Archive for January, 2010

UAA Basketball Round-Up

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 | Johann Qua Hiansen

With one weekend of University Athletic Association play behind us, the biggest lesson for all teams is that any team can be beaten.

Wash. U. ranked third in the country, staved off a Chicago upset attempt and held on for a 64-60 win. The Bears never held the lead in the first half being down by as much as seven points. For graduate student Sean Wallis, the game was historic as he became the 19th person in the men’s basketball program to score 1,000 career points.

No. 8 Brandeis University, who the Bears face on Friday, fell to unranked New York University. NYU held Brandeis to under 25 percent shooting and ran away with a 72-50 win. The Violets staked a big lead early on with a 28-15 advantage at the 8:14 mark in the first half.

In other men’s UAA action, Emory defeated Case Western Reserve 98-89 while Rochester downed Carnegie Mellon 76-57.

On the women’s side, Wash. U. controlled both ends of the court with a 63-34 victory over Chicago. The Bears benefited from a 15-19 performance from the free throw line  compared to Chicago’s 10-17.

Brandeis topped NYU 73-68 as NYU could not score from the three point line in the last few minutes of play. The Violets came as close as three points with a shot from behind the arc by Chrissy Kilmurray. NYU was 8 for 34 from the three point line while Brandeis was 4 for 15.

Rochester defeated Carnegie Mellon 58-51 while Case Western sliced through Emory’s defense with a 64-55 victory. Case forced 30 Emory turnovers compared to 21 of their own.

Happy new decade

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 | Johann Qua Hiansen

The naughts (2000s) were quite a decade for Washington University Athletics. Eight of the school’s 17 NCAA Division III national championships and 76 of 135 University Athletic Association titles were captured in this span of ten years. The national titles include the first men’s titles of any sort with Men’s Basketball (2008 and 2009) and Men’s Tennis (2009).

Women’s basketball added two (2000 and 2001) while volleyball added three (2003, 2007, and 2009). Other programs have been to the national championship game for the first time in their history this decade including the softball team (2007) and women’s soccer (2009). Women’s basketball has also fallen in two national championship games including

Several individual NCAA national titles were also won in the 2000s. Michael Slavik won the 50 yard freestyle while teammate Eric Triebe captured the 200 freestyle in 2006. Alex Beyer took the 400 individual medley title in 2009 with an NCAA record breaking time of 3:51.45. In the indoor track and field NCAA championship meet of 2008, Morgen Leonard-Fleckman brought Wash. U. the first pole vaulting title in school history.

What’s ahead in the 2010s?

Washington University athletic programs have seen unparalleled success and continue to grow. The women’s golf program started in 2008 has already climbed to the fifth spot in the latest national rankings. Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams were ranked first in preseason polls. The men’s tennis team currently holds the number three ranking while their female counterparts are ranked 15th. The men’s swimming team is eighth while the women rank 12th. This is just in 2010.

For those out there who aren’t fans of rankings, Wash. U. has given plenty of food for thought. The women’s soccer team was ranked number 17 when they faced top ranked Messiah College in the NCAA Division III National Championship game a month ago.  The Bears were number four in the country when they took down #1 Juniata College to win the national championship.

The men’s cross country team was unranked and defeated several ranked squads in NCAA Regionals before racing to their best ever finish (seventh) at the NCAA National Championship Meet. As the women’s team came in tenth, this was the first time in school history that both squads finished in the top ten of the national championship meet in the same year.

We can’t wait to see what happens next. Student Life will be covering all the varsity sports action.  Here are the New Year resolutions for this blog and the sports section as a whole.

  1. Blog a minimum of once a week.
  2. Have at least two other contributors by the end of February.
  3. Continue working with other UAA schools to create a central sports news site.
  4. Expand coverage of Washington University club sports.
  5. Utilize more multimedia where appropriate.