Baseball team has Owl-fully decent weekend in the Illadelph
Paul Moeller
Asst. Sports Editor
goxavier.com
Sophomore Charlie Leesman and senior Matt Lipski played well for X.
The Xavier baseball team returned to Cincinnati after a weekend visit to “The City of Brotherly Love”: Philadelphia.
The Musketeers took two of three games against the Temple Owls, improving their Atlantic 10 record to 12-3.
After clipping the Owls’ wings on Friday and Saturday, it was the loss on Sunday that sent Xavier from first to third in the Atlantic 10 standings.
Senior Adam Lipski led the Musketeers to an 11-4 victory on Friday, batting 4-4 and scoring four runs.
Freshman Pat Coffey had a breakout game, scoring a run and recording his first two-hit game of the season.
Senior right-handed pitcher Bill Konecny picked up his third win, allowing three earned runs on eight Temple hits.
On Saturday, sophomore Charlie Leesman surrendered only five Temple hits in his first six innings. Leesman’s five strikeouts helped him claim his fourth win of the season, more than any Xavier pitcher thus far.
Senior Mark Janszen provided 1.1 innings of relief before freshman Zac Richard closed the door and collected his fifth save.
For the second day in a row, the Musketeers were led offensively by Adam Lipski, who went 2-4 with a homerun and an RBI.
Junior Robbie Kelley also continued his offensive hot streak, recording his 17th and 18th RBIs of the season. Xavier won 6-3.
In the final contest at Temple’s Skip Wilson Field, the Musketeers stranded 10 runners and could not capitalize on three Temple errors, losing the series finale by a score of 8-7.
After tying the game at 6-6 in the top of the sixth inning, the Musketeers looked poised to take control of the game.
Temple came out strong in the bottom of the inning though, adding two runs of their own.
Xavier’s final glimmer of hope came in the top of the ninth, as they put their first two batsmen on base.
Swinging the bats well, freshman Drew Schmidt, sophomore Neil Lindgren and seniors Jordan Wolf and Adam Lipski each recorded two hits.
Both Xavier and Temple belted out 12 hits, but in the end Temple was able to hang on, removing the Musketeers from their spot atop the Atlantic 10.
The Musketeers now sit just two games below .500 for the year with a record of 19-21.
Cleats and Catch Phrase in Clemson: Club soccer does S.C.
Maggie Foller
Staff Writer
Maggie Faller
The men’s club soccer team receives counsel from head coach Scott Suter. The men ultimately finished 2-1-1 on the weekend.
460 miles in three 15-passenger vans is hardly first-class. Seated shoulder-to-shoulder with luggage stealing the leg room, the Xavier University Club Soccer teams showed only anticipation for their upcoming tournament.
From Friday, April 13 to Sunday April 15, the men’s and women’s club teams traveled together to Clemson University to participate in a weekend-long tournament held each spring with teams from all over the Eastern U.S. in attendance.
In the men’s bracket, the tournament was set up so that each team participating was guaranteed three games.
There were four groups of men’s teams and each of the top two teams in one group would play one of the other top two teams in another group in one of the four quarter final matches.
The winners of the four quarter final games would play on Sunday in one of two semi-final matches.
The winner of the semi-finals would compete in the final championship.
The women’s tournament was set up differently due to fewer teams. There was one group of eight teams.
Maggie Faller
Junior Katelyn Purnell, sophomore Kelley Boldt and freshman Brigid Cafferty battled the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech on Saturday.
The top two teams would go directly to the semi-final games on Sunday, while the remaining teams would compete on Saturday evening for the remaining two spots in the semis.
The men’s team is made up of 19 players selected from the original 40 on the team. The selections proved to be a success.
“The guys played above their talent level as a team. Overall, they exceeded all of my expectations, as well as those of their school and the other teams,” said head coach Scott Suter.
The first game for the men was against Florida State University at 8 a.m. on Saturday. They chalked up a win with a final score of 4-1.
The second game against Wake Forest ended in a 1-1 draw, which meant that if the team wanted to represent Xavier in the quarter finals, they would have to beat their opponent in the third game.
The weather took a rough turn, and a solid downpour left the otherwise cement fields in a swamp-like state.
The opponent was Towson University. The soaking conditions made playing a challenge as the ball took awkward bounces, and both teams struggled to keep their footing.
The score remained 0-0 until Xavier’s John Splain finished with a miraculous diving header late in the second half, giving the Muskies the win, a preliminary record of 2-0-1,and a spot in a quarter-final to be held at 9 p.m. that evening.
After 40 minutes of regulation play and two 5-minute overtimes, the score remained 0-0, sending the match into a penalty kick shoot-out.
The Naval Academy was tough, and, as team member Brian Faller recalled, “Coach said we better be ready to play because this team will be a class act—fit and intense.” Xavier came up short as the Naval Academy buried their first three attempts.
Xavier struggled as the first kicker sent the ball sailing over the crossbar, the second was denied by Navy’s goalkeeper and the third kicker shot the ball low toward the left-hand corner only to have it come right back to him off the post.
The Xavier women struggled on the pitch, finishing with a tournament record of 0-2-1. The first game against Georgia Tech ended in a 2-0 loss.
The second game looked brighter as it was a 0-0 draw against Middle Tennessee State University. With a win in the third game, the women could have landed a spot in one of Saturday’s quarter finals, but a 2-0 loss against the University of Tennessee shattered the possibility.
Coaches Curtis Grace and Theresa Richardson tried to jumble the line-up a bit each game to find a winning combination, but victory just did not seem to be in the cards for the Xavier women.
“We did everything right, but we couldn’t finish,” recalls Xavier striker Molly Cajacob.
After some good and bad matches, the teams finally cleaned up after 200-plus minutes of soccer apiece, and spent Saturday night together, nursing injuries with pizza slices in hand.
The club soccer teams awaited the early morning trek back to Xavier, sore, quiet and exhausted from an exhilarating weekend.
- Maggie Faller is a member of the women’s club soccer team -
The Spectator
Weekly Commentary On the World of Sports
John LaFollette
Sports Editor
Last week, soon-to-be top-ten draft-pick Amobi Okoye solidified his place as the heir apparent to Brett Favre’s current reign as the Spectator’s favorite pro football player.
On Thursday, he joined Calvin Johnson and Gaines Adams in admitting to NFL Combine officials via video interview that he had smoked marijuana at some point in the past.
While it is hardly surprising to a college football insider like the Spectator that eventually an ex-student athlete would admit to having smoked pot in college, it apparently caught the obliviously straight media off guard. Certain talking heads went so far as to say they were “shocked” that “in this day and age routine drug tests could… miss that sort of information.”
news.yahoo..com
Amobi Okoye can flex his mental muscle as well as crush your team’s quarterback with his arms.
The most clear-thinking commentators, though somewhat surprised at the revelation, hardly thought it was a big deal.
Acknowledging that most college students are prone to experimentation with drugs, the Spectator doesn’t think future athletes should be held to a higher standard, especially when those are only 15 years old, as Okoye was at the time of his inhalation.
Although it was never in serious question, Okoye’s maturity was only underscored by his forthright honesty in this matter.
Indeed, Okoye’s story as a college athlete is one of the most amazing in recent memory. He hails from Lagos, Nigeria where he lived with his parents until he was 12.
He could read at the age of 2 and tested out of the sixth grade (by contrast, the Spectator’s unpaid intern Jason had to repeat the sixth grade).
When his family moved to the United States he tested into high school at age 12.
Having graduated from high school and reached the ripe old age of 15, Okoye enrolled at the University of Louisville as a fast defensive tackle and a prodigious scholar.
He graduated in three and a half years, despite switching his major, and is now poised to become the youngest NFL player in league history. The Spectator can’t help himself from comparing Okoye to Maurice Clarett, the reckless-driving, vodka-swigging, pistol-packing, hatchet-wielding man-child who argued that he was mature enough to play in the pros.
Likewise, Okoye appears to be still more mature than NFL veterans who have made reputations for themselves for being inappropriately brash (Randy Moss, Keyshawn Johnson and Terrell Owens spring to mind).
Okoye is a 19-year-old college graduate and Nigerian immigrant who is fluent in Ibo and English diction and idiom, and despite questions about his readiness as a teenaged pro football player, he will emerge as the most mature NFL player to enter the league in recent history.
Okoye is bright, capable and honest about what he did and did not do in his free time. It is a better reflection on Okoye’s character for a crack-down institution like the NFL to learn about his pot smoking from him and not from a law enforcement officer or a mid-season drug test.
Furthermore, Okoye is comfortable enough in his skin to declare his foibles to people who want to know.
Such a character trait is admirable in any human being, but especially in those in role model positions. The Spectator would be proud if his 1-year-old nephew followed Okoye’s lead.
‘Return to glory’?
The 2007-08 school year will provide another opportunity for Xavier football to “Return to Glory,” as the Xavier club football team begins a new season with an expanded schedule and a new club football conference affiliation.
The Musketeers will play in nearly three times as many games next season as a part of the newly formed Midwestern Club Football Conference. The rest of the Conference includes Marquette, Miami and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville.
Summer practices will begin on August 20. For more information, or to join the team, contact either head coach Tom Powers at tepowersjr@yahoo.com or club president and quarterback Jim Byrnes at byrnesj1@xavier.edu.
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
Tennis tandem tops team totem pole
Two Musketeer women’s golfers were honored Tuesday, April 24 as they were selected to Colonial Athletic Association All-Conference teams. Senior Kara Manis was chosen to the All-CAA First Team after leading Xavier in scoring average this season. Her scoring average of 77.41 and her round of one-under par, 70, were the lowest on the team this year. Freshman Mary Beth McKenna was named to the All-CAA Second Team. McKenna finished the season with the team’s second-best scoring average of 78.52.
Nine note-worthy times are no longer
School records were dropping like Verizon phone calls this past weekend as the Xavier men’s and women’s track teams attended two meets. The first, the Eastern Kentucky Invite, was held in Richmond, Kentucky on Friday, April 20. Sophomore Becky Clark improved her own school-record time in the 800 meters to 2:17.23. Sophomore Luke Beuerlein took ownership of the Xavier 1500-meter record, eclipsing the former record by almost three seconds, notching a time of 4:02.44. Lastly, junior Cody Ackerman also surpassed his own mark to set a new school record in the discus.
The Musketeers then traveled home to Cincinnati for the All-Ohio Outdoor Championships last Saturday and Sunday. Sophomore Clinton Womack took 10th place in the 800-meters and secured a school-record time of 1:54.00. Freshman Danielle Meiners topped her former record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, improving it to 11:30.11. The women’s track squad shined in the 10,000-meter run, placing three runners in the top eight. Senior Kelly Sraj, one of the three, surpassed junior Amanda Brown’s former school record by 12 seconds, finishing at 38:14. Next weekend, the Musketeer track teams will travel to Indianapolis for the Stan Lyons Invitational.
Notable net-missers notch top honors
Finishing the season with a 15-10 record, the Xavier men’s tennis team was honored as four Musketeers were named to Atlantic 10 All-Conference teams. Senior Jeremy Miller and sophomores Ra’ees Ismail and Doug Matthews all earned spots on the All-Atlantic 10 First Team. Not to be overlooked, freshman J.T. Torbeck was named to the All-Atlantic 10 Second Team. Ismail and Miller were also honored through mention on the conference All-Academic team. All four of these tennis standouts helped the Musketeers make their first Atlantic 10 Championship Match appearance since joining the league before the 1995-96 season.
