Today’s Slate comes entirely from the athletic department, as nothing really newsworthy involving the Cats hit the wires yesterday.
Unless, of course, you’d like to read about how big a win Saturday’s game was for Oklahoma, and nobody wants that.
Women’s Basketball
The Wildcat ladies (14-14, 6-11 Big 12) are in action tonight in Lubbock to close out a depressing 2017-18 regular season, and you can’t watch it unless you’re either in the FOX Sports Southwest footprint or have a really awesome sports package.
The good news: Texas Tech is really terrible (7-21, 1-16). The bad news: because K-State lost twice to TCU while Iowa State (also 6-11 in league play) beat the Frogs once, even a win tonight doesn’t clinch the seventh seed in the upcoming weekend’s Big 12 conference tournament. Worse, if the Wildcats win they’ll have to hope Kansas, only slightly less awful than the Red Raiders, can knock off the Cyclones.
The saving grace: that KU-ISU game is in Lawrence.
Claiming the seventh seed is important, because that would mean another crack at Tech and a chance to at least clinch a non-losing record on the season. Sure, getting Kansas in the first round wouldn’t be the worst thing, but if you’re going to fly your flag of optimism you’d definitely rather have your quarterfinal opponent be Texas than Baylor. Just sayin’.
Baseball
Of course your benevolent despot’s enforced sabbatical would pause with the BatCats snapping a decent winning streak. After taking the first two games on Friday and Saturday, K-State (4-4) was unable to complete the sweep at Old Dominion (3-4) as the Monarchs salvaged game three with an 11-8 win. Kyle Barfield and Jake Biller both homered for the Cats, and Barfield drove in four runs. But the hero -- or villain, we guess — was ODU’s Will Morgan, who jacked three dingers.
Because of the loss yesterday, the BatCats still have not swept a road series against anyone since taking the brooms to Kansas back in 2013, and that has some poetic bitterness, doesn’t it?
Tennis
There was nothing disappointing about the tennis team’s performance on Sunday, however. The Wildcats, ranked 35th in the nation, notched a 4-2 win in Columbia over 49th-ranked Missouri. (Yes, tennis really does have a top-50 rather than a top-25.)
K-State (7-2) opened hostilities by taking the doubles point in a series that involved two of three matches going to tiebreakers. Rosanna Maffei, Ines Mesquita, and Maria Linares all won their singles matches, with Linares performing the coup-de-grace on Missouri (11-3).
Margot Decker and Carolina Costamagna lost their singles matches, but it was their combined effort in the third doubles match which secured the doubles point so we can’t complain too much — especially since the seventh match, between Amina Ismail and K-State’s Anna Turco, was headed into a third-set tiebreaker when Linares made the result moot by sealing the team win.
The Cats get a whole week to rest before facing William & Mary on Sunday in Williamsburg, Va.
Golf
The men finished in seventh place at the Seminole Intercollegiate, held at Golden Eagle Country Club in Tallahassee, Fla. The finish, 31 strokes off Florida State’s winning score in a field of 14, belied a couple of solid Wildcat performances. Jacob Eklund finished tied for eighth at 3-under 213, five shots back of Florida State’s John Pak, while Ben Fernandez was a stroke back in a tie for eleventh. Jeremy Gandon was 1-over, tied for 21st.
The next action for the men will be this weekend in Opelika, Ala. at the Tiger Intercollegiate, hosted by Auburn.
The women still have a round to go before wrapping this weekend’s play at the Westbrook Spring Invitational at Westbrook Village Country Club in Phoenix, Ariz. The Wildcats currently sit ninth in a field of 15 teams, with Ella Adams tied for 12th at 3-under 141.
Adams shot an absurd 65 in the early round Sunday, but slid from third place with a second-round 76. That painful round cost the Wildcats dearly, as they ended the first round only one stroke behind Oklahoma in second place, and had a three-shot edge on current leaders Nebraska. Adams is still the low scorer for the Wildcats, however, and enters Sunday 11 strokes off the individual leader, Oklahoma’s Katie Milligan. As a team, the Cats are now 17 shots behind the Cornhuskers, who shot 273 in round two for the best round of the day. One shot back of Adams but tied for 18th due to a pile-up is Connie Jaffrey at 2-under, while Niamh McSherry is holding par, tied for 36th.