PROUD TO BE AN ALL-AMERICAN

There’s an old joke that the best occupation for someone in the witness protection program would be the anonymous job of an offensive lineman.

There may be some truth to that. Try naming the Fighting Scots offensive line from this past season.

Only friends, family and the most dedicated Fighting Scots fans could probably come up with all five starters.

Josh Kotecki (Peru, Ill./LaSalle-Peru) is a great offensive guard, but he might not be as successful keeping his anonymity. The junior was recognized as an All-American by D3football.com after the most successful season in Fighting Scots history.

Named to the second team, Kotecki helped the Scots to an 11-1 season which included Monmouth’s second league title and NCAA playoff berth since 2005. Monmouth hosted and won their first playoff game in school history and set the team record for most wins in a season (11).

A 6-foot-1, 245 pound offensive guard, Kotecki helped the Scots win the national scoring title, averaging 46.75 points per game. The team also had top 10 national rankings in three other offensive categories: fifth in pass efficiency (166.98), seventh in total offense (460.58 ypg) and eighth in passing offense (315.83 ypg). Sixteen different receivers caught passes this season and four had more than 400 receiving yards each.

The Scots’ offensive line allowed Monmouth quarterbacks enough time to pass for a school-record 3,790 yards while the ground game picked up more than 2,000 yards with 12 different backs getting carries. The team also scored a school-record 50 touchdowns via the pass and added another 25 rushing TDs. The Scots set or tied 71 team and individual records during the 2008 campaign.

Kotecki earned his first All-American honor and earlier this season was named to the D3football.com All-West Region first team. He is also a two-time all-Midwest Conference first-teamer.

 WHAT I GOT FOR CHRISTMAS

You can forgive swim coach Dave Yez if he sounds a bit like a kid at Christmas, but the Fighting Scots got a Christmas present they had been waiting on for months.

The new addition isn’t the next coming of Michael Phelps, but it could help the Scots down the road in their quest to unseat Grinnell as the Midwest Conference champions.

The new addition – a diving board – was installed over the holiday break and dive coach Al McGuire has his divers ready to hit the board running, uh, we mean diving. But, don’t expect to see the new board at the Pepper Natatorium. The Scots’ pool wasn’t constructed with a diving well, so the new board has been installed at the Warren County YMCA, a move that will benefit the entire community.

Monmouth’s divers have been putting in a lot of board time since their return over the weekend, but will only be able to actually compete in two meets prior to the MWC championship. Shortening the diving season even more was the cancellation of the annual diving meet at Illinois Wesleyan University. IWU had to cancel the annual competition to accommodate their own conference meet. Still, two meets are better than nothing for Jack Clifford, Jeff Skalon, Danielle Kita and Lindsey Masscho.

“Just being able to practice on an actual board will help,” said Yez whose divers had been doing dry land training since October. “Coach McGuire has the divers in an accelerated mode, working out twice a day over the break, so we should be in decent shape to compete.”

While the Scots will have divers ready to compete come conference time, Yez reports they will only be able to compete in the 1-meter event. That means Monmouth will not gain any points in the 3-meter dives.

“The way the dive season played out, we just couldn’t make arrangements to use a 3-meter board,” explained Yez. “We should have that problem fixed next season.”

The Scots open the 2009 portion of the season hosting Lindenwood this Saturday. The meet comes more than a month after their last competition on Dec. 6. Conditioning could have been a concern, but the team quelled those coaching staff fears with a “surprising” report after a conditioning workout.

“(Assistant coach) Kurt Niemeier gave the team a conditioning test this week,” said Yez. “On the whole, we were pretty impressed with the amount of work that was done away from campus. We have a few that need to get back into swim shape, but it was a lot better than I expected.”

While it’s not exactly crunch time, the Scots have just five weeks remaining before the Midwest Conference Championships Feb. 13-15. The men’s and women’s teams have swimmers within striking distance of a conference title in nearly every event. Andrew Wright (500 and 1,650 freestyle) and John Kaiser (100 butterfly) have the league’s top men’s times and Krysta Sparks (200 breaststroke) currently sits atop the MWC standings in her event.

The Scots’ dual meet this weekend will give Yez an indication of where they stand in preparing for the final push.

“Lindenwood is very good,” reported Yez. “We expect them to push us and help us record some good times. We should be back to our pre-holiday times by this weekend. We’ll begin focusing on some longer distances in preparation for the three-day conference meet. I’ve been very happy and impressed with the work ethic of our athletes.”

Now in their last third of the season, the Scots have just five meets left before the conference meet and you can bet Yez is hoping that his athletes’ work ethic combined with conditioning and a Christmas addition will springboard them closer to a league title.

RESTED AND READY

It’s not often a coach would like his team to take a month off after the first third of the season, but that’s exactly what the men’s basketball team did.

Mark Vershaw is looking at the up side of going four weeks without any game action.

“Our football guys got some much-needed rest,” reported Vershaw of Alex Tanney, Kyle Weyeneth, David Milroy and Cory Bishop.

The foursome were part of the football team’s record-breaking season and didn’t hit the hardwood until the seventh game of the season on Dec. 5 – just a week after their 12-game gridiron season ended. After facing a pair of Division II schools and a Top 25 team in the first seven games, the Fighting Scots as a whole needed a bit of a break and took a little over a week off from practice over the holidays.

“We’re trying to shake off a little bit of rust, but they actually had a little more energy to them than I expected,” reported Vershaw of the first few practices. “You never enjoy a month off without any games, but we’ll get some positives out of the down time. We had an opportunity to work on some things and we’ve really approached this as a chance to restart our season.”

The Scots’ approach to 2009 as a new season with 13 games – all conference – remaining began last night with an 86-72 loss to Illinois College.

Unlike the Scots, the Blue Boys had played three games since Monmouth last took the court. That little difference resulted in IC nailing nearly 60 percent of their 3-pointers – they average less than 30 percent on the year.

The Scot showed some resiliency in the loss. After falling behind by as much as 18 points with 3:50 left in the first half, Monmouth came charging back and trimmed the halftime deficit to just seven when Zach Ott and Tanney hit a two and a three, respectively in the final 1:34.

Monmouth carried that momentum into the second half. Consecutive baskets by Eric Cogdill and a trey by Ott pulled the Scots to within two less than two minutes into the second half. Another bucket by Cogdill in the paint tied the game at 44-44, but the Blue Boys slowly pulled away and were able to maintain a double-digit lead throughout much of the rest of the half.

Ott and Cogdill scored 16 points each and Weyeneth was a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line to finish with 10 points.

Vershaw will take his team to Galesburg Tuesday to face a Knox squad led by Monmouth alum Rob Purlee ’04. Purlee is in his first season at the helm of the Prairie Fire and will face his alma mater in the 200^th meeting of the teams. The Scots own a 115-84 advantage in the series which began in 1907 and are riding a three-game win streak against the Fire.

Read between the lines – Vershaw is unbeaten coaching against Knox.

“I think I have a better feel this year of how our conference works,” claimed Vershaw. “We’ve now seen everyone first-hand and know how it is to play the weekend double-headers. We had to base everything last year on second-hand information. We’ve now seen the Grinnell system in person and have that first-hand knowledge.”

The Scots won’t face the Grinnell “system” until the end of the month – thank you very much. They’ll host perennial power Lawrence next weekend, giving Vershaw’s troops time to get reacquainted with actual game time.

“Tanney and Weyeneth did a great job of jumping straight from football to basketball,” praised Vershaw who didn’t lose sight of his contributors through the first two months. “Corey Turner has done a nice job for us having the best season of his career. Ott and Cogdill have filled some gaps for us. We have a bunch of guys who will get a look. We’ll see who can step it up in our final two months. The next couple of weeks should give us a clear indication of where we stand in the conference.”

A trio of players who didn’t see a lot of court time in 2008 – Curtis Oler and footballers Milroy and Bishop – could get some opportunities over the remainder of the season. Oler and Milroy average around six minutes per game through the first part of the campaign. Bishop, rehabbing an injury could be ready for his first action by the Knox contest.

Depending on how the next two months play out, Vershaw may actually begin to enjoy the long break – or not.

CAN WE GET A ‘DO OVER’ FOR 2009?

The women’s basketball team closed 2008 in pretty good fashion. Their open to 2009 may qualify them for a stint on the TLC show What Not to Wear.

The Scots were looking pretty good after last week’s 69-38 win over Cornell. Not so good after Monday’s 63-58 loss to Illinois College. Everything that went right against the Rams didn’t against the Lady Blues, giving Monmouth an 0-3 start in conference play.

A solid defensive effort combined with a pair of runs in each half gave Melissa Bittner and her charges plenty of reason to celebrate after the Cornell game.

“We played great defense,” said Bittner whose squad held the Rams to just 18 first half points. “Any time you can hold a team to 38 total points, you’re doing a good job defensively. I was surprised at how dominant we were.”

Dominant might be an understatement. The Scots held the Rams to 25 percent shooting and limited Cornell’s leading scorer to just two points.

The Scots weren’t too shabby on offense, either. Alison Andrews poured in a game-high 18 points, Justine Boone added 15 and Lindsie Pettie just missed her first double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds. 

Speaking of “just missing,” Melissa Gorski just missed becoming the first woman in Fighting Scots history to record a triple-double. The senior guard finished the game with 11 rebounds, nine points and nine assists in 35 minutes of play.

The Scots could have used some of that scoring, or defense, or anything else Monday night when they weren’t able to hold off Illinois College despite Gorski’s double-double of 14 points and 12 rebounds and Lynsey Barnard’s five 3-pointers. Leading 29-20 at halftime, Bittner says it was rebounding and finishing shots, not the Scots’ inability to deliver the knockout punch in the first half that doomed Monmouth.

“The key was our lack of rebounding and finishing,” claimed Bittner. “We got out-rebounded 59-44 and had two forwards go 3-for-22 shooting. We got dominated on the boards and we got out outplayed.”

Neither team shot exceptionally well, both hitting barely 30 percent of their shots. IC adopted a Grinnell system late in the game.

“Offensively, they just tried to bomb one from 20 feet, get the rebound and put it back in,” said Bittner. “That was their offense and it worked. We gave up 43 points in the second half because we didn’t box out.”

The Lady Blues picked up 19 second-chance points compared to 15 for the Scots, but it was the bench points that turned the tide in favor of IC. Illinois College’s bench outscored Monmouth 18-2 with IC’s 5-foot-11 forward Casey Johnson pouring in 13 points – nine points above her average.

“We had some good looks from the people we wanted to take the shots, but nothing was falling,” lamented Bittner. “I tried using my time outs to get a fire going, but IC just had more desire.”

The loss puts the Scots in a precarious position in the conference race. Their 0-3 start puts them eighth in the early season standings. With 13 games to go – seven at home – the Scots are not out of the race by any means, but the margin for error has narrowed.

“Obviously, we have dug a hole,” said Bittner. “In the past, it has usually taken about 10 wins to get into the tournament. We’re still in the hunt, but we can’t afford to lose too many more games. We’ve been inconsistent. The ‘Good Monmouth’ has to show up.”

The Scots’ game plan tonight at North Central is to find the “Good Monmouth.”

“We’ll use tonight’s game to work out some kinks,” said Bittner of her team’s final nonconference game. “We’ll work on finishing and rebounding. They’re a solid CCIW team and are a lot like the teams we’ll face in the Midwest Conference.”

Speaking of the conference, the Scots see league action Tuesday when they travel to Knox for a 5:30 tipoff. The Scots are riding a win streak against the Prairie Fire that dates back to the 2002-03 season.

Bittner is hoping the Scots can fashion a winning streak, otherwise it might be time to check out another cable show – Dirty Jobs.

FIRST HONOR OF 2009

Despite nearly a month off, Alison Andrews (Algonquin, Ill./Harry D. Jacobs) had the best game of her career and was rewarded with the Midwest Conference Performer of the Week honor in women’s basketball.

Andrews poured in a game-high 18 points in last week’s 69-38 win over Cornell. The sophomore guard shot 8-of-16 from the floor and pulled down six rebounds in the Fighting Scots’ first action since Dec. 6. Andrews also did the job defensively, recording four steals and blocking four shots.

For the season, Andrews is averaging 9.1 points and five rebounds per game. She leads the team with 10 blocked shots.

WEBCASTS RETURN     

A reminder for fans not able to attend Fighting Scots basketball games in person may watch the action on their computer by logging on to www.midwestconference.tv for live action with video and audio. The webcasts are FREE of charge.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Thurs., Jan. 8
Women’s Basketball – at North Central, 7:00 pm

Sat., Jan. 10
Swimming – hosts Lindenwood, 1:00 pm 

Tues., Jan. 13
Women’s Basketball – at Knox, 5:30 pm
Men’s Basketball – at Knox, 7:30 pm

SCOTSIVATIONAL

“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” - Marilyn Vos Savant