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SOFTBALL
Hoosiers earn two key victories against Gophers

Behind stellar pitching from junior Sara Olson and senior Monica Wright, IU earned two key wins against Minnesota this weekend.

Olson only allowed four hits and threw five strikeouts in IU’s 1-0 win.
Senior outfielder Jennifer Glueckert went one for three with an RBI triple in the top of the sixth inning. It was Glueckert’s third triple of the season.

In the second game, IU won 8-3.

The Hoosiers got seven runs off of five hits in the first inning. Olson went three for three with three RBI’s and a run.

Wright (3-9) got the win and gave up two runs in four innings pitched. Olson pitched the last three innings and didn’t allow a hit.

“We put everything together in these two games and came out with victories,” Heyman said “These wins will give us confidence for our next games.”
— Aaron Siegal-Eisman

TRACK AND FIELD
IU leaves mark at ISU

The Hoosiers were supposed to have a home track meet this weekend.
However, due to outdoor track renovations in Bloomington, the IU track and field team packed their bags and competed in the Indiana State Quadrangle for the weekend. 

The Hoosiers finished with four new track records.

Junior DeSean Turner ran the 3,000 meter steeplechase in 8:48.28 to win the race and break a 30-year-old facility record. The time helped the team achieve a second-place finish with 185 points.

Despite a disappointing fourth-place finish for the women’s team, there were some bright spots.

Senior Molly Beckwith won the 800-meter race with a time of 2:06.85. This time in her best event broke a facility record which previously stood for nine years.

To accompany Beckwith, senior high jumper Ashley Rhoades set her own Marks Field record after clearing 1.81 meters to win the high jump.  

Sophomore Caitlin Engel had the final record set on foreign turf by a Hoosier. Like Turner, Engel’s run in the steeplechase set the new track record at 10:41.10.

“We got big time numbers out of the people who are supposed to post them,” Helmer said. “But as a team, we need to see that on a more consistent basis from everybody.”
— Avi Zaleon

WOMEN'S TENNIS
IU drops Senior Day match to Ohio State

In a back-and-forth contest that saw both teams pull upsets, IU fell to No. 32 Ohio State 4-3 in Sunday’s Senior Day matchup. The Hoosiers rode a pair of narrow victories in No. 1 and No. 3 doubles matches to take the opening doubles point and a 1-0 lead.

“I really didn’t expect to win the doubles,” IU coach Lin Loring said. “That was a nice plus.”

The Hoosiers briefly lost the lead after junior Myriam Sopel dropped her No. 4 singles match but regained it when senior captain Lindsey Stuckey won 6-2, 6-3 at No. 5 singles for the final home win of her IU career. However, losses at No. 3 and No. 6 put the team at a 3-2 deficit with the top two singles matches remaining.   

Sophomore Evgeniya Vertesheva appeared to wear her opponent down, taking the final set 6-0, tying the team match at 3-3 and making the No. 1 singles match pitting freshman Leslie Hureau against Ohio State’s Kirsten Flower, ranked No. 69 in singles in the country, the deciding matchup.

Hureau began the match with a surprising 6-0 sweep of the first set, but Flower won a hard-fought second set 6-4 to force the decisive final set. Hureau jumped to a 4-1 lead, but Flower ultimately prevailed in the third set 7-5.

“As I told the team, it was a shame the match came down to our unranked freshman against their senior,” Loring said.  “She was literally two points away from the match. Those kind of matches definitely hurt, but we put ourselves in a position to win.”
— Max McCombs

WOMEN'S GOLF
Hoosiers finish 6th at OSU

Coming off its first team victory in more than two years, IU was left searching for answers after a sixth-place finish at the Lady Buckeye Invitational this weekend in Columbus, Ohio.

The Hoosiers opened up the tournament with a first-round score of 330 on Saturday morning, the highest 18-hole round for IU since the Big Ten Championships last year.

The Lady Buckeye Invitational marks the third consecutive tournament the Hoosiers’ highest round of the three has been shot in the first round. Windy conditions contributed to the high scores in round one with only one team shooting under 316 in the field.

“I don’t think our first round at Ohio State is at all indicative of our play recently,” Wallman said. “It was one of those rounds that you really had to be there to see with the winds gusting at 30 mph.”

Despite the rough start, the Hoosiers bounced back with a pair of 311’s to salvage the tournament.

Senior Kellye Belcher lead the way for the Hoosiers in ninth-place with a 235 total.  
For the first since then the opening event of the year, senior Laura Nochta was not the low Hoosier, as she finished three shots behind Belcher in 17th place.

Next up for the Hoosiers was freshman Kate Coons, whose second-round 75 was the low score of the week for IU and put her in 26th place.

Wallman said he was pleased with his entire lineup from top to bottom especially the play of Coons.

“Kate really stepped up, and I think she is much more seasoned and ready to go for Big Ten’s,” Wallman said. 

The five teams that finished ahead of IU are all ranked higher than the Hoosiers.

The sixth-place finish will keep the Hoosiers squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble as they head into the Big Ten Championship in Madison, Wis., on Friday.
Wallman said he will look at the positives from this weekend and take that into the Big Ten Championships

“We had a rugged start, but we didn’t panic and we came back,” Wallman said. “They showed a lot of poise out there, and I think it just shows that we can handle very challenging conditions. We were able to weather the storm, and we are looking at it as a preview for the Big Tens"
— Kevin Bowen

WATER POLO
Hoosiers finish regular season, ready for postseason plays

IU women’s water polo team finished its last two games over the weekend and put an end to the 2010 regular season. With an 18-9 season record, the No. 15 Hoosiers will compete for the Collegiate Water Polo Association Western Division champion next week.

A 6-0 run in the first stanza gave the Hoosiers an early boost to their 11-7 victory over No. 14 San Diego State University Aztecs.  Six players scored at least one goal for the Hoosiers. Utility Lauren Wyckoff netted all of her four goals in the first quarter while attacker Jakie Köhli recorded her 15th Hat Trick in the season.

If Köhli-the current national scoring leader with 74 goals-scored three or more goals in playing No. 9 Arizona State University Sun Devils on Sunday, she could have tied or passed then-Hoosier Brooke Zimmerman’s 77 single-season scoring record.

But she did not get a chance to do that to close the regular season. The Hoosiers, who had been trailing since the scoreless first half-lost 18-8 to the opposing Sun Devils, who lost to the Aztecs a day before. Köhli scored two for the Hoosiers, one shy from reaching the milestone. Kate Dunn led the team with three goals.

IU will play Mercyhurst College in the first round of CWPA West championship games on April 24 in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Hoosiers will compete with University of Michigan Wolverines or Gannon University Golden Knights depending on the game results.
— Kevin Wang

MEN’S TENNIS
IU stays consistent with 1-1 conference split 

The IU men’s tennis team went into this weekend with an opportunity to burst into the national spotlight.

A win over No. 5 Ohio State — a team that hadn’t lost at home since 2003 — would have raised some eyebrows around the country.

But the No. 41 Hoosiers come out of the weekend in the same way that they have come out of all four Big Ten weekends – with a 1-1 split.

IU fell 7-0 to the Buckeyes on Friday afternoon before defeating No. 61 Penn State 5-2 on Sunday to even its overall conference record at 4-4.

The Hoosiers (14-8, 4-4) struggled mightily against Ohio State. They failed to take a set in the match and limped out of Columbus in just under three hours.

A major factor in the outcome was the inclement weather, which caused play to be moved indoors. The Buckeyes (27-1, 8-0) strive indoors while IU would rather play every match outdoors.

“I think some of our guys were scared on the road, and it showed up a little bit in that match against Ohio State,” said IU coach Randy Bloemendaal. “We were actually leading in the doubles against them, and we just backed away. When you have a lot of pressure against you, you just want to back away. I think that score looked uglier than it actually was.”

Junior Lachlan Ferguson and freshman Josh MacTaggart lost for the first time at No. 1 doubles, but they didn’t make it easy on the No. 16 tandem of Chase Buchanan and Dino Marcan, losing 8-5. 

The Hoosiers got things turned around against the Nittany Lions. They swept the three doubles matches and got dominating singles performances from upperclassmen Ferguson and Santiago Gruter.

Ferguson knocked off Eddie Bourchier 6-3, 6-0 at No. 1 singles and Gruter downed Jason Lee 6-1, 6-2 at No. 3.

“Santiago and Lachlan were unbelievable for us today,” Bloemendaal said. “They played excellent tennis. It was so important for us to gain some momentum which is why the win over Penn State was so big.”
— Justin Albers