The 2008-09 Red Hawks women’s basketball team poses for a photo with the Midwest Conference Championship trophy.
Women’s Basketball Captures MWC Crown The women’s basketball team finished its season with a 17-9 record and won its fourth Midwest Conference Championship. In doing so, the Red Hawks earned a bid to the 2009 NCAA Tournament. Their wins were more than the previous two seasons combined. The Red Hawks Julie Johnson finished with a 12-4 record in the MWC, a tie for second place in the regular-season standings. In the MWC Tournament, Ripon defeated Beloit College and won an upset against top seed St. Norbert College in the championship game. Ripon then lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to the College of St. Benedict, 55-42. Head Coach Julie Johnson reached the 250-win plateau in her career and also earned the MWC Coach of the Year award for the fourth time in her 19-year career.
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SIFE Takes Second at Nationals After securing a regional championship in Chicago, the Ripon College Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team headed to Philadelphia for national competition. There, Ripon took second place in the Entrepreneurial Topic Competition for the formation of the Creative Enterprise Center, a student-led consulting business that assists community businesses and organizations. Ripon was represented by Chris Larsen ’09 and Paul Williams ’10. The team consisted of 31 active members and completed more than 1,500 total hours, 15 total projects and impacted more than 2,200 people, according to Associate Professor of Business Management Mary Avery, the team’s adviser. “We have 19 different majors in SIFE, and I know that the diversity of interests and abilities is what sets us apart,” said Avery. “There’s a lot of collaboration. SIFE service opportunities take what students are doing in the classroom and apply those lessons directly to community problems.”
2009 May Bumby Severy Award Assistant Professor of History Rebecca Berens Matzke was awarded the 2009 May Bumby Severy Award, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching. Matzke was
born and raised in Seward, Neb. — “a little college town amazingly like Ripon,” according to Matzke — which is where her interests in education and Rebecca Matzke history began. Her parents were elementary and junior high school teachers, and her love of history stemmed from the auctions she went to with her father. In nominating Matzke for this award, one of her colleagues wrote: “Her energy and enthusiasm fill the classroom.” “That seems to make a big difference to students, when they see that you really love the subject and that you’re not just going through the motions,” Matzke said.
Baerenwald ’12 takes third at Nationals As a first-year student at Ripon, Heidi Baerenwald was the Red Hawks sole representative at the 2009 NCAA National Outdoor Track & Field Championships. She finished third in the shot put with a school-record throw of 4606.75. The distance was only five feet off the mark of the 2009 champion and eight inches fewer the secondplace finisher. Baerenwald’s throw was the Heidi longest of any Baerenwald ’12 Wisconsin athlete and was also the best in the Midwest Conference. Baerenwald earned 2009 All-American honors and was also the only first-year student to qualify for nationals. R