Sports Shorts

By Mike Bushnell

Published April 1, 2008

Gymnastics finishes third at Big 12 The MU gymnastics team tied its best conference finish in school history, coming in third at the Big 12 championship in Norman, Okla., last week. Their score of 195.225 fell less than a point short of Oklahoma’s 195.875. Oklahoma won the conference. Junior Adrienne Perry won the Big 12 title in the all-around event, scoring 39.375, making her the first Tiger in team history to win an individual conference championship. She is only the fourth MU athlete to win a Big 12 title in any sport. Missouri as a school has just one team championship since the league began in 1996: the 1998 softball conference title. Sophomore and Boone County native Sarah Shire was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Year and junior Alicia Hatcher won All-Big 12 honors for the second consecutive season. Headed into the final event, the balance beam, the Tigers were in first place overall, leading Iowa State by .100 and Oklahoma by .200. But sophomore Brooke Boehmer and Hatcher scored a 9.7 and a 9.725 respectively, giving the other two schools enough room to snatch the overall lead, and Oklahoma ended up conference champions.

Baseball loses series The No. 2 baseball team finally showed signs of weakness, losing two of three games to an average Texas Tech team over the weekend in Lubbock, Texas. The Tigers (20-5, 4-2 Big 12) won the first game on Friday 1-0, thanks to junior pitcher Aaron Crow, who struck out nine and allowed just two hits in eight innings. He has not let up a run in the last 33 and 2/3 innings. Senior right fielder Jacob Priday had an RBI single to bring in sophomore infielder Greg Folgia for MU’s only run. On Saturday, the Red Raiders scored two runs on back-to-back RBI singles in the bottom of the ninth inning to stun MU, 3-2. It wasted junior pitcher Ian Berger’s eight innings on the mound, in which he allowed just four hits and one run. Missouri’s pitching didn’t bother to show for the rubber game on Sunday, and the Tigers lost 15-11. Junior outfielder Doug Thennis hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth off freshman pitcher Tyler Clark to give Texas Tech the game and the series. After winning all 12 games during their March home stand, the Tigers lost three of five on the road last week. Earlier in the week they split a series with Minnesota, winning 17-8 on Monday and losing 12-5 on Tuesday.

Tiger softball defeated by Aggies After taking a 4-0 lead on Sunday against Texas A&M, Missouri let the Aggies score nine unanswered runs and lost 9-4, the second loss in as many days for the Tigers in College Station, Texas. Senior infielder Jen Bruck hit two home runs in the loss and three in the series as a whole. She now has 13 home runs for the season for the Tigers (31-9, 2-2). Missouri will play Drake on Wednesday in a doubleheader at 3 p.m. at University Field.