WKU Weekly Wrap-Up: 2/24-3/2

Jeff Brown – College Heights Herald

Last week was one to remember, with WKU going a collective 9-1, and a perfect 9-0 through Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This week was a much different story.

Men’s Basketball: WKU 51 – Texas State 50, WKU 73 – UT-Arlington 80
So this week saw Ray Harper’s squad win a game that they should have lost, and lose a game that they should have won. Huh?
The Tops trailed to begin the second half, and didn’t regain the lead again until 4:18 remained in the ballgame. It was a lackluster performance, the most unexciting one-point ballgame you will ever see. On Saturday, the Tops saw an 11 point lead with nearly 10 minutes to play dwindle down to a back and forth afair in the final minutes, and ultimately fell short to the Mavericks, while allowing Reger Dowell to net 37 points. The Tops were lead this week by 28 points from T.J. Price, along with 10 rebounds from George Fant in the split week. Only two contests remain – senior night Thursday against the Ragin Cajuns, and then, the rematch we have all been waiting for, a trip to Atlanta to duke it out with out-right Sun Belt Champions, Georgia State.

Women’s Basketball: WKU 75 – Texas State 45, WKU 94 – UT-Arlington 70
The women refuse…REFUSE I SAY…to slow their roll. And that’s a-okay. Michelle Clark-Heard and her squad have won not only their fifth straight game, but have done so by winning by at least 24 points. Yeah. It’s pretty fantastic. The ladies got off to a 27-2 start against the Bobcats on Wednesday, while they shot lights out from the floor…57.6% to be exact…to blow past the Mavericks. Chastity Gooch netted 31 points in the two games, while Kendall Noble had a monster game against UTA, leading all scorers with 22. Only two games remain for the ladies as well, Wednesday’s senior night against Louisiana-Lafayette and the season finale in Atlanta against the Lady Panthers.

Baseball: WKU 3 – Vanderbilt 2, WKU 1 – East Carolina 2 (F/10), WKU 4 – Ohio State 5, WKU 3 – Pittsburgh 2 (F/11)
Raise your hand if you’re tiered in playing in one-run ballgames!
While the Vandy win was amazing, it did set expectations a little high for this weekend, and made the Tops’ appearance in the Keith LeClair Classic a disappointment. The bullpen combined for allowing 9 runs over the weekend, and 8 of those came in the 7th inning or later. On the flip side, the Toppers only scored twice past the 7th inning, and one of those came to end the weekend on a Ty Downing walk-off single to beat Pitt (thank goodness). All three weekend starters – Justin Hageman, Austin Clay and Jake Thompson – went 6 innings, which set a new career high for Thompson. There was no consistency on offense, however, but the three big guns of Ryan Church, Cody Wofford and Scott Willcox combined for seven hits in 37 at-bats, and 3 RBI.
Also, with his performance against Vandy, it surprised me that Josh Bartley didn’t win Sun Belt Conference Pitcher of the Week.

Softball: WKU 5 – Green Bay 6, WKU 3 – Northern Iowa 6, WKU 7 – Indiana State 2, WKU 8 – Wright State 5
The Lady Tops hosted their second tournament in two weeks out at Buchanan Park, and split the four games that they got to play (the ladies were supposed to play IUPUI on Sunday, but the weather caused that to not happen). Friday was rough, as freshman pitcher Hannah Miniard, who has been stellar all season so far, gave up four runs in the top of the 7th to allow Green Bay to take the lead for good, and against UNI, the Tops couldn’t get anything going offensively, and fell to the Panthers. Saturday, however, was a much better day, as the offense came alive and the pitching was more similar to last year as they swept what would turn out to be final day action. Amy Tudor’s squad will head to Knoxville (if the weather is good) this weekend for the Tennessee Tournament.

Swimming and Diving
WKU is still several months away from joining Conference USA to join all sports, but the men’s swim and dive squads have the first ever C-USA championship for WKU! The team went down to Georgia Tech over the weekend and won with a total of 1,225 points (with final-year member East Carolina finishing second with 1,038). Swim and Dive coach Bruce Marchionda was named conference Swimming Coach of the Year for the second year in a row. The Lady Toppers swim squad finished fourth.

Hope everyone is staying safe with the winter weather out there. The plus side – classes have been cancelled for two days now! Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but it’s here!

Until next week, stand up and cheers.