Counting Down the Top Five Moments from WKU in 2014
2014 was definitely a crazy but great year for WKU sports! From winning championships to the football team defeating a previously ranked Marshall team in overtime on the road occurred, I went back and relived all of the top moments of the 2014 sports season.
#5.) WKU leaves Sun Belt and goes to Conference USA:
After 32 years in the Sun Belt Conference, the Hilltoppers moved conferences to Conference USA. WKU won a total of 132 championships while being in the Sun Belt. The Tops are doing well so far in their inaugural season of the new conference. Volleyball went 30-6 and won the Conference USA championship over Rice, men’s basketball is currently 7-5 and starts conference play Sunday at home vs. Marshall, while Women’s Basketball is 11-2 and starts conference play Sunday on the road at Marshall. Oh, and football! Well, we’ll talk about that more in a bit.
#4.) Lady Topper basketball won the Sun Belt Conference championship:
On March 15th, the Lady Topper basketball team made a large comeback by scoring the final 18 out of 22 points of the game and defeated Arkansas State by a single point to win the Sun Belt Conference Championship in New Orleans to cap off a season with a 24-8 overall and 13-5 Sun Belt record.
The Lady Tops trailed by 14 at the half, but overcame a double-digit deficit to win a game for the fourth time that season. Junior Chastity Gooch led the way with 26 points and 12 rebounds while freshman guard Kendall Noble had 12. The team was selected as a No. 15 seed and was set to face No. 2 seeded Baylor in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Waco, Texas – the Lady Bears beat the Tops, 87-74, despite 23 points from Gooch, and 21 from Noble, and 18 from senior guard Bianca McGee. Also note that the Lady Tops’ junior Alexis Govan missed all of conference play and the tournament with a season-ending lower left leg injury, making the conference championship run even that much more impressive.
#3.) Hilltopper football wins first ever FBS bowl game in a wild way:
After finishing the 2014 regular season 7-5 overall, and 4-4 in Conference USA, the Hilltoppers accepted an invite to the first-ever Popeyes’ Bahamas Bowl game in Nassau, Bahamas against the Central Michigan Chippewas – the team the Tops faced in the 2012 Little Cesear’s Pizza Bowl in Detriot, Michgan, where the Tops lost by three, 24 to 21.
This time, the Hilltoppers defeated CMU, 49-48, to win their first ever FBS post-season game, but in a wild way. The Hilltoppers held a 42-14 lead at halftime, but we’re outscored 34 to seven in the second half, leading to the eventual one-point win. CMU quarterback Cooper Rush started a play reminiscent of the Music City Miracle to make the score 49-48 as time expired. The Chippewas went for the two-point conversion, but it failed and the Tops escaped with a overwhelming victory at Thomas A. Robinson Stadium. WKU quarterback Brandon Doughty was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after going 31-of-42 for 486 yards and 5 touchdowns.
#2 Brandon Doughty returns for a sixth season on The Hill:
The aforementioned Doughty was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA and will return for another season in 2015. Doughty suffered a pair of injuries hampering his complete return to the football field in both the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Once healthy, Doughty directed the Hilltopper offenses to heights never before seen in program history. He broke the school’s single-season passing record in consecutive seasons, the Conference USA single-game passing record, and the school’s career touchdown record in just two seasons as the starter of the Hilltopper football team. Doughty was a whole different player in this past season compared to the 2013 season in his first year starting. In 2013 Doughty finished the season 246-of-374 for 14 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. This past season Doughty went 375-of-552 for 4,830 yards, 49 touchdowns, and just 10 interceptions. It’ll be fun next football season considering that he and most of the offense is returning!
#1.) Hilltopper Football defeats undefeated Marshall in a rowdy one in Huntington, WV:
The Tops’ last regular season game on the gridiron was on the road in Huntington, West Virginia against a previously unbeaten and #19 Marshall. The Hilltoppers entered the game with a 6-5 overall record and a 3-4 record in Conference USA. Marshall entered the game with an 11-0, 7-0 record.
Marshall thought they would win no matter what, but it turned into one of the better games of the entire college football slate. Even before the game started, things got interesting. During pre-game warm-ups, a few Hilltoppers and Thundering Herd players got into a small brawl at midfield that led to a large brawl and exchanged blows (in terms of big plays) before and after almost every play in the ball game. The Hilltoppers won the game, 67-66, in overtime. Doughty threw a touchdown to Jared Dangerfield, then threw a complete game-winning 2-point conversion to Willie McNeal to win the game 67-66. It was the most exciting game I have ever seen and I loved every minute of it.
Those five events were on the top of my list for 2014. Yes, other great moments occurred, like when the Hilltopper baseball defeated Vanderbilt – the #4 team in the country at the time, and ended up winning it all, and that WKU swimming/diving team won the schools first Conference USA Championship.
I choose the five I did because they were very exciting and outstanding moments. Football beats a ranked team, the quarterback has an unbelievable season, Lady Tops volleyball and basketball both win championships, and the best thing was making the move from the low Sun Belt Conference to the mid Conference USA.
I have really enjoyed writing my first piece since joining in with Wave The Red Towel, and looking forward to going through 2015 with you guys!
[ed. note – Please welcome to our writing staff, Tyler Mansfield! Tyler is an all-around sports fan. He has been a huge fan and supporter of mostly all Western Kentucky since he was around five years old. He has season tickets and attends ALL home men’s and women’s baasketball games, football games, and volleyball matches with his family. He is just 16 years old, a sophomore at Warren East High School in Bowling Green, and is running his very own WKU Twitter account (@TopperTime_WKU), which covers four different WKU sports, and is now writing for Wave The Red Towel here on FanSided to cover WKU even more. He one day wants to be on the men’s basketball staff at WKU and eventually wants to have some kind of career at WKU in Athletics. GO TOPS!]