Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
More coverage of the 1999 Sunflower Showdown.
Monday
October 11, 1999
Section:
B
Page 1
SEE PAGE 6B
Kansas soccer
The Kansas soccer team moved closer to its first post-season berth with weekend victories against Oklahoma State and Oklahoma.
SEE PAGE 3B
Pro soccer
Kansas City Wizard and U.S. National Team mainstay Alexi Lalas has decided to retire from soccer at age 29.
SEE PAGE 2B
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
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Wildcat juggernaut smashes Kansas, pains columnist
MANHATTAN, Kan. — The key is to show up three hours before the game starts. If you show up early enough, you might forget the differences in football programs. You might not think that four long hours later, odds are there will be a 40-point difference in score.
That is what I did. Game starts at 1 p.m.?
I'm there at 10 p.m.
Three hours before a Kansas home game, the parking attendants are preparing for cars. Students are shaking off their Friday night hangovers. Alumni are preparing to fight the traffic on Kansas Highway 10.
Three hours before a Kansas State game,
it's working attendants are busy directing
Suburbans with giant Power Cat magnets on the doors into large fields surrounding the stadium. Students are not only barbecuing, but they're barbecuing in comfort. They've brought the couch with them so they can eat hot dogs and get a beer buzz with their feet up. Alumni have the giant Winnobee painted purple with the sound system on loud.
Seth Jones sports columnist sports@kanasa.com
Today, I'm wearing my sunglasses for a
special reason. It's like Clark Kent wearing glasses and a tie so no one realizes that he's Superman.
In my case, my weak disguise of glasses and a tie is so that no one realizes I'm the guy who told K-Staters that the only job they'll have after graduation is painting over ugly Power Cat logos. It's only one day after a scathing column of mine ran in K-State's Collegian. I've had more threats via e-mail than spam messages from Bill Gates promising I'll make thousands of dollars.
It's not that I'm a coward. After all, I went to Manhattan with my precious car and my life on the line. It's just that I'm outnumbered; 10,000 students versus one loud-mouthed sports columnist equals Jonesey unable to type for 4 to 6 weeks.
There's a cloud of smoke from all the trucks and Winnebagos with the barbecue rolling. The main course now is hamburgers and hot dogs. In three hours it's freshly tendered Jayhawk meat.
Keep in mind that it's still the exciting time of the game, when all the purple and smoke and music has me thinking "Why not?" We can beat these guys. We will beat these guys. These guys aren't that good. After all, they haven't seen through my Clark Kent disguise yet.
Two-and-a-half hours later, the teams are getting ready for war. 52,254 people are packed KSU Stadium. It was the largest crowd ever to view a sporting event in Kansas.
The student section at KSU is awesome. Before anyone was allowed in the stadium, purple pompons were placed at every seat. So when K=State runs onto the field, the student section looks more like purple and white static then a crowd of blood-thirsty students.
The obnoxious reporter next to me leans over and says, "I think your team is in trouble." My secret identity is blown.
Their JumboTron, a mere small screen TV when compared to the mighty MegaVision, shows highlights of K-State games. Then they pull out the video of Quarterback Zac Wegner being made into a Wildcat and cheese sandwich. They show it three times. In slow motion.
The Power Cat in the middle of the field is almost 20 yards wide. The 20 people wearing a color other than purple can be spotted easily among the sea of purple-clad fans.
Now I'm mad. I've got that taste of adrenaline. You know, that sweetness in the back part of your mouth. My palms are sweaty. I'm ready for the 'Hawks to spill this record-sized crowd.
Then the game starts. That is when the fun ends. The purple goes from amusing, in a feel-sorry-for-them way, to a nauseating color that makes my eyes hurt. The combined 26 penalties for 216 yards make this the longest, most painful game to watch, ever. The 50 points scored by K-State to the 9 points scored by Kansas makes the game seem like everyone should have stayed by their grills.
It's sad that the most exciting part of the Sunflower Showdown is the three hours prior to kickoff. It's even more sad that it's Kansas' fault.
Jones is a Mulvane senior in journalism.
Wildcats Claw'Hawks
Turnovers lead to Sunflower shellacking, 50-9
Kansas outside linebacker Tim Bowers dives, missing Kansas State running back Chris Claybon. The Wildcats pounced on the Jayhawks, defeating them 50-9 on Saturday in Manhattan. Photo by Christina Neff/KANSAN
By Mike Miller sports@kansan.com Kansan sportwriter
The difference between Kansas and Kansas State Saturday wasn't just the 50-9 final score, it was that the Wildcats made big plays when they had to and Kansas didn't.
The score was just a byproduct.
"It was the big plays that hurt us, no doubt about that," said Linebacker Tim Bowers.
"Obviously with K-State's execution of the big play, any momentum we had offensively was taken away from us and truly led to our demise," said coach Terry Allen.
Long touchdown passes, turnovers and poor punting gave the Wildcats their chance to win.
"We couldn't make any catches. We couldn't make any runs. We just didn't make any plays." Mitch Bowles Kansas running back
With the exception of passing
exception of passing yards, Kansas was even with K-State statistically. K-State had 21 first downs to Kansas' 18. Rushing yards: Kansas 220, K-State 232. The two teams were even on third-down conversions, total plays and time of possession. Big plays negated all of that.
The big plays. and
The big plays, and they were nothing more than subtle differences of what some teams do better than other teams.
K-State scored 20 points from three Kansas turnovers. The Jayhawks didn’t force a single Wildcat cat
See KANSAS on page 2B
Norris shines in otherwise dismal massacre
By Mike Miller
Norris: Provided some of Jayhawks' only highlights
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Kansas fullback Moran Norris said he thought it couldn't get any better than last week — for him at least.
After catching three passes for 36 yards and a touchdown last week, Norris took the place of injured David Winbush Saturday against Kansas State and rushed for 42 yards on nine carries, including a touchdown. He also had one of the prettiest catches of the game, hauling in a high
Dylen Smith pass in the first quarter.
"I had to go up and get it with one hand," Norris said. "It was high, so I had to bring it down and hold on it."
Kansas wanted to establish the pass against K-State, but when that didn't work, Norris' rushing became a pleasant surprise.
"Moran just played so hard it was good to see," coach Terry Allen said. "We're just banged up offensively at running back we had to play him at running back."
Mitch Bowles, the Jayhawks' other starting running back, came into the
game with a sore knee, so the coaches were unsure of how much he could play. But Bowles combined with Smith and Norris for 144 yards, a vast improvement from last year's total of three rushing yards against the Wildcats.
Most of those yards came on big plays, including a 35-yard run by Smith, a 28-yard run by Norris and a 22-yard run by Bowles.
Norris' run was one of the few offensive highlights for Kansas. At 6-feet-2 and 245 pounds, Norris is a straight-ahead runner — but he showed some
nimblemess on his run. Coming through the hole, he broke a tackle, danced around a Wildcat linebacker and ran to the K-State 28-vard line.
"It's nothing new to me," he said. "In high school I was used to making plays like that all the time. I'm just happy knowing that I can go into the game and help the offense."
—Edited by Mike Loader
'Hawks sweep Baylor before crowd
By Shawn Hutchinson
sports@kansan.com
Kansas rookies traveler
Kansan sportswriter
It was the largest crowd to date at the center and also marked the first win for Kansas against Baylor since 1985.
The Jayhawks pounded their third-straight Big 12 Conference opponent on Saturday night, sweeping Baylor 3-0 in front of 1,043 fans at the Horejsi Family Athletics Center.
The Kansas volleyball team is starting to make flogging look like an art form.
"I don't think either team was that sharp," Kansas coach Ray Bechard said. "But we fought hard."
And as a result, the Jayhawks improved to 13-4 overall and 4-2 in the Big 12, while Baylor dropped to 15-4 and 3-3.
The Jayhawks took control of the match right away. Kansas jumped out to an 8-4 lead in the first game, and when the Bears came back and took the lead at 9-8, the Jayhawks hit back
hard.
Freshman defensive specialist Jennifer Kraft served an ace, senior outside hitter Mary Beth Albrecht picked up a kill and a block-assist, senior middle blocker Amanda Reves had two kills and a block-assist and junior outside hitter Nancy Bell chipped in a kill and a block. Kansas rallied for a 15-10 game-one win.
"We have a bunch of people on this team who believe we can (win)," Reves said. "And if you think you can, you will."
The Jayhawks kept the same mentality in punishing Baylor in games two and three, winning 15-9 and 15-11.
Kansas had four players with doublefigure kills in the match. Albrecht had 17, junior outside hitter Amy Myatt had 16, Reves had 15, and Bell, starting in the place of injured Danielle Geronymo, had 13. Sophomore setter Molly LaMere paced the team with 53 assists and added four kills for an .800 hitting percentage.
The win capped off a week of victories for the Jayhawks. Last Saturday, Kansas beat Texas Tech for the first time, then picked up a road win Wednesday at Oklahoma. Then they beat Baylor, a team that had been 8-1 all-time against Kansas and had just scored an upset at home on Wednesday night by beating No. 16 Texas A&M.
The Jayhawks, though, paid no attention to the past on Saturday night and dispatching Baylor in just one hour and 33 minutes.
The Jayhawks next will be in action at 7 p.m. Wednesday, when they take on No. 17 Kansas State in Manhattan. The Wildcats are the only undefeated team in the Big 12 at 6-0, and they are 12-2 overall.
Edited by Brad Hallier
"We felt like we needed to end the rallies early, because Baylor is very quick and is a rally-oriented team." Bechard said. "I was extremely pleased about some of the longer rallies that we won."
Honolulu, Hawaii,
senior Kristi Kiyabu
returns a spike for
the Jayhawks on
Saturday against the
Baylor Bears. The
Jayhawks defeated
Baylor three games
to none.
Photo by Chad
Cummings/KANSAN
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