THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN SPORTS
BASKETBALL |8A Invitational features prospects
Jayhawks hosted a tournament to scout high school recruits this weekend.
MONDAY, MAY 2, 2011
WWW.KANSAN.COM
MECHAM VS. WEBB
PAGE 12A
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAM
Head coach Turner Gill watches his team during the spring game Saturday. Gill will begin his second year as head coach in the fall.
Battle of the quarterbacks
BY BLAKE SCHUSTER bschuster@kansan.com
The Kansas quarterback battle raged on in Saturday's annual spring football game, as Quinn Mecham and Jordan Webb both put up encouraging numbers while they split time taking snaps.
Blue defeated White by a score of 17-6 in front of a crowd of 6,000 fans at Memorial Stadium in a game that saw a slew of players getting time on the field.
Webb had the first crack at field general and capped off a 70-yard drive with a touchdown pass to junior wide receiver D.J. Beshears.
Webb's day ended with him completing eight of 14 passes for 108 yards and one touchdown. His only blemish was in the second half on a broken play that saw Webb throw the ball directly into the hands of the defense.
The off-target throw wasn't a big deal to coach Turner Gill who played off the interception as a little dark spot on a mostly bright day.
"Overall, one play is not going to totally define what he's done." he said.
Webb was also seen being flushed out of the pocket on a few occasions but did not falter and kept his eyes looking up field to make a play, something the Jayhawks had trouble with last season.
"I'm definitely feeling a lot more comfortable, but that just comes with experience." Webb said after the game. "The coaches have really been focusing on getting the quarterbacks comfortable with the system and making sure we stay within ourselves."
Mecham entered the game early on in the first half and displayed signs of maturation from last season.
While he was sacked four times,
Mecham threw for 102 yards on six completions including a 53-yard touchdown bomb to Christian Matthews in double coverage. All three players bobbled around the pass before Matthews eventually gained control and strolled into the end zone.
After the game, Gill said he was pleased with the execution of the offense with Webb in the game, specifically with the tempo getting out of the huddle and getting plays called.
"I got lucky," Matthews said. "I had clear view of the safety in the corner, and I just went up for the catch and got it."
"If I had to give an edge right now, I would give it to Jordan Webb, but with the tape, I will see it a little deeper." Gill said.
While the quarterback competition is primarily among Webb and Mecham, recruit Brock Berglund was in attendance at the game.
"I think we looked fast, and we are definitely up in our athleticism." Opurum said. "We are playing with more intensity, and we just have to keep that up."
On the defensive side of the ball, converted defensive end Toben Opurum was a force for the Jayhawks, recording two tackles and putting a lot of pressure on the offense. After the game Opurum acknowledged the defensive's showing and was pleased with how well they played.
Berglund, who did not play in the game, left spring practices early for personal reasons but is expected to partake in the fall camp.
After the game Gill spoke highly of the Jayhawks improvement thus far and believes the group he has will be effective in the upcoming season.
"There's no doubt that we are a better football team than we were last year, and we have a lot more
confidence in our guys." Gill said,
"We are looking for the people that will be able to finish and be productive, and I think we've seen a few guys that can make plays in the game."
The 2011 campaign opens Sept. 3 at Memorial Stadium as the Jayhawks take on McNeese State.
Edited by Erin Wilbert
REWIND | 9A
Read the rewind for key stats
SOFTBALL
Kansas drops two games to Texas A&M
BY HANNAH WISE hwise@kansan.com
Senior pitcher Allie Clark beats the Aggies runner to first base by passing a pop fly to first baseman Laura Vickers at Arrocha Ballpark on Saturday afternoon. Kansas lost to the Texas A&M Aggies 3-2 in the first game of this weekend's doubleheader.
The softball team suffered two defeats at home to Texas A&M during the weekend.
Saturday, the Jayhawks fell 3-2 after a late rally in the seventh inning falling just short of a win. The final two at-bats Saturday began the team's decline into Sunday's 13-0 run-rule defeat in five innings.
Kansas was strong all around Saturday. Senior pitcher Allie Clark had her best day from the circle with eight strikeouts. She stepped up for the team in the top of the second inning with two consecutive strikeouts after an A&M home run to set the score 1-0. Clark gave the offense a chance against the strong Agile batters.
The offense totaled six hits Saturday, with a home run by sophomore outfield Maggie Hull. She stepped up in the bottom of the third and hit her ninth home run of the season off the first pitch thrown by the Aggies' ace pitcher sophomore Melissa Dumezich. It also put Hull in second place in single season RBIs with a total of 48.
Howard Ting/KANSAN
"They had a really good scouting report on me and so the coaches were telling me to just be aggressive, be aggressive," Hull said. "I toped up on the line and made the pitch kind of middle out and got some distance on it. So once it came, I knew I was going to attack it."
were more excited than they had been in other home games. Hull contributed the extra effort to remind the team that coach Megan Smith said that the team was on the bubble to make an appearance at Regions.
The team created a different type of atmosphere Saturday. They
"When you have bases loaded with no outs our old team would have just given up, but this team we knew we were going to fight all game and we knew we were because that's the team we really are," Hull said.
On Sunday, the offense had a rough start with three quick outs in the first inning and they did not improve afterward. On the day, the team had only 19 at-bats and three hits opposed to the Aggies' 22 at-bats, nine hits and 13 runs.
On Saturday, it appeared as though the Jayhawks had captured their early season fight again, but by Sunday the drive and tenacity all but disappeared.
"I think Texas A&M showed up and was the better team today and they didn't do that yesterday" Smith said. "They were on fire offensively and we just couldn't recover."
The Jayhawk pitchers struggled against the Aggies Sunday. The Texas A&M coaching staff made batting order changes for Sunday that took advantage of Clark's pitching style from Saturday.
The Jayhawks began with Clark pitching then switched to freshman hurler Kristin Martinez in the top of the third inning. She pitched until the top of the fourth when junior Ashley Spencer entered and pitched until Clark was sent back
"It's really frustrating because it only takes one pitch," Clark said. "That's what sucks as a pitcher when you make a mistake. It's frustrating but you have to have a short-term memory."
in to close out in the top of the fifth inning.
The Jayhawks have finished their conference schedule 2-14. They begin a three-game nonconference series Thursday against
"We are going to forget this game," Smith said. "We are going to wash it from our brains and go into Drake with a fresh mind. We are going to focus on the good things we did yesterday, the fight we had yesterday and take that into Drake."
Drake.
REWIND|10A
Seniors celebrate careers
Edited by Samantha Collins
1.
COMMENTARY
Spring game helps fans forget last season
BY MAX ROTHMAN
rothman@kansan.com
Nothing could have gone wrong Saturday, and that's just what this team and these fans needed.
This year's spring football game helps us forget the muck of last season. We needed something tangible to abandon so many memories that thou shall not revisit.
from all angles fans marched. In trucks, on bicycles, or on only two feet, fans poured into Memorial Stadium and the areas around it. It was the last day of April with a football-se anse feel.
Blue-shirt fans, young and old, grilled under wide, white tents on Campanile Hill. Others gathered in parking lots around pickup trucks that blared country crooners. They grilled food and drink from beer cans dressed in Kansas koozies.
Halftime sweetened the day, when sophomore defensive end D.J. Marshall received a standing ovation as the words "Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer survivor" shined under his name on the video board at the south end of the stadium. Marshall held his right hand in the air to show his thanks and Gill smothered him with a hug.
The Jayhawk faithful nearly filled up the west side of the stadium, which was the only side open for the day. The sun was beaming and the wind was slight. No matter what took place on the field, being outside and together seemed to be enough for the fans.
After nailing three field goals up the middle of the goalposts, sophomore kicker Ron Doherty missed a 42-yarder. At most, the miss elicited a shrug of our shoulders.
Early in the game, Mecham heaved a 53-yard touchdown pass to sophomore wide receiver Christian Matthews. Senior cornerback Anthony Davis blew the coverage, but a long score got the fans riled up on an otherwise houm afternoon. So who am I to judge?
Junior defensive end Toben Opurum, former running back and linebacker, looked more com fortable at his newest position. His speed off the snap was evident and coach Turner Gill praised his progress. But was Opurum's success at pressuring quarterbacks Jordan Webb, Quinn Mecham and Blake Jablonksi a product of improvement or an inefficient offensive line?
On a day like Saturday, a dropped pass by, oh I don't know, senior tight end Ted Mcnulty for example, envelopes not a single "boo."
But there was a football game on this day, and the results of that game are difficult to decipher. But that's what you get when you scrimmage your own team. This led to an issue of clarity with cheers. Fans repetitively chanted "Go Jayhawks!" For which side did they cheer for?
On the day of the spring game, we couldn't lose. Quarterbacks wore red jerseys so they weren't hit. Gill stood on the 50-yard line, not the sideline, and stared at his team.
It's easier to denounce a downfall when the season is months away. It's also nice to know that Kansas is always to win on the football field in April.
Edited by Samantha Collins