Purple pips White in spring game

Football

Purple beat White 31-28 in Kansas State’s annual spring game, and for once, the two teams appeared about as evenly matched as the score suggests. in a rain-marred contest, the Purple team racked up 293 yards to 222 from White.

Landry Weber played for both teams and led all receivers with nine catches. Fellow new name Chabastin Taylor, playing for the White team, caught five passes, and was—for all practical purposes—the game’s MVP. Zach Reuter and Adam Harder also contributed to the passing offense, catching five and seven balls respectively.

Alex Delton and Skylar Thompson also took snaps with both teams and looked as sharp as possible for quarterbacks to look in a Bill Snyder spring game. They did little to separate themselves from each other, with Delton going 21-of-28 for 201 yards, and Thompson tallying 204 yards off 15-of-22 passing. The two teams ran the ball effectively too, with Alex Barnes leading all rushers with 94 yards for Purple.

On the other side of the ball, defensive back Brock Monty was the brightest star of the day, while White teammate Wayne Jones snagged the game’s only pick. Overall though, the defense seemed more of a work in progress than the offense, and depth may prove to be a problem as the actual season progresses.

And then there was the kicking. Actually, let’s just not talk about the kicking.

Fortsphere

Speaking of things we’d rather not talk about. Someday fortsphere will cease to be fortsphere.

Track and Field

The men and women TrackCats (yes, we’re going to do this with every sport) finished third at the Kansas Relays. The 11th-ranked women’s team scored 164 points while the men had a season-high 131 points during the quadrangular meet. The other schools in competition were Kansas, Nebraska and that noted plains area school of some repute, Harvard.

Cliff Rovelto was vocally disappointed with the result, noting that the teams were affected by weather conditions but “we should still give a better effort.” The coach’s words notwithstanding, there were several standout performances over the weekend.

Terrell Smith was the high points scorer on the men’s side, notching 18 points for an easy victory in the 100m and then later won the 200m event as well. Teammates Nick Albus and Jullane Walker each finished third in the 100m and 200m races respectively. For the women, Wurrie Njadoe won the 100m race.

Current Big 12 3000m steeplechase champion Morgan Wedekind ran a new personal best time to win the event in Lawrence this weekend, while teammate Cara Melgares came in second, also with a new personal best. On the men’s side, Colton Donahue led from start to finish to take first place.

Kansas State went 1-3-4 in the hammer throw, with Shaelyn Ward winning the event and teammates Ashley Petr and Taylor Latimer making the top five. Latimer later won the women’s shot put event.

Senior Lukas Koch won the men’s 1500m, while Kurt Loevenstein finished just behind him in second place.