Spring sports 2004
By Joe Vanden Acker
Softball
The Vikings earned a third consecutive trip to
the Midwest Conference Tournament. The Vikings’ streaky season, which
saw them win six straight at one point and eight of nine later in the season,
finished
with Lawrence taking second place in the North Division and third in the
conference. The Vikings finished 19-15 overall and 9-4 in the Midwest Conference.
Shortstop Jenny Burris, ’04, of Gurnee, Ill., earned first-team All-Midwest
Conference honors for the fourth consecutive year and was named first-team
All-Great Lakes Region for the second straight year. Burris batted .457 with
eight doubles, three triples, three home runs, and 27 runs batted in (RBIs).
She finished her career at Lawrence as the school’s leader in hits
(184), runs scored (123), doubles (38), triples (10), total bases (266),
and stolen bases (103). She also finished with a career batting average
of .436.
Becca Reason, ’06, a center fielder from Minnetonka, Minn., made
the all-conference team for the second straight season and was a third-team
all-region pick. Hortonville’s Shannon Arendt, ’04, and Lauren
Kost, ’05, also earned all-conference
honors. Arendt, who plays second base, batted .342 for the season with
eight doubles, two triples, and ten RBIs. Kost, a pitcher from Carol Stream,
Ill.,
broke school records for starts (25), appearances (29), and innings pitched
(168). She went 16-8 with a 1.58 earned run average. Kost also fired the
first no-hitter in school history in Lawrence’s 11-0 blanking of
Finlandia University on April 2.
Baseball
Shortstop Andrew Wong, ’06, led a contingent of six Vikings
who were honored by the Midwest Conference.
Wong was a first-team all-conference selection and earned second-team All-Midwest
Region honors. The Wauwatosa native batted a team-high .397 on the season
and tied for the team lead with 22 runs batted in (RBIs). He broke Lawrence’s
season records for hits (46) and doubles (13).
Aaron Sorenson, ’06, a right-handed pitcher from Sheboygan, was a
first-team all-conference selection for the second consecutive season.
On the season, Sorenson was 5-4 with a 3.08 earned run average. He struck
out
a school-record 73 and broke the school record with three
shutouts.
He also threw a one-hitter in a 4-0 blanking of Oberlin College.
Doug Coe, ’07, a catcher from Appleton, was a stalwart behind the plate
and earned first-team all-league honors. A top-notch defensive catcher,
Coe was second on the team in hitting at .378 and drove in 21 runs. Kevin
Fitzsimmons, ’06,
a first baseman from La Crosse, led the team in hitting during conference
play, batting .388 with 11 RBIs, and was named to the first team. Centerfielder
Brad Hauser, ’07, and pitcher Josh Richie, ’07,
were both chosen for the second team.
Head coach Korey Krueger was named the North Division Coach of the Year
after the Vikings finished third and posted a 15-19 overall record.
Track and field
Courtney
Miller, ’04, of Rochester, N.Y (photo), won two Midwest
Conference titles and was named the conference meet’s Most Outstanding
Track Performer. She took the 800 meters in 2 minutes, 19.93 seconds, and
the 1,500 meters in 4:51.11. Powered by her two wins, the Lawrence women
took sixth at the outdoor meet with 60.5 points.
Mary Markowitz, ’05, of Delavan, broke the school record outdoors
in the pole vault with a height of 9 feet, 1 inch.
Kolade Agbaje-Williams, ’06, of Evergreen Park, Ill., placed in three events at the outdoor championships to lead the Vikings to sixth place. He won the long jump with a leap of 22 feet, 7.75 inches, was fourth in the triple jump, and took eighth in the 400 meters.
Men’s tennis
With its manpower sapped due to academic commitments,
the men’s tennis team came up short in its bid for a Midwest Conference
championship. The Vikings did, however, do the next best thing — beat
Ripon. For the first time since April 21, 1984, Lawrence topped the Red
Hawks in tennis with a 4-3 victory on Feb. 28. First-year head coach Asma
Ali saw her team win four of the singles matches to claim victory.
Lawrence finished with a 6-5 record in dual matches and tied for first
in the North Division of the conference with a 3-1 mark. The Vikings were
left
out of the four-team Midwest Conference Tournament that determines the
league champion after losing out on a tie-breaker with Ripon and St. Norbert
College.
The Vikings finished sixth at the Midwest Conference Championships with
38 points. The No. 1 doubles team of Mumbai, India, native Jai Arora, ’04,
and Fabrice Munyakazi-Juru, ’06, of Kigali, Rwanda, beat Ripon’s
Adam Bruno and Paul Vanden Boogaard 6-4, 6-0 for the league title. Munyakazi-Juru
advanced to the title match at No. 2 singles, but Grinnell College’s
Eli Best handed him a 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 defeat.
Men’s golf
The golf team came up short in its quest for a Midwest Conference
title this spring. The Vikings took third place, carding rounds of 331
and 316 for a 647 total at the conference championships at Aldeen Golf Club
in Rockford, Ill. Monmouth College won the crown with a score of 637, and
Knox College took second
at 638.
A pair of Lawrence golfers, Andy Link, ’06, and Blake Nelson, ’05,
earned all-conference honors by placing in the top ten. Link, a native
of Rochester, Minn., grabbed fourth place after carding rounds of 81 and
76
for a total of 157. A native of LeSueur, Minn., Nelson had identical 81s
in both rounds for a total of 162 to tie for ninth place.
www.lawrence.edu/athletics