It’s the spring sports season wrap up – time to look at teams’ successes, failures, surprising little tidbits and basically anything else interesting enough to mention all mixed in with a few musings.
First let’s start with a great TCU success story, and one of the more memorable spring sports developments.
The rifle team got the ball rolling this spring, finishing third in the NCAA Rifle Championships, the best finish in TCU history. These lady shooters improved on their fifth place finish last year and ended another long-standing Horned Frog drought, beating the University of Nebraska for the first time in TCU rifle history.
Is it possible to transition from a football school to a rifle school? It would certainly put us in a unique class, but I don’t think tailgating mixes well with guns and the silence during play rule would get old around hour two.
The basketball teams kept things copacetic by not straying off their established paths too much. The women advanced to the postseason again and the men finished with a losing record. Consistency is key.
The Lady Frogs‘ postseason berth, however, was in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, breaking their streak of seven straight NCAA tournament bids, but they did advance to the quarterfinals. The men finished with their best record since joining the Mountain West Conference and have a new head coach, Jim Christian, who is coming off a No. 9-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Who knows, TCU might actually sell out more than just Texas Tech games next season. OK, probably not a reality, but at least the new coach’s name is Christian, so that’s pretty cool.
The equestrian team made horse-riding history with the first undefeated Western style season in Varsity equestrian and senior Kindel Huffman set a school record with 11 MVPs.
Next season TCU needs to start busing students out to Mansfield for the team’s home meets. They should be able to coax at least the same amount of fans the basketball teams averaged last season. Just tell people the line for the charter bus is for a cowboy theme party and hand out snap-on bracelets. Theme parties are fun.
The women’s tennis team was the outright regular season conference champion and the men’s team took home a share of their conference championship. For the most diverse team on campus, great job … in Russian, Ukrainian, Norwegian, Finnish and Romanian.
The TCU swimming and diving teams finished in fifth and sixth place, respectively, in the MWC Championships and senior Jonathan Berrettini represented his school and conference in the NCAA Championships. Berrettini finished in 26th place in the NCAA Championships in the 100 back with a personal, school and conference record of 48.16.
The track and field teams are thriving this season, running past the competition, get it? The women’s team won the Mountain West Conference Indoor Championships and the men finished in second. While at the NCAA indoor championships, the men ranked 12th and the women grabbed the No. 56 ranking. These teams are so hot right now.
Horned Frogs baseball got off to a slow start but has regained some momentum, winning a season high nine games in a row. This self-described dirt-bag team could take home its third straight Mountain West Conference title, joining this long list of spring conference champions. Maybe they will take it one game at a time while remembering that its 90 percent physical and half mental, oh and don’t forget that it’s a team sport and things should develop.
Thanks for the memories, spring sports. We look forward to seeing you after the football season. Good luck with recruiting and remember you’re no longer allowed to text message high school athletes.
