3-1.
Kansas started shakily with several miscues and could never get over the hump, losing the first set 20-25.
The teams were even at the start of the second set until Kansas went on a run and scored 12 out of 13 points, winning 25-14 easily. Kansas fought hard and finished off Lipscomb 25-23 in the third and fourth sets.
Garlington said the team handled the close situations well and learned
from the pressure.
"We dealt with the pressure set-by-set and took it point by point," Garlington said. "If you keep grinding it out you will get some victories."
Kansas lost the second match against Florida International 1-3. During the first two sets Kansas and Florida International battled back and forth and split the sets 25-23 and 23-25.
Kansas looked sluggish starting the third set and could not overcome the 14 errors, losing the
"It feels terrible to have someone come onto your court and win your tournament."
PAIGE MAZOUR Senior middle blocker
22-25. The fourth set was also close but Kansas could not put Florida international away, losing 22-25.
"We just never could get into a rhythm," Bechard said. "They were a little more composed than we
were."
Garlington and Bechard said Florida International was a good team that was similar to the caliber of teams Kansas would see in Big 12 Conference play.
"It was more on us and we made a lot of errors that we could've controlled ourselves," Mazour said.
In the third match Kansas defeated Creighton 3-1. In the first set Kansas fell behind early after Creighton scored seven straight points and led the set until the end. Kansas then made a comeback and scored five in a row, winning 26-24.
The second set was another back-and-forth dog fight that seemed to be the theme of the weekend with Kansas, Kansas looked strong early but faltered late, losing the set 28-30. Kansas came out strong in the third and fourth set winning without much drama 25-21 and 25-17, respectively.
Bechard said making plays and committing fewer errors allowed Kansas to defeat Creighton.
"Sometimes you wait around hoping for other teams to make a mistake when you need to make some plays and tonight we made plays," Beard said.
Kansas will face North Texas Arkansas and Jacksonville State this weekend at the Arkansas Tournament.
Edited by Amanda Thompson
Adam Buhler/KANSAN
Paige Mazour swats a ball past two FIU defenders. The Jayhawks lost to the Panthers 3-1 Friday night in the Jayhawk Invitational.
MLB
Rockies victory breaks
Reds' winning streak
DENVER — Ian Stewart broke a tiebreaking home run in the eight inning, lifting the Colorado Rockies over Cincinnati 4-3 Monday and ending the Reds' seven-game winning streak.
The NL wild card-leading Rockies won their fourth in a row despite losing Troy Tulowitzki. The smooth-fielding shortstop left in the seventh after an RBI single because of a strained lower back and was listed as day-to-day.
Colorado rallied to tie it in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Todd Helton and a two-out single from Tulowitzki.
After his hit just over the head of second baseman Brandon Phillips, Tulowitzki grabbed his lower back. Manager Jim Tracy and trainer Keith Dugger quickly came out to check on him. Tulowitzki lightly jogged down the line, before being replaced by Omar Quintanilla.
- Rafael Betancourt (2-1) earned the win with a perfect eighth, while Franklin Morales, filling in for the injured Huston Street, picked up his fourth save in five chances.
Stewart hit his 23rd homer of the season off reliever Carlos Fisher (1-1). The right-handed Fisher was called up Monday from Single-A Sarasota.
Helton drove in two runs as the Rockies beat the Reds for a sixth straight time.
The Reds had two on and none out in the ninth, but Morales got Gomes to fly out and then罗腾 was thrown out on the back end of a double-steal attempt. With Phillips on third, Morales struck out Darnell McDonald to end the game.
Associated Press