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JDM to cover games in San Antonio
sports Thursday, 21 March 2013 // The Collegian4
CHRIS BILS @ChrisBils
With 11:46 to play in Monday’s
NCAA Midwest Regional Final at
Kates Gymnasium, it looked like
the dream might be about to die.
Ashland found itself down
50-42 and struggling to stop the
bleeding after Wayne State came
out of halftime on a 24-6 run.
Senior forward Kari
Daugherty—who scored a com-
bined 63 points and grabbed 27
rebounds in the two previous tour-
nament games—sat on the bench
with three fouls.
But after the final buzzer
sounded, it was AU head coach
Sue Ramsey who raised her hands
in celebration and swung the net
over her head after the Eagles
secured a 72-63 victory and a sec-
ond-straight trip to the Elite Eight.
It took a lot of people to get
there.
“These young ladies are amaz-
ing,” Ramsey said.
It was senior forward Daiva
Gerbec, drawing the third foul on
WSU’s Juanita Cochran seconds
later.
It was Daugherty, coming back
in the game to score eight points
down the stretch and finish with
team-highs of 17 points and 15
rebounds after a dismal shooting
display in the first half.
It was senior forward Beth
Mantkowski, playing the four big-
gest minutes of her life, including
back-to-back buckets that tied the
game at 58 with 6:08 to play.
“Every day in practice as we’re
rotating people around, she’s like
‘I got it,’” Ramsey said. “And she
had it.”
It was junior guard Alyssa
Miller, finding her jump shot at
the most crucial time to tie it again
at 60 a little over a minute later.
It was sophomore guard Taylor
Woods, coming out fearless, drain-
ing 4 of 5 3-pointers in the first
half and making several big plays
near the end—including a huge
steal and run-out with 2:58 to play
that extended a one-point lead to
a 64-61 advantage.
And Miller again, draining
another jump shot while getting
fouled and draining the free throw
to make it 67-61.
It was the crowd of 2,832 that
packed Kates, rising at the right
times and chanting ‘DEFENSE’
at the top of their lungs when the
team desperately needed stops.
“They totally get and embrace
what these young ladies are all
about, and that’s the beautiful
thing,” Ramsey said.
It was a close-knit team dig-
ging deep and remembering the
principles that got them there,
something that is much easier said
than done when the walls are clos-
ing in on a season that has taken
on a life of its own.
“I thought (assistant) coach
(Jennifer) Bushby said it really well
when she said, ‘Do what we’ve
done all year,’” Ramsey said.
“‘Don’t play for the crowd, don’t
play for anyone else, but play
for each other and play for the
Lord.’”
Ashland started the game on
fire, hitting its first three attempts
from 3-point range to jump out to
a 9-4 lead, and extended the lead
to seven on a fast break layup by
senior guard Lindsay Tenyak.
That got the crowd on their
feet and forced a timeout from
WSU head coach Carrie Lohr.
The hot start would not last.
Despite a stellar display from
Woods — who had 12 points in
the first period and finished with
17 points, five rebounds and three
assists — the Eagles shot just 35.1
percent (13 of 37) in the first peri-
od and went into the locker room
up 10 (36-26) after the Warriors’
Talisha Bridges drained a 25-foot
3-pointer at the buzzer.
Daugherty had just three
points at halftime on 1 of 7 shoot-
ing and Gerbec had six points (3
of 7) in a physical battle down low.
The Warriors grabbed the
momentum out of the break
starting with a 3-pointer by Lena
Thomas and took the lead when
Deanna Crumpton scored to
make it 42-40 with 14:38 left.
Then, Wayne State used their
advantage with Cochran down
low to extend that lead over the
next several minutes.
Cochran finished with 15
points and 17 rebounds, including
eight on the offensive end, and
five blocks.
“I tried to do more pull-ups
and attack the high post instead of
banging inside because Juanita’s
gonna win the banging battle
every time,” Daugherty said.
Bridges was also a force. She
had 18 points and nine rebounds,
none bigger than the shot before
halftime.
Bridges and Cochran were
joined on the all-tournament team
by Woods, Gerbec (11 points, 10
rebounds) and Michigan Tech’s
Sam Hoyt.
Daugherty was named the
player of the tournament.
Miller was the fourth Ashland
player in double digits with
12 points, four assists and two
rebounds.
Ashland and Wayne State each
had 48 rebounds, but the Warriors
held a 23-17 advantage on the
offensive glass.
“It was a battle for us,” Ramsey
said. “We knew that was gonna be
an important factor in the game.”
Afterwards, Ramsey addressed
the crowd on the loudspeaker and
thanked what felt like the entire
city of Ashland for its support.
“This has been absolutely
wonderful,” she said. “We have
the best fans in the nation. Thank
you for believing in us and sup-
porting us.”
Ashland moves on to face
Gannon at 9:30 p.m. next Tuesday
at Bill Greehey Arena on the cam-
pus of Saint Mary’s University in
San Antonio.
The other teams making the
trip to Texas are No. 24 Augustana
(S.D.), No. 1 Clayton State, No. 10
Dowling, No. 4 Colorado Mesa,
Nova Southeastern and No. 5
Western Washington.
The Department of Jour-
nalism and Digital Media is
sending a crew of students
and staff to San Antonio to
cover the women’s basketball
team’s run at a national cham-
pionship.
“We are excited to send
our students down to San
Antonio,” said JDM chair
Gretchen Dworznik. “It’s an
excellent opportunity for them
to get some real-world experi-
ence for their resumes, as well
as a great time for us to show
what JDM students can do.”
The department will be
producing content for www.
ashlandcollegian.com as well
as the JDM Facebook page.
WRDL 88.9 will stream
broadcasts of the Eagles
NCAA games, with Colle-
gian sports editor Chris Bils
and WRDL sports announcer
Colin MacDonald calling the
games.
Additionally, Collegian
photo editor Elizabeth Bu-
cheit will be shooting still pho-
tographs of the games as well
as behind-the-scenes photos
of the Eagles’ trip.
Photo galleries will be post-
ed on The Collegian’s website
throughout the week and
on the JDM Facebook page,
which can be found at www.
facebook.com/JDMatAU.
JDM operations man-
ager John Skrada and JDM
alum Dan Shade will be in
San Antonio producing video
highlights from the games as
well as video interviews with
players, coaches and other
AU representatives in Texas.
Finally, you can follow the trip
on Twitter with @ChrisBils
and @AshlandJDM.
“We think we are in a
unique position to be able
to provide coverage that you
won’t be able to get anywhere
else,” Dworznik said. “The
community really loves this
team and we hope they will
take advantage of what we are
going to offer.”
Dworznik said the depart-
ment will use social media
extensively during the week of
games.
“Social media provides
a great platform for us to be
able to provide coverage of
the team that is easily acces-
sible,” she said. “We plan to
offer new content each day so
that people can keep up with
the team even though they are
far away.”
PHOTOS ABOVE BY HALEE HEIRONIMUSPHOTOS BELOW BY TYLER REMMEL
The women’s basketball team is head-ed back to Texas for the Elite Eight after 72-63 victory over Wayne State in the NCAA Midwest Regional ! nal on Monday night. The Eagles played in front of a record crowd for women’s basketball with 2,832 fans packing Kates Gymnasium in its ! nal game before it undergoes renovations.
Keeping the dream alive
ashlandcollegian.com // Thursday, 21 March 2013 sports 5
In that mo-ment, you
really think, ‘I have come
so far.’”
Richard Quicknational champion
CHRIS BILS @ChrisBils
Set aside the speed at which they can run or swim, the dis-tances that they can throw and the heights they can vault and jump. Forget about all of that stuff for a second.
College athletes are amazing. They have all of the classes and commitments as most regular stu-dents, and then they have more: morning practice, class, afternoon practice, dinner, homework, sleep, repeat. The stress and monotony of it all can be overwhelming and downright awful.
All of these athletes—over 100,000 compete at the Division II level—do all of that in search of one thing: a national champi-onship. They all have the dream of lifting a trophy and being able to say that no one in the United States of America (or Simon Fra-ser University in Canada) is better than them at what they do.
When all of the events were over and the dust had settled at the Division II National Champion-ship Festival in Birmingham, Ala. on March 9, 10 Ashland athletes had accomplished that feat.
Julie Widmann and Rachel Aus-denmoore, junior Gaby Verdugo-Arzaluz and freshman Kaylyn Murphy. The quartet won the women’s 200-yard freestyle relay at the national swim meet March 7.
Widmann started things off with a 50-yard split of 22.60 sec-onds, which was her fastest time ever and just .04 off the national record.
“I really needed that because
that was the only way that our re-lay was gonna do well was if we all went best times,” Widmann said.
Murphy (22.76) and Ausden-moore (22.43) kept that advantage before Verdugo-Arzaluz (23.41)
time of 1:32.20, which was 0.49 seconds faster than Wayne State.
For Widmann, it was her 23rd NCAA trophy and the fourth na-tional title (three relays, one in-dividual) of her storied career. In four years, she was recognized as an All-American in 27 events.
She has more experience with the feeling of winning a nation-al championship trophy than any other current AU athlete.
“There’s a shelf at my house and we put them up and just to look at that is
cause I can just take a deep breath and know that I did something at college that I’m really proud of,” Widmann said.
At this year’s meet she took second in the 50 freestyle and the 100 backstroke and was on relay
freestyle (Long, Ausdenmoore,
relay (freshman Elizabeth Long, Ausdenmoore, Murphy), 12th in the 400 medley relay (junior Sara Reidler, freshman Hannah Mat-tar, Murphy) and 12th in the 400 freestyle relay (Murphy, Ausden-moore, Verdugo-Arzaluz).
nior Richard Quick realized his dream of winning the national championship in the weight throw.
68-feet, 3.25-inches, and after two
round nobody had topped it.“It actually felt easy,” Quick
said. “I haven’t had a throw feel like that in over a year.”
The mark was over four feet further than those of second-place
Ryan Smith from the University of Indianapolis and Ashland senior Garret Grey, who each threw 64-feet, 10-inches. Grey lost the tie-
ished third.The Eagles
place with the 63-foot throw by sophomore Zac Ball. That put Ashland on top of the men’s team standings
day and made a statement to the
“We’re the Ashland University Eagles and we’re gonna kick your ass,” Quick said.
The performance by the throwers inspired the rest of the team, including senior pole-vault-er Katie Nageotte.
“It was so motivating and in-
day and just realizing that it could be anybody’s day,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what you were ranked coming in.”
she too brought a national title to
Ashland on March 8 with a vault of 13-feet, 11.25-inches. There
(14-feet, 3.25-inches) when she
attempt and missed.Fortunately, the standards were
not set when she was told to go
and said that the vault would not count. Nageotte was told she could go again right away or wait until the other competitors had made their attempts.
She chose to wait — knowing that she held the tiebreaker — and watched both of them hit the bar.
“As soon as the second girl missed I looked up at my mom and my family up in the stands and I just started smiling. It was kind of surreal,” Nageotte said.
The moment was extra spe-cial for Nageotte because of ev-erything she has gone through in her college career. After starting off at Dayton, she transferred to AU when her coach left after her sophomore year. As a junior, she had mono for most of the indoor season and struggled to get her momentum back in the spring.
At one point, some of her teammates never thought she was going to vault well again and were trying to convince vault coach Denny Steele to let her quit. After
the summer, she came back ready to give it one last shot.
“I can do this,” Nageotte told herself. “This is my sport. Go out and get it.”
When Steele handed her the trophy on top of the podium, the emotion of being the best in the nation rushed over her.
“It was just amazing to know that everything that I had been working toward had paid off,” she
said.Despite some jaw-dropping
performances from Ashland ath-letes, there was one that stood above the rest at the festival.
Sophomore Drew Windle blew
run with a time of 1:48.75 and ran a key leg in the Eagles’ 1600-meter relay victory that secured second-place overall in the men’s team standings.
tional championships of his career within two hours of each other and was named the National In-door Track Athlete of the Year.
“It’s really special just to repre-sent Ashland in that way,” he said.
In the 800, Windle sat back for
340 meters to go threw in a surge
ish line, he was leading by almost two seconds.
I saw a couple of my teammates standing there and you could just tell from the expressions on their
title wrapped up,” he said.After receiving his trophy, Win-
dle had about an hour-and-a-half to collect himself and get ready for the relay.
Senior Cory Lamar ran the
Windle in the lead. “I knew that since I was worn
out I had to make sure I got my
ters,” Windle said.Even so, James Quarles from
Saint Augustine’s passed him with-
caught him and gave what he called a perfect handoff to junior Jacob Cook to give the Eagles a one-second lead halfway through.
Cook ran a 47.10 split to make the gap almost two seconds when junior Keith Cleveland took over.
“Jacob Cook stepped off the track and that’s when I knew that unless something really horrible happened I had gotten my second national title in the four-by-four,” Windle said.
This time, he got to celebrate with a great group of friends.
“It’s cool in a different way and it’s equally as special,” he said.
Since it was a festival year, all of the champions got to relish in the moment at the closing ceremo-ny. No matter the sport, the one thing that ties all of them together is hard work.
In fact, most of them even
have endured in preparation for the winning moment.
“It was almost like a movie
said. “I just remembered in like a
ever tried to throw a weight and I threw it backwards or the one time that I almost threw it at someone’s car or the one time I released it too early and almost hit people in the head or all the countless distance runners I’ve almost killed with a
times I’ve hit the ceiling and all of the weights that I’ve broke.
“In that moment, you really think, ‘I have come so far.’”
ZACK LEMON @zack_lemon
Track and Field
Kates Gymnasium with top-level placements in the national tour-naments. Indoor, outdoor, men’s, women’s, it has not mattered for Jud Logan’s programs, and this year is no different.
The men took second place at the NCAA Indoor meet March 7-9, scoring 59.5 points.
Sophomore Drew Windle was named National Indoor Track
Athlete of the Year, winning the 800-meter run. He owns three of the top eight times in NCAA Divi-sion II history.
Windle also was a member of the national championship 1600m-relay team, joining senior Cory Lamar and juniors Jacob Cook and Keith Cleveland on the championship team.
Senior Richard Quick won the national crown in the weight throw with his winning mark of 68-feet,
national title in his last indoor meet of his career.
Along with the national cham-
pionship winners, several other AU athletes placed highly at the meet.
Cleveland was third in the 400m and seventh in the 800m. Sophomore Brian Baum was third in the mile, sophomore Elijah Ow-ens was seventh in the 60m hur-dles and senior Eric Klucar tied for eighth in the pole vault.
The Eagles led the meet going
ish from Saint Augustine’s pushed past them. Saint Augustine’s scored 72 points and Adams State
The women’s team also per-
despite only sending eight athletes to the meet. Ashland scored 37 points, behind the Academy of Art’s winning score of 59 points.
Senior Katie Nageotte led Ash-
pionship of her career in the pole vault, vaulting 13-feet, 11.25-inch-es.
fourth in the pentathlon, and
sophomore Jennifer Foster in the pole vault and sophomore Jessica Bridenthal in the shot put.
The men’s team ended the
indoor season with 18 All-Ameri-cans, while the women earned six All-American honors. This year
meet for the Ashland men, ty-
2011. This continues a remark-able streak of scoring in 26 con-secutive indoor meets. Wrestling
Freshman Michael Labry and sophomore Joe Brandt earned All-America honors at the national meet.
pounds and Brandt took seventh at 197. The results were good
enough to secure 15th place in the overall team standings with 19.5 points.Swimming
Outside of the performance by senior Julie Widmann (above), Ashland’s top swimmer at the na-tional meet was freshman Hannah Mattar. She took third in the 200-yard breaststroke.
Senior Cheyne Fisher took 10th in the 200 breaststroke and 12th in the 100 breaststroke.
Junior Alex Sheil placed ninth in the 200 freestyle.
the men took 22nd.
We’re number one!10 Eagles are national champs
Ashland well-represented at National Festival
NCAA.COM
Senior Katie Nageotte clears the bar in women’s pole-vault at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field Championships. She won the national championship.
KAREN WINDLE
Sophomore Drew Windle raises his arms in celebration after destroying the ! eld in the men’s 800 meter run at Indoor Nationals.
spotlight Thursday, 21 March 2013 // The Collegian8
ELIZABETH BUCHEIT
Know someone who deserves the spotlight?Email suggestions to design editor Tyler Remmel at [email protected].
row 1 (left to right)Katie NageottePole Vault
Richard QuickWeight Throw
row 2Keith Cleveland Jr.4x400 Relay
Jacob Cook4x400 Relay
Cory Lamar4x400 Relay
Drew Windle4x400 Relay
left to rightJulie Widmann200 Free Relay
Gaby Verdugo-Arzaluz200 Free Relay
Kaylyn Murphy200 Free Relay
Rachel Ausdenmoore200 Free Relay
2013 SWIMMING & DIVING
CHAMPIONSHIPS
2013 INDOOR TRACK & FIELD
CHAMPIONSHIPS
Go to youtube.com/ashlandedu
for a video interview with these athletes.
TYLER REMMEL