I’ll be honest with you, I often sit around on Saturday night struggling to push out 600 words for my column, but this is not one of those times. We’ve been off for a few weeks here at The Eagle, leaving me with nowhere to vent.
March has not been an easy month for AU sports, with teams and individuals falling short of expectations. Let’s take a look at what has gone wrong.
Men’s basketball loses to Lehigh 85-66
The men’s team was at Lehigh University in the Patriot League Tournament semis, which was a big disadvantage. The two teams played three times this season, and the home team won all three.
The game was close at the half before the wheels came off in the second half, and AU suffered a 19-point defeat.
This was the least surprising of the losses this month. Lehigh was a higher seed and had the Patriot League Player of the Year in C.J. McCollum, who scored 27 points in the game.
The Mountain Hawks then went on to win the Patriot League Tournament and shock the second-seeded Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA Tournament. It was so big that even Justin Bieber tweeted about it.
It turns out there are at least two positives to come from the loss.
AU beat Lehigh in February, who then beat Duke in the NCAAs, meaning that AU must be better than Duke.
And more importantly, the Biebs knows what the Patriot League is.
Wrestling finishes 19th at NCAA Championships
Honestly, this is nitpicking a bit. AU is not a school known for its athletics, and to have a perennial Top 25 team in the country is very impressive.
With that said, the team did fall short of expectations. Ranked No. 7 in the nation coming into the season, many thought this would be the year the Eagles took home their first team trophy, placing in the top four at the NCAAs.
Unfortunately, that would not come to fruition.
Senior Ryan Flores, who was the No. 1 heavyweight in the country, finished sixth at the championships, as did Ganbayar Sanjaa.
It will be interesting to see what happens as wrestlers recruited by former coach Mark Cody start graduating and Teague Moore’s recruits start coming in.
Women’s basketball loses to Holy Cross 67-52
Heading into the Patriot League Tournament with a 14-0 conference record, the women’s basketball team looked unstoppable. But Holy Cross ended AU’s run in the PL semis.
A major factor in the loss was the play of Patriot League Player of the Year Lisa Strack, who finished with three points on 1-14 shooting from the field.
However, it wasn’t nerves that got to her. After the game, Head Coach Matt Corkery announced that Strack had injured her shoulder during practice.
It’s a shame that such an important member of the team ended her career on those terms, but she has nothing to be ashamed of. It’s safe to say the team would not have had the success they did this season without her.
What I do question is why, in such an important time of the year, the best player on the team was put in a situation where there was even a small chance that she could get injured.
With all of this said, I actually believe this was a good year for AU sports, with a lot of teams exceeding expectations.
But it’s pretty thin from here on out. For the remainder of the year it’s pretty much lacrosse, track and my stupid opinions.
