No. 5 seed Ottawa has knocked off top-ranked Sterling at Sterling, 84-78 in OT today. The Braves will face KWU in Monday’s title game — the winner of that game goes to the NAIA D-2 Tournament and the loser goes home — what an incredible story if Ottawa can win its second straight after falling apart late in the season — Phil McClintock led the way for the Braves with 23 points and nine rebounds. Story from Taylor Eldridge to come later.
UPDATE 10:04 PM: Sterling and Kansas Wesleyan will play in the women’s final — the Warriors routed Friends behind 27 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and four assists from Ashley Kraft, and KWU rocked Tabor with a double-double from Kaylean Dittmer (16 pts, 10 rebs) … and I know who won player of the year but I can’t tell you until Monday … Damn Embargoes! I know who the POY was for the men, too. Damn Embargoes!
A lot went down last night, with the big news being on the women’s side, with Tabor pulling off a 43-42 upset over Southwestern in the KCAC women’s quarterfinals, with sophomore Jordan Crosson hitting the game-winner with three seconds left. Kirsten Watson led all scorers with 13 points and the Bluejays held Southwestern all-KCAC player Kara Beal to just six points in her final collegiate game. Tabor now heads to KWU to try and end the ‘Yotes dream season, which won’t be an easy task as I’m sure Kaylaen Dittmer and Co. will be ready and waiting.
Back from my mid-week vaca … went and saw Friday the 13th at the Old Town Warren. It was terrible, and also my choice. So my bad, AT, I guess I owe you one. As long as Jennifer Aniston’s not in it. I guess I was trying to recapture some of the great memories I had from waiting in line for 2-3 hours at some Halloween Hayride when I was a kid — they showed the movies in a loop on big screen TVs while you waited to get scared.
Anyways…
The KCAC is already in the heart of its conference tournament … while the Jayhawk and the MIAA aren’t far behind, with league titles and playoff spots still on the line. Got to say I’m looking forward to the Region VI tourney this year … there are always fireworks and hey, it’s always neat to see the big-name coaches come out. It was pretty cool to see Gregg Marshall sit through four straight games at Koch Arena … even if the only thing he got out of it was Reggie Chamberlain. Hopefully RC wasn’t the only reason he was there, and he’s kept in contact with some of last year’s best freshman. Ryan Martin, anybody?
A Tabor College football player died in a one-car crash on I-35 near Tonkawa, Okla., on Sunday.
Marcus Patrick Manny, 23, a senior from Dallas, was driving northhbound Sunday evening when his car ran off the road and overcorrected, hitting an embankment and flipping the car.
Manny kicked the game-winning field goal in Tabor’s 32-29 win over Southwestern last season.
Tabor coach Mike Gottsch called Manny “a competitor in every sense of the word.”
In addition, Manny played in 27 games for Tabor, made 62 of 82 extra-point attempts, and 16 of 34 field goal attempts, with a career-long field goal of 41 yards. He earned Honorable Mention All-KCAC honors this past season.
Incredible performance out of the Jayhawk, so I thought I’d boil it down to a little Journalism 101:
Who: Jack Crowder III, 6-foot-4 sophomore forward at18th-ranked Cowley College (W. Southeast ‘07)
What: 43 points, 9 rebounds, 7 threes, 2 steals and 14 of 15 from the charity stripe … Tigers win 93-91 in OT at Coffeyvile to force what seemed like (two weeks ago, at least) it was damn near impossible, a tie for first in the Jayhawk East with the Red Ravens.
Where: Nellis Hall, deep in the heart of SE Kansas
When: Wednesday night
Why: Because that’s how he’s wired — play hard, never quit
How: My guess is that it’s probably because his last two coaches have been Carl Taylor and Steve Eck …
Here’s the full release from Cowley SID Rama Peroo, with a great quote from Coach Eck at the bottom:
The Southwestern center and Maize product really did his thing the past two games, and he’s the KCAC player of the week for his efforts — the 6-foot-11 junior averaged 22.2 points and 6 rebounds in wins over KCAC frontrunners Sterling (75-66) and Ottawa (79-76). That’s big. King is averaging 16.3 points and 6.5 rebounds per game this season. Now only if the Moundbuilders, winners of three straight, hadn’t lost all-KCAC guards Alwyn Jordan and Justin Diggles to season-ending injuries earlier this year… MAN!
Here’s the gist: Anderson tried to take a different route back to the team’s hotel and ended up playing the role of Dr. Jack Shephard to a guy who crashed in front of her. Without the beard and all the angst, of course.
And while their coach was out trying to save somebody’s life, the Newman players disobeyed Anderson’s orders and got out of the van to direct traffic away from the accident — which occured on an off-ramp off Interstate 10 — and a couple of them went and got a concrete slab to help bust out the window of a car that had just wrecked and had an unconscious, bleeding-from-the mouth passenger trapped inside.
If you’re reading this, look straight up and you’ll see what I’m talking about … yessir, Sunflower Slate officially has a new look. Not that I didn’t love my old gold and black banner … but thanks to Heidi Marcinik for designing the new flag. I feel like I just moved into a new apartment or something … simple pleasures, right? The new banner is pretty sweet.
Now I’ve got some Jayhawk thoughts, so keep reading:
No Joaquin Phoenix-like meltdowns from Sunflower State … just all the news that’s fit for print cyberspace! Come on, though, why isn’t he acting anymore? He can really do it all, which you know if you saw Walk the Line. Anyways, back to the grind.
So I stumbled across the rankings for NCAA Division II football attendance. Impressive stuff — Pittsburg State (11), Central Mo. (13) and NW Mo. (15) were all up there as far as MIAA schools. I’m putting the rankings below, the first number after the school’s name is the number of home games, followed by total attendance and then average attendance per game. I put all the rest of the MIAA in there, just for fun. And some of those numbers are kind of sad. Check it out:
I think I may have been a little remiss (or is it feeling remiss?) not to have mentioned the Emporia State baseball team to this point. I thought they were one of the great stories of last year with that huge winning streak — and it looks like they’ve set themselves up for more success this year. Here’s a release from ESU on their win over Southwestern Oklahoma State in the season opener. OH, the Hornets are ranked No. 8 in the country if you need them:
