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SPORTS FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2010 THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN KANSAN.COM
SOFTBALI
Late heroics split Creighton series
BY ZACH GETZ
zgetz@kansan.com
Final inning, full count, two outs, down one, runner on first; it's hard to script a better ending. The pitch came, junior pitcher Allie Clark made contact, and she started rounding the bases.
"As soon as I hit it I was thinking, 'start the bus,' because it's good." Clark said.
After Clark smacked the 3-2 pitch over the right field wall to put Kansas up 6-5, she said she had no fear going back to the pitching circle to put Creighton away.
"I knew if I got a bad pitch here or there that the people behind me would hurt their butts." Clark said.
Sure enough, Clark finished off Creighton and Kansas split the doubleheader, moved to 18-24 and 3-4 in the Big 12.
But the doubleheader certainly didn't start in Kansas' favor.
In the first game, Creighton scored two early runs in the first inning and took a 2-0 lead into the fourth. Creighton then scored four in the fourth inning, and added one run a piece in the fifth and sixth innings to run-rule Kansas 8-0.
That marked Kansas' second straight scoreless game. Kansas only managed three hits the entire game while Creighton ended with nine hits.
Coach Megan Smith said the team was extremely flat in the first game.
"When you looked out there, there was very little life on the field," Smith said. "The score of that game wasn't the frustrating part of that game. It was actually watching us play without any emotion."
Before the second game, Smith said she challenged her team to go out and play with some intensity.
"I told them we needed to go out there with some heart and pride," Smith said.
Things looked better at the start of the second game for Kansas when it took a 1-0 lead in the top
RECAP
Game 1
Creighton 8, Kansas 0
Game 2
Kansas 6, Creighton 5
UP NEXT
No. 9 Oklahoma State vs. Kansas
WHEN: 2 p.m. tomorrow and noon Sunday
WHERE: Arrocha Ballpark, Lawrence
of the third, but Creighton quickly responded with a grand slam in the bottom of the third. Creighton added another run in the fourth, and Kansas picked up two more runs in the fifth to make it 5-3 Creighton.
In the sixth Kansas scored another run, but stranded two on base. Finally, with two outs in the seventh, Clark hit a two-run homer on a 3-2 pitch to put Kansas up 6-5. Clark then returned to the pitching circle and successfully shut out Creighton, winning the game. Kansas outshut Creighton 11 to four in the second game.
Smith has been coaching a mentality of taking the game pitch by pitch, which the team hasn't always followed. In the second game, Kansas stuck with that mentality, senior infielder Amanda Jobe said.
"If something went wrong the pitch before we put that behind us and moved on to the next pitch," Jobe said. "We tried to take it a pitch at a time and focus the best we can, and it worked out well for us."
Even though the Jayhawks had a bad first game, the second game gave Kansas some momentum it will hopefully be able to use in upcoming games, lobe said.
Kansas will continue Big 12 Conference play this weekend when it hosts No.9 Oklahoma State (37-7, 7-0) for two games. The Cowgirls are in first place in the Big 12.
— Edited by Cory Bunting
Deborah Fraser/KANSAN
KANSAS RELAYS
Kansas sophomore Kelsey Grimm stretches between throws during the women's heptathlon javelin throw Thursday morning. Kansas is hosting the 83rd annual Kansas Relays through Saturday evening at Memorial Stadium.
Northwest Missouri State senior Emily Churchman performs a long jump during the heptathlon Thursday morning. Churchman came in third in the long jump event with a 5.46 meter jump.
Mike Gunnar/KANCAN
Freshman Isaac Mallory of Kansas State soars over the bar in the pault vault section of the decathlon at the Kansas Relays Thursday.
Freshman finishes third in hammer throw event
BY KORY CARPENTER kcarpenter@kansan.com
Even with two foul throws, Kansas State senior Loren Groves still managed to win the women's hammer throw competition Thursday afternoon. Groves finished the final round with a distance of 60.77 meters, just 0.3 meters ahead of the second-place finisher, Missouri's Krishna Lee.
Groves, a two-time All-American in the hammer throw, overcame two faults: one in the second heat and one in the finals.
Kansas' freshman standout Alena Krechyk made the finals but had to settle for a third-place finish. Throwing coach Andy Kokhanovsky felt Krechyk had room to improve.
"It's a little disappointing." Kokhanovsky said. "I still think Alena did a good job today but she wanted to finish first. Groves is very experienced."
With a final round distance of 59.99 meters, Krechyk was about five meters away from her coach's objective.
"But she did okay today." Kokhanovsky said.
The top three throwers — Groves, Lee and Krechyk — were easily the three best athletes in the competition. While all three had final scores within one meter of each other, they were all more than six meters ahead of the fourth-place finisher.
Edited by Cory Bunting
LIVE·STUDY·DREAM
Men take third and fourth in 5k
BY KATHLEEN GIER
kgier@kansan.com
twitter.com/kqier
Senior Bret Ingrund got out to a quick start in the 5,000 meters, taking an early lead before bouncing back to fourth place with a time of 14 minutes 44.22 seconds.
That allowed junior Nick Caprario to pull ahead of his teammate, and finish in third place with a time of 14:40:23.
"The place is good." Caprario said. "I was looking a little bit more for time. I was trying to get down to 14:30, but I got 14:40. I will take it for this meet and take it to build on after this meet."
Imgrund shared a similar sentiment.
"I am happy with that." Imgrune said. "It's early. It's the first 5K of the year so it is a good place to start and I can work from there."
"We had a real tight group of three there and you can't ask for a whole lot better than that." Caprario said. "Being able to bounce off of each other and switched off taking the lead and in the long run that made us all a little faster."
Toward the end of the race the pack separated and Caprario took the lead for the Jayhaws.
Imgrund, Caprario and freshman Josh Baden packed together in second, third and fourth places for much of the race.
"As far as separating from the
Former Jayhawk Paul Hefferon, running for the Kansas City Smoke, won the race with a time of 14:17.36.
"I knew Caprario was in good shape and looking for a good time so the whole point was for him and I to trade off the lead and work together and see what we could do with it." Imgrund said.
pack we just ran our own races and that just kind of happened itself", Caprario said.
Imgrund was happy to let Caprario take the lead when the race came down to the end.
— Edited by Taylor Bern
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