SPORTS
4/4/12 7:00pm
The Fifth Lap
"When you're a fifth-year senior in the last-chance saloon, how can you not check every day?"
"When you're a fifth-year senior in the last-chance saloon, how can you not check every day?"
Despite solid play over the first two rounds of the Jim West Intercollegiate, the Rice University golf team was unable to carry that momentum to a high finish. While a disappointing final round left the Owls' in 10th place, there were still positive signs moving forward.
As the majority of the Rice campus found itself enveloped in the frenzy of Beer Bike, the track and field team was busy competing at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, which were held at Mike A. Myers track on March 31. The women's team looked to build on its success at the Victor Lopez Classic last week. Junior Sharae Robinson continued her run of impressive performances, placing fourth overall in the discus. Robinson threw a season-best 48.2 meters, beating her previous season high of 47.9 meters and falling just short of her all-time best mark of 48.66 meters.
The men and women's varsity tennis teams are not the only ones making noise on campus. Club tennis has provided some headlines as well. One club tennis team, consisting of Brown College junior Dylan Tozier, Sid Richardson College junior Chad Bustard, Baker College freshman Nelson Chen, graduate student Akshay Mathkar, Will Rice College freshman Genevieve Tarlton, and Lovett College junior Samaria Mouton, qualified for nationals at the Texas sectionals that were held in Austin during the weekend of March 2 to March 4.
Fuda home run caps furious rally, Owls take crucial weekend series
After a rush to the top 30 in the polls, the women's tennis team was brought back to Earth last weekend with a couple of tough losses at home. With the University of Missouri on Friday, Rice took the early doubles point as the Owls' were up 1-0. However, the Tigers roared back and took four of the six singles to come up with a huge upset against the Owls as they squeaked by with a score of 4-3. Even in the defeat, freshman Natalie Beazant nailed another win for the Owls as she won in a three-set thriller against Missouri's Nina Pantic.
With the men's track and field team enjoying the home cooking at the Victor Lopez Classic the previous weekend, Head Coach Jon Warren (Jones '88) and his squad did not necessarily expect the same caliber of results at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays this past weekend, but they certainly did not foresee a tumultuous first day of competition like they experienced last Thursday in Austin.
It was a fantastic end to the week for the women's tennis team on Thursday, March 22. The Owls started the day off with a 6-1 victory against Texas State University at Jake Hess tennis stadium. Doubles pairs freshman Natalie Beazant and sophomore Dominique Harmath, senior Ana Guzman and junior Katie Gater, and sophomore Kimberly Anicete and freshman Stephanie Nguyen swept the doubles matches to gain an early 1-0 lead. They then won five out of their six singles matches to capture the victory by a score of 6-1. The Owls almost swept, but Gater dropped her match.
Rice off to 2-1 Start in C-USA, adds midweek win over Lamar
Before their recent five-game winning streak, it looked like the Owls' ground was breaking from underneath them. What seemed like a promising season at the start was starting to turn sour with Rice's 8-5 record and season-low ranking of 64. Two weeks later, the Owls have moved up 22 spots and have added to their NCAA tournament resume impressive wins against ranked opponents the University of Memphis, Tulane University and the University of Denver.
The Victor Lopez Classic, held the weekend of March 24, was marked by both success and growth for the women's track and field team. The meet, which welcomed 3,500 spectators on Saturday night, according to Head Coach Jim Bevan, consisted of 75 high school and collegiate teams comprised of 1,800 athletes. The meet has grown in popularity in recent years, with the last two being the largest ever, according to Bevan. The team came in fifth overall with a total of 43 points, with Notre Dame winning the competition thanks to a score of 53.
In a sport in which success is justifiably measured by the objectivity of statistics, it is easy to look at the numbers as a barometer of Wayne Graham's coaching career at Rice. During his storied tenure on South Main, Graham has taken a program long mired in Southwest Conference mediocrity and transformed it into one of the country's baseball powerhouses over the last two decades. Consider that in the 73 seasons of Rice baseball preceding the Wayne Graham era, Rice never finished in the top spot in the conference's regular season standings. Since the 1992 season, Graham's inaugural campaign as the Rice head coach, the Owls have notched 16 straight conference titles, 17 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, seven appearances in the College World Series, and of course, the only national championship in the 100-year history of the university. With more than 1,500 collegiate coaching wins and multiple National Coach of the Year Honors at both the JuCo and Division I levels, Graham's career ranks amongst the greatest in the history of college baseball by any quantitative evaluation.
The Victor Lopez Classic, held the weekend of March 24, was marked by both success and growth for the women's track and field team. The meet, which welcomed 3,500 spectators on Saturday night, according to Head Coach Jim Bevan, consisted of 75 high school and collegiate teams comprised of 1,800 athletes. The meet has grown in popularity in recent years, with the last two being the largest ever, according to Bevan. The team came in fifth overall with a total of 43 points, with Notre Dame winning the competition thanks to a score of 53.
While the start of Willy Week should have been a promising time for Owls fans, what with the spring football game taking place tonight and the baseball team starting its first Conference USA home series tonight, the men's basketball program was rocked Monday afternoon with reports that freshman point guard Dylan Ennis and freshman small forward Jarelle Reischel decided to transfer to other schools after the completion of the spring semester. Head Coach Ben Braun commented on their decisions to transfer.
Looking to gather some momentum heading into their home stretch, the Rice golf team instead faltered at the Argent Financial Classic, finishing in last place.
With a multitude of records to her name, fifth-year senior Becky Wade has already cemented herself as one of the greatest distance runners in Rice history. But in her five years at Rice, Wade had yet to qualify for the NCAA Indoor National meet to this point, despite making the trip for the NCAA Outdoor National meet two times and the NCAA Cross Country meet once.
In a mediocre season, the Owls met at least one of their goals - they got to play postseason basketball. After a finish just above .500, the Owls were invited to the Women's Basketball Invitational, a 16 team-postseason tournament that plays all games at home sites. The tournament, though less illustrious than last season's WNIT berth, gave the Owl seniors hope of one last flash of glory.
Even though the Owls did not win an elusive bid to the NCAA tournament, they still get to participate in postseason play. Rice was invited to participate in the CIT, the College Insider Tournament. The tournament featured 32 teams with all teams coming from smaller or "mid-major" conferences with games played on the court of the higher seed.
Another chance to score a great non-conference victory fell to the wayside this weekend as the Owls lost to another highly ranked opponent, the University of San Diego, on Saturday. The match had to be moved indoors because of the rain, but the Galleria Tennis and Athletic Center proved to be unfriendly to Rice as it dropped the match 5-1. Senior Michael Nuesslein was the only bright spot for Rice, as he racked up a two-set win to increase his singles record to 10-1 for the season, which ties his season-high as an Owl. Rice is now 8-5 and ranked No. 64 in the nation, its lowest ranking of the season.
Rice University baseball was not always the way it is now. In its first 78 years of existence, baseball only had seven winning seasons. They were the laughing stock of the Southwestern Athletic Conference as they never finished higher than second place and finished dead last 24 times. Just like with many of its other major Division I sports, Rice was not up to par with some of the big boys like The University of Texas and Texas A&M University.