Spring Break
New UMKC women's golf coach Courtney Mahon became the second young gun to be hired away from the South Eastern Conference in the past two years when she came aboard Jan. 8. Softball coach Meredith Smith was the first, coming over from the University of Tennessee at the start of the 2006-07 season.
Pushing the Limits There's a favorable breeze sweeping over the UMKC men's golf squad at the start of the 2008 Summit League campaign. On Friday, the Summit office released the results of this season's preseason rankings and the Kangaroos came out of the fray as the prohibitive favorites to win the league title.
The recruiting trail is never an easy road for any Division I coach to maneuver around. There is a vast amount of competition that can at times be literally of the cut-throat variety. UMKC Director of Golf J.W. VanDenBorn and women's head golf coach Courtney Mahon understand this treachery all too well.
The UMKC women's basketball team, despite a terrific start shooting 52 percent from the floor, and a one-point halftime lead, could not hold on in the second half as they fell to Western Illinois University (WIU) 56-46. The squad was on the road last Monday night in Macomb, Ill.
Poor first-half shooting led to another tough loss for the UMKC women's basketball squad. On Saturday evening, the Roos battled the Southern Utah Thunderbirds, losing a close one 51-49 in Cedar City, Utah. The Roos were held to just four points, seven and a half minutes into the game, and it did not get any easier for UMKC players, who shot a miserable 20 percent from the floor in the opening half.
Junior forward Kalei Nance has enjoyed a long past in basketball. She hopes to have an even longer future in the sport. She started playing basketball in third grade but didn't get the same experience as her teammates. "I was on an all boys team, so I didn't get the ball a lot," Nance said as she laughed.
Leading by nine with 3:05 remaining, the UMKC (8-17, 3-9 Summit) mens basketball players' luck ran out as they fell Saturday night at the hands of the Southern Utah University (6-17, 4-8 Summit) Thunderbirds 78-73. The T-Birds ended the game with a 15-1 scoring run that sealed up their improbable league victory.
On Friday and Saturday, the UMKC track and field team competed in the SIU McDonald's Invitational at the Student Recreation Center in Carbondale, Ill. and earned 15 top-10 finishes. The men's team finished the competition with 29 points, good enough for sixth place, while the UMKC women's team finished 12th with 10.
UMKC athletes worked together to set a new standard for grade point average (GPA) during the 2007 fall semester. As a whole, 105 student athletes finished the fall semester with an average of 3.0 or above and 11 student athletes had perfect 4.0 GPAs. The department wide GPA was 3.
