A ROAD LESS TRAVELED

The road to the Midwest Conference baseball tournament got a little rougher last weekend.

The Scots had their strategy mapped out – Sweep at home, split on the road. After splitting the MWC’s first two home stands with Grinnell and Illinois College, the Scots may want to put their navigation system in reverse when they meet the Pioneers and Blue Boys on the road later this season – that is "We split at home, so let’s sweep on the road."

The double header split with IC at Glasgow Field was at the very least, entertaining. The Blue Boys had leads in both games, and in both games, the outcome was decided in the last inning.

The Scots spotted the Blue Boys three runs in the first inning of Game 1 and found themselves trailing 5-0 going into the bottom of the third. That’s when Monmouth made it interesting. Jake Virgo led off the inning with a double, Kevin Sashko then reached on an error. After Willy Mason laid down a sacrifice bunt, senior slugger Jake Bice stepped to the plate and blasted a three-run homer to trim it to 5-3. (Too bad the Scots didn’t know Bice planned on smacking one out of the ball park, or we could have saved the sacrifice for later.) With two outs, Matt McIntire’s base hit brought home Ryan Priola with the fourth run of the inning.

IC added solo runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh and entered the bottom of the eighth with an 8-4 lead.

Hmmmm, we’re down by four, guess it’s time to start hitting again. In order – a walk, three base hits, a hit batsman and an error later it’s 8-8 and a whole new ballgame – again. Chaz Baggio supplied two RBIs in the crucial frame and scored the final run of the inning.

We move into the top of the ninth and former Scot Mark Allemang, who transferred to IC over the summer, opened the inning with a walk. A sacrifice and a fly out later, he’s at third with two outs. Enter junior pitcher Drew Johnson to face leadoff hitter Adam Baran.

(Insert your favorite radio play-by-play announcer’s voice here) – "Here’s Johnson’s first offering and it’s popped up to short to end the inning. The Blue Boys strand the go-ahead run at third and the Scots will have a chance in the bottom of the ninth."

With 10 guys in the bullpen, what put Johnson was at the top of Roger Sander’s list to get the final out? "He’s the best I’ve got in that situation," said Sander. "He’s a tough competitor who throws hard and I was confident he wasn’t going to walk anybody."

Bottom of the ninth, tied at 8-8 and pinch hitter Brian Wilhelm’s only job is to get on base – somehow. A lead off walk will do. After McIntire singles and Billy Herrin pops out to third, Baggio used his body, not his bat this time to help the Scots. Baggio is the fifth player hit in the game and he loads the bases for No. 9 hitter Jake Virgo.

What? We’ve got the nine hitter up? Oh, well, there’s only one out, so if he just doesn’t hit into a double play, we’ll get back to the top of the order.

Virgo may have been in the nine spot, but Sander knew what he was doing with his speedy junior. Virgo produced the game-winner with his second hit of the day driving in Wilhelm to give the Scots a dramatic 9-8 win.

"Pinch hitting for him (Virgo) never even crossed my mind," said Sander. "He struggled early this season, but I told him I wouldn’t lose confidence in him. If I had pinch hit for him, I wouldn’t have shown confidence in him. He got a hit earlier in the game and he has his stroke back."

The outcome means Johnson got the win, giving up no runs, no hits and walking no one in 1/3 innings of work.

How’s that for efficiency? One pitch, one win.

"That just isn’t right," chuckled student worker Jay Grant, who played high school ball with Johnson at United High School. Not that Johnson’s high school teammate doesn’t think he’s a quality pitcher, but it’s like the kid who never studies and gets straight A’s.

"What a great comeback," said Sander of his team’s rally for the win. "We got down against the returning conference pitcher of the year and Virgo gets a clutch hit to win it."

The Scots were denied any late-inning heroics in Game 2, falling 4-3. Much like the first game, Monmouth trialed 3-0 going into the bottom of the seventh before mounting an attack. Bice drove in another run and Priola’s double scored Bice and pinch runner Willy Mason to make it 3-3. Baran led off the IC ninth with a single and came home on Clint Wherley’s double. This time it was the Scots who stranded a runner at third in the ninth when the Blue Boys recorded three straight outs following a lead off walk of Baggio.

"The only thing that bothered me in the second game was that after a dramatic win, we didn’t come out and bury IC in the first couple of innings," lamented Sander. "We came out dull in the second game. If we put five runs on the board early, we deliver the knockout punch. We’re lacking that killer instinct right now."

While a Scots sweep would have been nice, it’s not desperation time. Monmouth sits just one game out of first place and will get a chance at payback Saturday when they meet the Blue Boys in Jacksonville for a double header.

With one key hit in the second game, the tables would be reversed this weekend and the Scots would be sitting in the driver’s seat at 3-1 instead of riding shotgun at 2-2. "We need to play just a little better and more consistently," said Sander.

After a week off the Monmouth College track team got back into competition at the Wartburg Select meet held in Waverly, Iowa, Saturday. The men placed second in the 10-team field and the women were fifth.

"It was typical after a week off," said Roger Haynes. "Some of our kids were pretty solid and some were disappointed. That’s pretty typical of a meet this time of year after a week off. I’m confident the ones who were down a bit will rebound and we’ll be back up in a week or two."

Some of those "solid" performances came from the Scots women. Senior Megan Clennon took a pair of firsts, winning the high jump and javelin. Her personal-best high jump mark of 5’5-3/4 qualified her provisionally for next month’s national meet and currently ranks her second. Heather Hull tied for seventh in the event at 4’9. Clennon also had a personal-best in the javelin, winning with a throw of 115’9. Cassie Jensen and Hull finished 6-7 in the javelin with distances of 99’10 and 98’5, respectively. "The three women did very well in the javelin," reported Haynes. "For Heather and Cassie to start the season with throws near 100 feet is a very good sign."

Jenny Babos also claimed a pair of firsts, winning the shot put and the discus with provisional marks in both. Her mark of 42’3-1/4 in the shot ranks her first in the Midwest Conference and the discus throw of 141’8 is second in the league. Gloria Lehr took fourth in the shot at 41’2-1/4. Jessica White’s winning height of 11’11-3/4 in the pole vault improved her provisional mark. Whitney Didier placed sixth with a personal-best height of 10’11-3/4.

Shannon Turczyn gained praise from Haynes with three quality performances. "Shannon probably had the best meet of anyone considering her combination of races," said Haynes. "Her performance in the hurdles will place her very high on the national list, and that’s the best she’s run at this point of the season. She helped herself in the conference’s 100 and 200 meters as well."

Turczyn took first in the 100-meter hurdles, turning in a provisional qualifying and national-best time of 14.43. The junior placed seventh in the 200, running a 26.77, and ran a personal and conference-best 12.74 in the 100 prelims, but did not run in the finals. Haynes credits Turczyn’s sprint races with actually helping her in her signature event, the 100 hurdles. Another hurdler, Katey Vaccarello ran to a seventh place in the 400 hurdles, clocking a conference-best time of 1:10.49.

Other personal-best marks for the women came from Katie Staab in the 800-meters (2:25.72, 15th); steeplechasers Jayme Ayers (13:31.75, 10th) and Sara Ditzler (13:48.00, 12th); and hammer throwers Lehr (125’2, 9th), Allison Renfroe (123’0, 12th) and Samantha Bleyaert (107’6, 17th).

The Scots men had a double winner in Luke Reschke. The junior won the 200 and 400 meters with times of 22.54 and 48.82, respectively. Both times lead the conference. Aaron Daverin was second in the 200 with a time of 22.76. The time also ranks him second in the MWC. He also placed fourth in the 100 finishing in 11.06. Jacob Stott clocked a 49.55 in the 400, finishing third. Reschke, Daverin and Stott were joined by Brad Gross on the second-place 4x400 team. The foursome improved their conference-best time, clocking a 3:18.45. They also combined to run a 42.32 in the 4x100 relay for a third-place finish. Gross took fifth in the 400 hurdles with a conference-best time of 56.80.

"The four had a good weekend," said Haynes of Gross, Reschke, Stott and Daverin. "They were very solid in their individual events and the relays."

Adam Rodriguez turned in a conference-best time of 1:58.22 while placing seventh in the 800. Steeplechasers Clay Staley and Seth Leitner placed 7-8 in the event with times of 9:56.31 and 10:00.88, respectively.

Peter Sprecher and Jonny Henkins continued their dominance in the pole vault, finishing 1-2 despite competing in cooling air after dark. "They didn’t finish the vaulting until after dark," reported Haynes. "They had basically been at the meet about 11 hours. That’s not an ideal situation, but they handled it and vaulted well."

Sprecher automatically qualified for the outdoor nationals with a personal and nation’s best height of 17’0-3/4. Henkins improved on his automatic qualifying mark, clearing a personal-best 16’6-1/2. Freshman Brock McAnally placed seventh with a personal-best 14’11-1/4 in the pole vault.

Competing in the long jump, Sheridan Ray and Michael Blodgett continued the 1-2 finishes in the field events. Ray won the event, jumping 21’9-1/2. Blodgett was just inches behind at 21’5-1/4. "The highlight of the weekend had to be the performance of Sheridan and Michael in the long jump," praised Haynes. "Their 1-2 finish against that type of competition was impressive."

Zach Wilson took a pair of seconds in the throws. His second place hammer throw of 176’5 was a provisional qualifying mark and he threw the shot 48’0-3/4, placing second. Sam Cokinos and Peyton Lumzy placed 7-8 in the shot with marks of 45’5-3/4 and 44’11-3/4, respectively. Wilson placed fifth in the discus at 141’1. Lumzy was eighth with a mark of 135’2. Tyler Hannam cleared 6’1-1/4 to finish eighth in the high jump. Daniel Higgins scored points for the Scots in the javelin. The junior placed third with a throw of 175’9. "Daniel and Emmanuel Minter (150’5, 9th) had good performances in the javelin," said Haynes.

Other personal-best for the men came in the hammer throw where Lumzy logged a mark of 122’10 (17th), Shawn Allen recorded a throw of 121’2 (19th) and Cokinos reached 109’5 (23rd).

"We felt we were solid in the events we competed in," said Haynes. "We can always run some different combinations to score better, but that’s not our objective in these meets. Our main goal is to improve and get better and I feel like we’re accomplishing that."

For the first time this season, the Scots swept the Midwest Conference Performer of the Week honors. Reschke and Sprecher took the men’s track and field honors, respectively, and Turczyn and Clennon were the winners of the women’s track and field awards.

The Scots travel to Macomb and Western Illinois University for the annual Lee Calhoun Memorial Invitational this Saturday beginning at 9:00 a.m.

TENNIS’ MARATHON MAN…AND THE REST OF THE CAST

No one can question Eric Brandhorst’s dedication to the men’s tennis team and to the theater.

Brandhorst plays No. 4 singles and No. 2 doubles for the tennis team and the role of Senator Fipp for the theater department’s production last weekend of "Urinetown." That created a logistical problem for the junior thespian. The Scots had a double dual in Lake Forest Saturday and Brandhorst had a key role in the theater production Friday and Saturday night.

What to do?

That’s the easy part. Perform in the play Friday night, drive with assistant coach Brian Jordan to the team’s hotel in suburban Chicago, in bed around 2 a.m., up for the team meal at 7:30 a.m., play two singles and two doubles matches beginning at 9 a.m., drive four hours (without speeding, of course) back to Monmouth for the Saturday night performance.

Whew!

On top of all that, Brandhorst and doubles partner Ben Morrow were the only Scots to pick up three total wins on the day – two in doubles and one each in singles as the Scots fell to Lake Forest 8-1 and defeated Carroll 6-3. "They had a great weekend," said Chad Braun of Brandhorst and Morrow’s performance. "If they can follow that up with good outings in the next couple of weeks, they could get a pretty good seed for the conference tournament."

The pair beat a "very talented" No. 2 Lake Forest doubles team 8-5 and followed that with an 8-3 win over Carroll. "They probably played their best match of the year against Lake Forest," praised Braun. "It was a very hot day and we haven’t been out in that, so they had to dig down deep to keep the energy level up in the Carroll match."

While the Lake Forest match counted in the Southern Division standings, the Carroll match had no impact on the team status, but will have implications on the singles and doubles conference pairings. "Our guys played hard all day," said Braun, whose team could have packed in it after falling to the Foresters. "We lost two of the three doubles matches against Carroll and it would have been easy to just roll over, but the guys showed a lot of character in coming back to win the match."

The Scots got straight set singles wins against the Pioneers with Kyle Korb, Kevin Kamenjarin and Brandhorst at No. 1, 2 and 4. The wins at Nos. 3 and 5 didn’t come so easily.

Coming off the heels of a pair of doubles wins, Morrow scored a 7-6, 4-6, 6-1 win at No. 5 singles against he Pioneers. Sam Graf won a 0-6, 7-6, 6-4 three set marathon at No. 3 and drew praise from his coach. "He played a very good match against Lake Forest and ran out of gas a little bit at the start of the Carroll match," reported Braun. "Sam and Ben’s matches were huge wins for us. If they don’t gut out a win, we lose the match. That shows a lot of character from two freshmen to beat two upperclassmen in that situation."

Monmouth hosted Knox yesterday afternoon in a match delayed a day by rain. The Scots downed the Fire 8-1. Kamenjarin, Graf, Brandhorst and Tony Castro won in straight sets, although Castro won his in thrilling fashion 7-6 (10-6), 6-3. Morrow won a 6-2, 2-6, 11-9 squeaker at No. 5 singles and Korb fell at No. 1 singles in yet another three-setter – 1-6, 2-6, 10-8.

The Scots have a busy weekend this week with a match Friday in Beloit and a double dual vs. St. Norbert and Illinois College Saturday. At least this weekend, Brandhorst won’t have to pack his theater costume.

YOU ARE HEARBY SERVED…

Sorry, this isn’t a supplemental to the tennis story.

"I think we’ve served notice that we’re a serious contender to return to the conference tournament," said softball coach John Goddard after the team’s conference opener with division favorite Lake Forest.

Goddard found optimism despite the Foresters 6-5, 13-6 sweep of the Scots on Sunday. "We were just one error and one missed pitch location from winning that game," he said of the Scots Game 1 loss.

The Scots had taken a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the sixth when Emily Willems’ base hit drove in Maggie Dort, who led off the inning with a double, and Ashley Parer who had reached on an error. The Scots were just three outs away from giving the Foresters their first conference loss and were just about to negate a leadoff error when disaster struck. After the error, a pop out, a base hit and a foul out, LFC was down to their last out when designated player Christy Condon launched an 0-2 pitch over the left center field fence for a 6-5 lead. The Foresters put the Scots down in order in the bottom of the seventh to secure the win.

"We out-hit them and fielded better than they did in that game," said Goddard. "We were thinking at least a split when we started that game. We had a lot of momentum and confidence after sweeping Rose-Hulman last week."

The Scots jumped on the Foresters in the first inning of the nightcap when Dort connected on a three-run homer after fouling off eight straight pitches to score Willems and Kembra Bell, who collected five hits on the day. The Foresters regained the momentum in the third, scoring seven runs on four hits, a walk and two errors. The Scots closed the gap with a single run in the fifth but were unable to complete the comeback.

The Scots stumbled a bit in a split with Knox last night, dropping the opener 4-3, but taking the nightcap 4-3. That’s no typo, identical scores and similar scenarios.

The Scots scored three runs in the third inning of Game 1when Anna Coutts’ sac fly drove in Val Stier prior to Dort hammering her second two-run homer in as many games. The Prairie Fire, trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh, scored two runs, one a lead off homer and the other on an RBI single to win 4-3.

Fast forward to the bottom of the seventh in Game 2 where Monmouth is the home team in the conference twinbill and trailing 3-2. Natalie Giannini pinch hits for Maggie Scudella and gets drilled with the first pitch. (Bet Maggie’s glad Goddard pinch hit for her now.) With one out, Coutts steps to the plate and promptly gets plunked. Runners at first and second and one out. Bell’s base hit drives in Giannini with the tying run and moves Coutts to third. With long ball threat Dort up, Coutts races home with the winning run on a wild pitch. A wild finish to a wild day.

"Now we control our own destiny," said Goddard whose team is 1-3 in league play. "We know what we have to do at the Midwest Conference Classic this weekend and in our final division games with Illinois College and Grinnell. We’re getting good outings from our pitchers and are beginning to turn the corner. We hit the ball extremely well in both games, the difference was we found the holes in the second game and didn’t in the first."

Kristin Bickett had the hot bat for the Scots against the Fire, going 4-for-6 on the day. Bell drove in two runs on two hits and Dort added a homer and two RBIs.

Next up, the MWC Classic in Janesville, Wis. this weekend.

SO, THIS IS WHAT IT’S LIKE AT ST. ANDREWS

The men’s golf team got a glimpse of how it is to play in the British Open – and they didn’t even have to cross the big pond.

The final round of the Loras Duhawk Open in Dubuque, Iowa, was played in 25 mph winds with a wind chill near freezing and plenty of clouds. The Scots didn’t fare too well in the less-than-idea conditions, carding a 311-330-641 to slip from sixth to eighth in the field of 22.

"I think it was colder than 32," said coach Dave Ragone of the wind chill. "The second round conditions were brutal, but there were guys that shot in the low 70s and some teams carded low scores, so there’s no excuse why we couldn’t have shot better in those conditions."

Although Monmouth didn’t reach their Round 1 target score of 310 or under, they were close with the 311. Still, Ragone says it could have been better. "We left a lot of strokes out on the course on the first day," he said.

Freshman Rodney Clayton was the only Scot to improve his score on the second day. His 84-79-163 tied teammate Ryan Harvey for 43rd. Harvey shot rounds of 79-84-163. Clayton’s second round 79 could have been a 77 if not for bogeys on the last two holes. So why the improvement under worse weather conditions?

"Putting," explained Ragone. "He had seven fewer putts on the second day. That was the case for everyone the first day, we just didn’t putt too well."

Clayton’s classmate, Jason Pinns, was the top Scot. He toured the course at 77-81-158, good for a tie for 20th. Ryan Tapscott ballooned from an opening round 76 to an 86 on Day 2 for a 162 total and a tie for 36th. Tapscott’s score could have been even better on Day 1 if not for a double bogey on his last hole. Aaron Thiel rounded out the Scots group finishing in a tie for 66th with a 79-89-168.

"Jason was pretty solid last weekend," said Ragone of Pinns’ top 20 finish. "Ryan had an excellent opening round, too. The down side to our weekend was we slipped two spots. We want to gain positions on the second day, not lose them."

The Scots take two teams of five to the Quad Cities for the Augustana Invitational Friday and Saturday and play at Springfield Monday. With just three weeks until the Midwest Conference Championship, Ragone’s search for his top six golfers is kicking into high gear. He may have to stay up late to figure it out. Nine of his top ten players are within four strokes of each other.

Maybe they could play a golf version of dodge ball to sort it out.

THE LONGEST SEASON

Thanks to a "split" season the men’s and women’s golf and tennis teams can lay claim to playing the longest seasons of any varsity sport.

All four teams began some sort of competition last fall and will compete in their final events this spring. Fall is the primary season for the women’s golf and tennis teams while the men’s golf and tennis teams compete primarily in the spring. That means the women play just a handful of events in March and April and the men compete in two or three events in September and October.

The women’s tennis team was the first this spring to close out their season. Kerry Frantz’ troops wrapped up their campaign falling to Augustana 9-0 but finished the season tying the school record for most wins in a season at seven.

While the Scots were swept in straight sets in all six singles matches, Brittany Donnelly didn’t go down easy. Playing at No. 2 singles, the junior battled Augustana’s Tricia Crawford and nearly forced a third set before falling 6-2, 7-5. Emily Isaacs and Karen Skadow had the closest match in doubles, falling at No. 2 to the Vikings’ Alli Bernardi and Jenna Richardson 8-5.

With no seniors on the roster, Scots appear to be in good shape to improve on their record-tying season when they return to play in September.