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Women's golf
Belcher, Nochta pace Hoosiers in 5th place finish

For seniors Kellye Belcher and Laura Nochta, the Mountain View Invitational in Tucson, Ariz. has been a home away from home the last four years.

The duo have led the IU women’s golf team to team to finishes of third, fourth and first the last three seasons.

Belcher and Nochta capped off their four-year run at the Mountain View Invitational this weekend with a pair of seventh-place finishes individually.

A 69 in the final round from Nochta helped the Hoosiers to a 290 total, which was the low team score in the third round, and a fifth place finish as a team.

“It has always been a good tournament for us and the girls like the course because it sets up really well for them,” IU coach Clint Wallman said.

Contributing to the 290 total was freshman Jacqueline Yanch with a 73 and a 28th-place finish individually.

Fellow Canadian and freshman Pamela Burneski recorded a 231 total for the week, which put her in 46th place.

Playing in the five spot this week was junior Lauren Giesecke. The Mountain View Invitational marked the first event for Giesecke since playing in the Big Ten Championships last spring.

A final round 72 for the Kokomo, Ind. native was the low round of her career by five shots. Before the Mountain View Invitational, freshman Kate Coons had been playing in the five spot lately.

“We have really been looking for someone in that spot and we are trying to see who can take the opportunity to throw in a good round,” Wallman said.

The Hoosiers will take a week off from competition, before returning to their real home course on April 10 when they hold the Indiana Invitational at the IU Golf Course.

The Indiana Invitational starts a three-tournament stretch over the course of 16 days for the Hoosiers, ending with the Big Ten Championships on April 23.

Wallman said the Mountain View Invitational was a great start to getting some much-needed wins for the NCAA Tournament.

“Our next focus is going to be round 1 at the IU Invitational and trying to put up the best number we can,” Wallman said.

– Kevin Bowen

Women’s tennis
IU outlasts Wisconsin in 4-3 win  

Amid wind and cold temperatures to begin the match, the IU women’s tennis team made their spring season outdoor debut with a 4-3 comeback victory over Wisconsin.

“It was a great college match any way you look at it,” IU coach Lin Loring said. “There were so many momentum switches. The match could have gone either way. It was just a matter of three or four points here or three or four points there.”

For the third time this season, the team dropped the opening doubles point, taking a 0-1 deficit into singles play, but came back to win. Junior Katya Zapadalova, in her first match back from injury, was forced to retire late in the second set, putting the score at 2-0 in the Badgers’ favor.

“She started cramping up,” Loring said. “We thought that might happen. It was great to have her back in the lineup.”

Moments later after Zapadalova’s forfeiture, however, sophomore Evgeniya Vertesheva finished off her opponent at No. 1 singles in straight sets. Senior captain Lindsey Stuckey and junior Charlotte Martin later took their matches at No. 5 and No. 6 singles respectively to give IU a 3-2 lead. Freshman Leslie Hureau then clinched the match with a back-and-forth win at No. 2 singles.

“We’ve done that two other times this season where we’ve lost (the doubles point) and won in the singles,” Loring said. “Whenever two teams are evenly matched, it is tough to win four singles matches, so that made victory sweeter today.”

- Max McCombs

Water polo
Hoosiers ace divisional games

IU coach Barry King said during the regular season that he did not have to emphasize how to play conference games.

He and the players knew where his confidence came from.

“It’s all about game preparation,” King said after IU’s win against Mercyhurst College. “We have done a lot as the season goes to improve our defense and half-court offense, so it’s really not a surprise to see how we get up there.”

Though King did not want to mention how the Hoosiers should play those two games differently, the significance existed.

Not just because they were IU’s first season appearance against Collegiate Water Polo Association Western Division foes in the Fluid Five tournament games, but also they were on Hoosiers’ senior night.

King presented seniors Katie Carson and Kelly Palmberg before the game against Mercyhurst, two players he recruited four years ago from his home state of Calif.
In the conference debut Saturday morning, the Hoosiers showed what they had been working on as they crushed the Gannon University Golden Knights 13-1.

As one of the only two teams ranked in Varsity’s Top-20 list, IU paced the game with well-transited offense, which was backed up by its good execution in defense.

King said he was pleased with different players, led by hat tricks from attackers sophomore Jakie Köhli and junior Lauren Wyckoff. Carson led the team with five saves on the defensive end, while Köhli’s goal in the final period helped her to tie Maggie Hannon’s (2006-09) fifth position on IU’s all-time single-season scoring list.

“When I chose to come to IU when I was in California four years ago, I had expected it to be a great experience.” Carson said. “I really like how we communicate with each other during each game and outside of the pool. It’s amazing to see how this process repeated as a senior.”

Palmberg, the other senior that had been a consistent starter this season, said she valued her four-year journey at IU as a treasure.

“It’s like training,” Palmberg said. “Everyone of us on the team has been working together on accomplishing the same goal every year. We trained hard and it has become one culture on our team.”
— Kevin Wang

Track and field
IU off to good start outdoors

IU coach Ron Helmer viewed the Alabama Relays and Stanford Invitational as an opportunity for his team to get some experience against quality competition.

But Helmer got more than he bargained for as Hoosiers posted marks worthy of their place in the IU record books.

“If you are good enough to run those numbers, you run those numbers,” Helmer said. “I’m not going to go tell them to slow down if they’re capable of running fast.”

In Palo Alto, Calif., the Hoosier distance runners left their mark on the Stanford Invitational. Sophomore Andy Bayer took third as he ran the 5,000 meter in 13:45.75, the fourth-fastest in school history. His teammate, sophomore Andrew Poore, also rewrote the IU record books by posting the third-best 10k by a Hoosier runner at 28:58.07.

On the women’s side, junior Sarah Pease ran the 10k in 33:51.86, good for the fourth-fastest time by a Hoosier. She was joined by sophomore Chelsea Blanchard, who ran the 5,000 meters in 16:22.62, to place her fourth in the IU record books.

While the Hoosier runners were experiencing success on the west coast, the rest of the IU outdoor squad was posting its own big numbers at the Alabama Relays.

Senior Faith Sherrill carried the momentum from her All-American indoor season to the outdoor field. She won the discus throw with a 49.68 meter toss. Her win in the discus throw was accompanied by sophomore Caitlin Engel’s win in the steeplechase. Engel’s time of 10:46.67 was also good for fourth-fastest in IU history.

Freshman Helene DeLone won the 10,000 meter with a time of 37.26.17. Sophomore Derek Drouin had little time to rest after becoming the national champion in the indoor high jump. His performance in the decathlon put him in second place among all competitors.

Helmer saw this weekend as a good foundation for his team’s outdoor season.

“Our distance runners had a historic night at Stanford, and we got good marks in Alabama,” Helmer said. “A number of people in multiple events are getting some good work done. So I think it was a great opening weekend for us.”

— Avi Zaleon

Men’s tennis
Hoosiers split Big Ten openers

IU men’s tennis coach Randy Bloemendaal talked this week about the importance of winning the doubles point to his team’s success.

If the Hoosiers could get that point, he said, they would be hard to beat anywhere, even on the road.

That proved true this weekend as the No. 40 Hoosiers split a pair of Big Ten road matches with Wisconsin and Northwestern. They dropped the doubles point in their 5-2 loss to the No. 34 Badgers and won it in their 6-1 victory against the No. 45 Wildcats.

“I think it made a big difference,” Bloemendaal said. “It helps get rid of that doubt, because if you have any doubt in your head at all on the road, it shows up.”

The Hoosiers (10-4, 1-1), who have struggled in doubles play for much of the season, dropped two close matches against Wisconsin on Friday. 

The duo of junior Santiago Gruter and sophomore Jeremy Langer gave the No. 11 tandem of Marek Michlicka and Moritz Baumann all they could handle at No. 1 doubles, but they couldn’t close it and dropped a 9-7 decision.

Junior Lachlan Ferguson and freshman Josh MacTaggart won a 9-8 tiebreak at No. 2, but sophomores Stephen Vogl and Will Kendall were unable to come away with a victory at No. 3.

“We were leading in all the matches, but we couldn’t close out,” Bloemendaal said.
IU, however, came out on a mission against the Wildcats on Sunday and rolled to its first conference win of the season.

The Hoosiers took all three doubles matches — led by an 8-7 win by MacTaggart and Ferguson at No. 1 — and they showed remarkable resiliency in singles play.
Freshman Isade Juneau dropped the first set 6-0 at No. 5, but he rebounded to win the final two sets. MacTaggart lost all of his momentum when he surrendered the second set 6-2 at No. 3, but he came back with a dominating closing set, winning 6-0.

And Ferguson, who was playing at No. 1 for the first time since his injury, battled back all day and ultimately won his match 6-4, 3-6, 9-8.

No matter what Northwestern threw at the Hoosiers, they always responded.

“Sometimes you get a little bit tight on the road and that happened a little bit today, but I think we were still pretty confident we were going to come through,” Bloemendaal said. “We just battled all day. We battled really hard. I thought our effort was good in both matches but, in this match, I saw a lot different level of belief on the guys’ faces.”

— Justin Albers