Bulldogs find victories at MVC Indoor Championship

This past weekend, the Drake University Men’s and Women’s track teams travelled to the University of Northern Iowa to compete in the 2017 Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championship meet.

Drake University is one of the smallest teams that competes in the MVC and it can be hard to find points when compared to some of the larger teams in the conference. But, as the altered adage goes, it is not about the size of the bulldog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the bulldog.

This weekend, Drake athletes saw five individuals get on the podium—that is, place in the top three in their event—and saw many efforts just outside of the podium. There were multiple season bests and PRs across the board.

In the field events, the triple jumpers came up with two thirdplace finishers in Jonathan Osifuye-White and Tarn Rolle. Osifuye-White started his jumps off with a season best of 14.85 meters.

“After starting the jumps off with a season best, I knew it was going to be a good day,” OsifuyeWhite said.

He went on to jump 14.95 meters, a PR, to place third. He was sitting in second throughout much of the event, but was overtaken for third in the end.

“My legs were feeling good. In the end, I was able to put it all together and pull off a good jump to get myself on the podium.”

Osifuye-White said that he is happy with his place, and feels very comfortable heading into the outdoor season.

On the women’s side, Taryn

Rolle took third place in the triple jump with a leap of 12.23 meters. However, Taryn was not completely satisfied with how she performed. She has gotten to a level where she is competing to win at conference, with school records in her sight, and so her third place finish was not what she was hoping for.

“I came in wanting to jump 12.80 meters, wanting to PR and break the school record, but I wasn’t able to execute it,” Rolle said. “Anything can happen at conference, though. You have to expect the unexpected, because some people will supersede their rankings, and some people won’t jump their best that day. An you’ve always got to be happy for those who are doing well, even if the day is disappointing for you.”

Conference is an emotional experience, whether athletes perform the way they want to or not. For Rolle, her personal standards rendered her third place finish a bit disappointing. Yet, it is quite remarkable that she has gotten to this level, where even her less than satisfying performances get her on the podium.

Going into the outdoor season, Rolle says she is going to try her best to think of outdoors as a blank canvas. There will be new standards to meet, with new PRs to reach and new school records to break.

“I’m just going to go out there and start again,” Rolle said. “Right now is a new starting point, so I will build up from where I am now until the outdoor meet.”

On the track, Mary Young placed third in the 60-meter hurdles with a PR time of 8.34.

Going into prelims, Young was very focused on having a strong mentality. She took fifth place in this event last year, and that took a toll on her because she went in wanting win. This year, she came in feeling faster over the hurdles and feeling really prepared.

“I wasn’t quite so nervous, I was more excited than anything to see how I’d do,” Young said. She ran her prelims in a time just off of her PR, and so finals were another chance to get it. The two athletes ahead of her in the finals are seniors from Wichita State— twins—who have taken first and second the past three years.

“I tried not to compare myself to them or anyone else in my race,” Young said. “I focused on having a strong mentality and running my won race.”

Young was running in first place until the fourth hurdle, but then over the fifth hurdle the twins barley edged out Young. Heading into the outdoor season, Young says she feels really good and focused.

“I have never ended a season running this fast going into outdoors,” Young said. “Now I will start to focus a lot on my hurdle technique to perform even better in outdoors. I have a lot of speed, but without technique you won’t get anywhere.”

Young hopes to win the outdoor conference meet, and then advance to NCAA regionals and nationals.

Bas Van Leersum also took third place on the track in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.66. Van Leersum was in the first of two final heats for the event, so he knew he would have to go out and not just win his heat but run fast enough to have a time that beat those of the athletes in the second heat. Van Leersum won his heat and ran a time to get him into third place and on the podium, which is where he placed last year as well.

“At first I was demotivated because I was in the slow heat and felt like I couldn’t compete for a title,” Van Leersum said. “But I also knew it was possible to beat people from the other heat. In the end I found my motivation again and tried my hardest, and I am happy with third place.”

Van Leersum says that if he stays healthy he feels he has a good outdoor season to look forward too.

“I would like to go out and do some damage in conference, defend my 400-meter hurdle title, and make it to the NCAA regionals and nationals.”

Reed Fischer had arguably the best weekend of all Drake athletes. Fischer took first place in both the 5k and the 3k to pull off the MVC double victory.

“The 5k is the longest indoor race at conference, and Fischer was ranked first in the field going into it. He is not the type of runner that can rely on an incredible sprint finish, so he knew he would have to push the pace early.

Teammate Chris Kaminski went out and paced Fischer through the first mile to get him ahead of the field, build up a decent lead and then run in for the win. The 3k was a different story. This race is always kind of a question mark, because almost everyone goes in to the race having already run a previous race.

“My legs were feeling pretty good,” Fischer said. “I wasn’t sure when I wanted to make my move but a separation happened around the 2k mark, and so I made a big move at the 600 mark that broke up the pack.”

After Fischer made his move,

SOFTBALL COLUMN he held a lead for about a lap until a competitor from Loyala passed him with about 400 meters to go.

“I thought to myself, ‘You’ve never been a kicker before but you better start now,’” Fischer said. “With about 100 meters to go, I turned it on as fast as I could and beat him to the line.”

That kick gave Fischer the win and also gave him confidence in his ability to have a sprint finish. Heading into outdoors, Fischer’s goal is to run a 10k time that would qualify for the USATF championships that are held right after nationals. He also hopes to add two more MVC titles to his name, as well as earn himself AllAmerican status on the track. Indoor is over, but the Drake bulldogs are far from finished. There are still PRs to be had, titles to be won, and school records to be broken. Keep an eye open this outdoor season as the Drake Bulldogs leave their paw prints all over the Blue Oval!

We aspire to get better each meet, and after each meet we will share one athlete’s new best mark. This week’s featured PR: Mary Young, 60-meter hurdles, 8:34, (previous PR: 8.37).

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Bulldogs show grit with four wins

Matthew

Sports Editor matthew.gogerty@drake.edu @mattgogo

The Drake softball team has been warming up in preseason play since the beginning of February. Thus far, they are ranked 3rd overall in the Missouri Valley Conference preseason play with a record of 12-5. The Bulldogs’ latest outing at the Mardi Gras Classic gave them five wins and one loss.

Drake faced off against Bowling Green and then Louisiana in the first day of the series.

Pitcher Kaylee Smith started off the action from the mound. She ultimately led the team to the 4-1 victory: both in terms of pitching and scoring.

Smith had eight strikeouts, her most of the young 2017 season, and allowed one run on five hits. She also contributed a home run — the team’s only hit on the day — in the third inning that garnered three RBIs. She added a sac-fly in the fifth inning that gave the Bulldogs the 4-1 victory.

The second game of the day gave the Bulldogs their only loss of the series.

Drake’s ace-pitcher Nicole Newman was matched up against Louisiana’s freshman Alyssa Denham. A move that, initially, seemed strange considering Newman was named the 2016 MVC Pitcher of the Year.

However, Louisiana was successful, behind pitching from the young Denham, in keeping the Bulldogs at bay. Although the Bulldogs were able to get two hits in the second inning, it was the Ragin’ Cajun’s who finally broke the seal on scoring with three runs on two hits in the third inning.

The Bulldogs were unable to shift momentum on Louisiana. Newman was replaced by Aryka Knoche in the fifth inning, but it was not enough.

Knoche gave up two runs on walks during the sixth. Despite the hitting spurt the Bulldogs found in the bottom of the inning, scoring three runs on five hits, that velocity would not extend past the bottom of the sixth.

Drake fell to Louisiana 9-3.

The following day opened up with a game against Dartmouth, a back-and-forth affair that stretched over 10 innings.

This was followed by a game against Maryland that gave the Bulldogs a shutout-win. Smith and Newman split up pitching duties for the whole day with Smith going nine total innings and Newman going seven.

The Bulldogs were finally able to take the win over Dartmouth on a single to left from outfielder Megan Sowa that drove in a RBI.

In the first inning against Maryland, a home run from infielder Tasha Alexander put the Bulldogs ahead by two. Maryland was held scoreless, despite recording five hits.

The Bulldogs faced Bowling Green once again on the final day of the tournament and won in five innings

The story of the final day is the game against Mississippi Valley State, which went six innings with a score of 10-9. Drake ultimately won, with the game being called early so the Bulldogs wouldn’t miss their flight home.

Mississippi Valley pulled ahead in a big, five-run second inning. The Bulldogs didn’t let it go unanswered and responded with a big inning in the fifth, where they were able to drive home four runs.

After being voted as favorites to win the MVC championship this year, the Bulldogs seem tenacious in trying to prove they are worthy of that title and have seemingly been successful.

MVC play begins March 18, but before that Drake will head out of town for two more tournaments.

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