BYU Sports Weekend Recap: Overall good weekend buried by Gonzaga
By Adam Gibby
Lawless Republic realizes that there is interest in primarily football and basketball, but for those who follow all BYU sports, here is our first full weekend recap.
From here on out, every Monday we will have a BYU sports recap. Depending on the week, we may do a ‘sport by sport analysis’ or ‘the good, bad and ugly’ or something like that. With so many sports going on this weekend around Cougar nation we will have week one be, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Summary: Overall the weekend was really good for BYU athletics. Championships were won and upsets happened, but it will be overshadowed by BYU’s 34 point loss to Gonzaga in Spokane.
The Good
Men’s Track and Field win the MPSF Championship
The Indoor track team took first place behind impressive performances like Michael Bluth who won the 400m and Connor Mantz who took second in the 5000m. Overall, though it was a lot of consistent middle of the pack scoring the brought the championship home for the Cougars. The MPSF consists of 14 teams including UCLA, Arizona and even Oregon.
Baseball goes 3-0
The Bat Cats played in the Kleberg Bank College Classic and left undefeated going 3-0 against Texas A&M–Corpus Christi, Oral Roberts and Ohio State. The weekend sweep moved the Cougars to 5-2 on the season. To give perspective, this time last year, they were 5-6. Jackson Cluff was especially impressive over the weekend having 6 RBI’s.
Men’s Volleyball wins again
Still recovering from a four game losing streak in California that saw the Cougars go 1-12 in sets, the BYU Men’s Volleyball team extended their current win streak to three games taking down Grand Canyon 3-1. Gabi Garcia Fernandez had 21 points including 20 kills. The Cougars hope that this momentum swing will continue as they host Stanford this Thursday.
Men’s Tennis sweeps AFA
No. 27 BYU Men’s Tennis continued their win streak by dominating Air Force 7-0. In all of the single matches, the Cougars were able to win in two sets, something the Cougars haven’t been able to do all season.
Women’s Basketball moves up in bracketology
The Cougars extended their winning ways taking down San Diego 80-68. The win keeps the Cougars just a half game behind Gonzaga for the regular season championship. It was an overall team effort seeing four of the starters score in double figures. The Cougars are now projected as a nine seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The Bad
BYU Softball struggles to find swing
As good as the baseball team did, the softball team almost did the opposite going 1-2 over the weekend against Oklahoma, Northwestern and UC Santa Barbara. Although Oklahoma is ranked No. 4 in the nation, the 4-0 shutout does not look good on the Cougars. With such high expectations coming into the season, they sit at 6-7 overall, albeit a tough schedule.
Gymnastics scores season low
Following a season high score against Boise State, the Gymnastics team had one of the worst performances of the year falling to Southern Utah 196.000-195.650. The low marks will drop the Cougars ranking, possibly out of the top 25 in the nation. Shannon Evans was the one bright spot scoring the highest overall score in the match (39.200).
The Ugly
To give some explanation, the ugly can consist of wins or losses, it just either has to be an ugly win or an ugly loss.
Basketball… Yeah.
It is no surprise that the worst loss of Dave Rose’s career lands first on the ugly list. The Cougars actually stayed within striking distance of Gonzaga for the first thirty minutes of the game. Sure they were down by 10-15 during most of that time, but a quick 8-0 run would have made the game competitive. Then the wheels fell off and Gonzaga took advantage winning by 34 points.
Women’s Tennis gets ugly win
Here is an example of an ugly win. The women’s tennis team defeated 4-3 in a match that had no business being close. Luckily the Cougars were up 4-1 at one point before losing the final two matches. It was a win, but it can’t feel good to come home with that kind of win.
Women’s Track and Field under performs at the wrong time
At one point this season, the women’s track and field indoor team was ranked in the top 15 nationally. You would not have known that at the MPSF Championships though as the Cougars came in seventh place overall. They weren’t expected to beat Oregon or USC, but to lose to teams like 54th ranked Washington is not where you want to be in the Championships.