Will Kansas State’s draft streak stay alive?

Football

Did you know Kansas State has the Big 12’s longest NFL draft streak, going all the way back to 1994 when Thomas Randolph and Andre Coleman both had their names called? By rights, the streak should have ended in 2012, but Bryce Brown being picked in the seventh round fixed that.

This year, the most likely player to keep the streak going is D.J. Reed, who expects to be drafted today. Byron Pringle could go in the late rounds too.

Baseball

Uh oh. I hesitate to say any more, but Kansas State baseball is not headed in the right direction, especially with an 18-0 loss to Baylor. The BatCats are now 3-13 in the Big 12, and honestly, let’s just stop there.

Tennis

The tennis team was bounced 4-1 in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament by No. 12 Texas Tech. The lone point for the RacketCats was from Maria Linares’ team-leading 12th singles win of the season, a 6-4, 6-3 match against the Red Raiders’ Alex Valenstein.

Despite the disappointing tournament result, coach Danielle Steinberg noted the team made immense progress this season and the future looks bright.

Meanwhile, the team will have to wait until May 1 to find out if they’re part of the NCAA Tournament field.

Track

The team split up with the distance runners hitting the Drake Relays in (the possibly fictional town of) Des Moines while the rest of the team traveled to Lubbock for the Texas Tech Corky/Crofoot Shootout. In Lubbock, the women finished in third place behind Texas Tech and Nebraska, while the men finished in fourth place.

Both teams saw some record-setting performances from the TrackCats. At the Drake Relays, Emma Wren, Cara Melgares, Sydney Collins, and Morgan Wedekind combined to win the 4x1600 relay, the first win in the event at Kansas State ever. In the process, they almost equaled a school record set back in 2010. Assistant coach Ryun Godfrey said windy conditions made the race difficult, but the team fought really hard for the victory.

In Lubbock, freshman Tejaswin Shankar won the men’s high jump on his first attempt with a new personal best mark of 2.29m, besting his own Indian national record in the process. The new mark leads the NCAA in 2018 so far, and is the sixth best mark in the world this year. Afterwards, Cliff Rovelto noted that Shankar didn’t even jump that well, suggesting Shankar has only scratched the surface of what he’s capable of. #HighJumpU is alive and well.

Junior Brett Neely nearly broke a 33-year old school record in the shot put event. With a mark of 19.59m, the third best in school history, Neely was only 0.10 off the throw made by Andy Gilliam back in 1985.

Janee’ Kassanavoid just did Janee’ Kassanavoid thing winning the hammer throw event with a toss of 67.38m, almost breaking her own school record in the process.

To close things out, the women’s 4x400 relay team of Lauren Taubert, A’Keyla Mitchell, Nina Schultz, and Ariel Okorie ran a speedy 3:38.50 race to win the event.

Up next is the final tune up before the Big 12 Championships. The track team will return home to host the Ward Haylett Invitational on May 5.