I went to the Cavs/Heat game at Quicken Loans Arena on Tuesday night, and much of the night was scripted: Fans would mercilessly boo LeBron and he would go off (and he did, recording a triple-double). Somehow, someway, the Cavaliers found a way to win the game in what was the only surprise of the night.

I’m glad the Cavs won, but as we all know the wins are few and far between. Usually the results inside Quicken Loans Arena are about as predictable as the WWE matches that are hosted inside the same arena.

If you peek at the ESPN.com power rankings from the preseason and now, 22 weeks into the season, they look the same. Of the top 10 teams from late October, eight teams still remain.

Why play the regular season?  I get that the playoffs are exciting and if I had a horse in the race, I’d watch each playoff game. Realistically, five or six teams have a shot at winning the title. If you aren’t a fan of one of those teams, there is little point in tuning in to watch the two teams go back-and-forth for 46 minutes before pressing the ‘on’ button in the final two minutes to decide the outcome.

I don’t even like hockey, but I find the Stanley Cup playoffs to be riveting. The pride and passion is obvious. I don’t see that when I watch professional hoops.

College basketball is more my cup of tea. Butler and Virginia Commonwealth doing battle Saturday night for the chance to play for the national title? Sign me up. Nobody, except for two losers that filled out hundreds of brackets on ESPN.com, saw that coming.

I get that the NBA players are the best in the world. Players like J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison dominate college basketball and then fall off the face of the Earth when they start getting paychecks. I think it is, in many ways, a completely different game.

It’s a better game. It’s a team game. We heard a lot this week about “The Butler Way,” which is a way of saying the right way. Play team defense, hustle and put the team first.

We’ve heard that the folks at CBS aren’t happy that Butler and Virginia Commonwealth will meet in one semifinal Saturday night because they’ll lose advertising dollars. Sorry for them, but I’m pumped.

Contact Tim Ertle at

After earning All-Ohio Athletic Conference honors for the fourth consecutive year, Blue Streak senior Lee Jennings earned national recognition last week as she was named to a pair of All-America teams.

D3Hoops.com named Jennings a first team All-American, making her the first player in program history to earn that honor. Additionally, she was named to the State Farm Coaches’ All-America team, earning honorable mention status.

“I am extremely honored to be named an All-American,” said Jennings. “My ultimate goal for this season was for us to win a conference title and take a trip to the NCAA tournament. We came up eight points shy of that goal but that was my main focus.”

The consummate team player, Jennings was quick to emphasize that she wasn’t aiming for individual accolades.

“I am honored to have received this award but it was not the one I was going for. I am proud of the mark I have left on this program, and I hope this is the beginning of John Carroll becoming a dominant OAC force.”

Jennings certainly will be leave a mark on the program as she leaves as the school leader in scoring and assists.

Track and Field

Both the men’s and women’s track teams took their annual spring trip this past weekend as they participated in the 49er Classic, hosted by the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. The meet, which contained a field made up predominantly of scholarship schools from the Division I or NAIA level, was unscored. It was used as a training trip and an opportunity to compete against some high-caliber athletes in preparation for the Ohio Athletic Conference season.

It was also the first time the teams were able to participate outdoors since their indoor season ended on Feb. 26 at the conference indoor championships.

Junior Jake Smith covered 5,000 meters in 15:28.65 which was the best time among all non-scholarship school participants and 19th in a 62-man field.

Seniors David Hickey and Denny Love each cracked the top 20 in hurdle events. Hickey was 16th in the 400-meter hurdles while Love took 20th in the 110-meter high hurdles.

The field events were kind to the Blue Streaks as freshman Cory Biro had the best individual performance by a Blue Streak as he placed ninth in the pole vault, clearing 4.15 meters. Freshman Anthony Chizmadia earned two top-25s in the shot put and the discus, and senior Lou Galiano took 13th in the shot put.

On the women’s side, freshmen Nicki Bohrer and Anna Busta both finished 24th in their respective events.

Bohrer was 24th in the 800-meter run which had 88 participants. Her time of 2:22.08 was the second best among all Division III competitors. Busta was 24th in a field of 61 participants and was the top Division III finisher in the 5,000-meter run.

Tennis

The tennis team took their spring trip over the school’s Spring Break, competing in Hilton Head, S.C. The men’s team finished 3-2, while the women went 1-4. The men’s team will have their last non-conference meet on Saturday with Case Western Reserve University while the women begin OAC play Saturday with Ohio Northern University.

JCU was 2-4 against the other three teams in the postseason tournament, but coach Erin Brooks’ team ran off three consecutive wins over the University of Mount Union, Muskingum University and Ohio Northern University to win the postseason tournament.

The win over the ONU Polar Bears, then ranked fourth in the national polls, in the championship game earned the Blue Streaks their first conference title. However, the OAC awards their automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament to the regular season champion, so JCU’s 2010 season ended with the conference championship game.

This year, they want more.

The program lost Laura Boselovic, Julie Marlowe and Sam Thompson to graduation – a trio that was instrumental in guiding the 2010 team and left as the winningest class in school history.

Replacing them won’t be easy, but players on the team are familiar with how things are done around the program.

“We lost a great group of seniors from last year’s team and they were a huge reason why we were able to do what we did,” said Brooks.  “At the same time, we have players on our team that will step into more of a leadership role and show the freshmen how things are done.”

This year’s team again has three seniors in Jamie Colley, Katie Knox and Angela Vistocco to set the example. The freshman class has 11 players on the roster.

“We’re excited about the freshmen that we brought in. We think they’re a good group and will certainly be able to help us out this year.”

The freshmen have already contributed early in the season. Trisha Pike has started three games in the circle behind junior Brittany Danilov, a first team All-OAC selection in each of her first two seasons.

Pike is 1-1 with 2.17 ERA in her three appearances. Danilov is 6-2 with a 2.09 ERA and will have high expectations once the team begins conference play as she was 6-3 in conference competition last season.

Rookies Samantha Becker, Anna Fach and Ally Kleinhans have all become fixtures in the starting lineup. That trio is led by Becker who was second on the team with a .444 batting average and a team-best 12 RBI entering last night’s doubleheader with Ohio Wesleyan University.

Offensively, the Blue Streaks can lean on junior Olivia Mathews, a 2010 first team all-conference selection. She’s off to a hot start, leading the team with a .448 batting average.

Sophomore catcher Mackenzie Griffin was a 2010 second team All-OAC selection and is tied with Mathews to lead the team with 13 hits so far this season. Junior Elena Cotton will be an option to spell Griffin behind home plate.

Juniors Michelle Murphy and Erin Riccardi, both of whom hit over .315 and drove in over 30 runs last season, can provide a spark with the bat.

The team has their home and conference opener on Saturday when ONU comes to University Heights. The first game is at 1 p.m. at Bracken Field.

I got to thinking what the coolest thing was that I’ve ever witnessed, and I realized I’ve been fortunate enough to see some pretty cool things.

While pondering, the famous quote from legendary UCLA head basketball coach John Wooden that “sports don’t build character, they reveal it” flashed across the jumbrotron.

With that in mind, I realized the coolest thing I’ve seen in sports wasn’t a walk-off shot by LeBron James or ‘Script Ohio’ at Ohio Stadium. It wasn’t the Indians clinching a playoff spot or the Browns simply finding a way to win a game.

The coolest thing I’ve seen in sports, hands down, was a friend overcoming a serious injury, one thought to be paralyzing, to walk again.

In my freshman year at Saint Ignatius High School, a kid I played summer basketball with and had known since seventh grade went down to make a tackle in a freshman football game and had his life changed forever. Doctors suggested his chances of walking again were bleak, but he never gave up.

He walked across the stage at high school graduation and onto the University of Notre Dame. He was home last week on Spring Break, and when we got together I realized just how far he has come since that terrible blow on Sept. 11, 2003.

I had back-to-back classes with him in high school and I used to carry his bookbag to our second class, and the image of him moving around campus with his walker, never once complaining, will stick with me forever.

To see where he was then and where he is now is inspiring to me and all who have known him over the years.

I loved watching the NCAA Tournament over the past couple of days, but the amount of superlatives thrown around is incredible.

The Butler/Pittsburgh game was a terrific game, but it wasn’t the “best game ever.” There were undoubtedly some bad officiating calls in the last week, but they weren’t the most catastrophic calls in the world.

I was bothered most when a commentator asked his partner if he had ever seen a kid fight so hard for something, referring to a player’s will to win a college basketball game.

I’ve seen a kid fight harder just to walk again after an injury. And that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in sports.

Contact Tim Ertle at

The University of Mount Union  claimed five individual champions en route to capturing the team title. The Purple Raiders victory ended a five-year run for Heidelberg University who had won every conference tournament since 2006.

Heidelberg finished in second place, just ahead of Ohio Northern. Baldwin-Wallace College was fourth, while Muskingum University and Wilmington College rounded out the field.

“The conference was really deep this year,” said senior Tim Lambert, one of just two seniors on this year’s team. “I don’t think there’s any shame in taking fifth. Anyone that watches wrestling in this conference knows that this field was much deeper than an average year.”

One thing the Blue Streaks can hang their hat on is that they will lose just Lambert and senior Jim Gilchrist to graduation.

JCU did have two runners-up as freshman John Cobos (125 pounds) and junior Greg Ryan (141 pounds), both seeded third in their respective weight classes, lost in the title match.

Cobos defeated ONU’s Jerome Pasquale, avenging a loss from the regular season, in the semifinals.

His luck ran out against Ricky Reynolds from Mount Union in the championship bout when he was pinned.

Ryan pulled off a nice upset of his own, knocking off second-seeded Jonathan Hoopes of ONU, 5-3, in the semifinals.

He was narrowly edged in the championship by Mount Union’s Josh Malava, dropping the match 2-1.

Outside of Cobos and Ryan, JCU had third place finishers in freshman Ken Locesi (149 pounds) and redshirt sophomore Bryan Steinmetz (184 pounds).

Junior Sean Gill (165 pounds) and freshman Todd Gaydosh (174 pounds) each took fourth.

The Blue Streaks end their season with an overall record of 6-6, and they finished an even 3-3 in OAC dual meets by winning their last three matches of the regular season.

“I think we ended the regular season on a good note by winning those last three matches, so that’s something to look at heading into the offseason,” Lambert said.

He also pointed to the infusion of youth on the team as an encouraging sign going forward.

“When you look at how the younger guys did this weekend, especially young guys like John Cobos and Ken Locesi, they’re still underclassmen and they’re only going to get better,” said Lambert.

After all, the Blue Streaks went on the road and beat B-W in Berea, Ohio on Feb. 9.

But to do it a second time, especially with so much on the line, makes it an extra special win for JCU.

With a 74-60 win over B-W on Tuesday, JCU advances to the conference semifinal game to be played tonight in Ada, Ohio against the Ohio Northern University Polar Bears.

The Blue Streaks win ends the Yellow Jackets year with an overall record of 18-8.

Senior Lee Jennings, who averaged 30.5 points per game in the first two meetings with the Yellow Jackets, was right on par Tuesday night.

She scored 31 points against the Yellow Jackets on 14 of 24 shooting from the floor. Jennings also had nine assists and five rebounds on the night as well.

Freshman Missy Spahar was a huge contributor, pouring in 19 points while pulling down seven rebounds.

Junior Emilee Ritchie knocked down three three-pointers en route to 16 points in the game.

Having arguably the best player in the conference, and even the nation, in Jennings, definitely helped the Blue Streaks against B-W.

Yellow Jackets senior guard Amanda Schroeder, who led B-W with an average of 15.4 points per game during the regular season, struggled against the Blue Streaks defense as she only made four of her 10 shots from the field, finishing with just eight points in the contest.

For the Blue Streaks, rebounding had been a problem that has hindered the team all season. The first two times that these two teams got together, B-W won the rebound battle by an average of 15 per game.

However, the Blue Streaks held their own on Tuesday night as each team pulled down 34 rebounds.

The Blue Streaks, who only finished the 2009-10 season with an overall record of 11-14, have made big strides over last season as they clinched win number 15 on the season with the win over B-W.

By surviving and advancing, JCU can now turn their attention to the ONU Polar Bears.

JCU didn’t fare as well against ONU this season, losing both times the two teams met. ONU won 69-44 on Dec. 11, 2010 and then pulled out a 10-point victory in Ada on Jan. 29.

But with Jennings clicking at her current pace, averaging over 30 points per game over her last three contests, no upset seems impossible.

The winner of tonight’s semifinal game will play the winner of the University of Mount Union and Capital University on Saturday for the conference championship and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament at the home gym of the lowest remaining seed.

The OAC Championships will be hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. The competition will begin on Friday, Feb. 25 and will conclude on Saturday.

The men’s team finished in sixth place out of 10 teams at last year’s conference championships at Marietta College and the women’s team finished in eighth place.

Both the Blue Streaks men’s and women’s teams will look to improve upon those marks this year.

Sophomore Anthony Colbert and senior Brian Wideman will both look to build off of the success that they had at the Greater Cleveland Championships last weekend.

Each claimed two titles at the competition, combining for four of the five total titles won by Blue Streaks on the day.

Aside from those two, sophomore Mike Minjock figures to be in the mix in the long jump after breaking the school record in that event just last week.

Minjock’s classmate Pat Burns could score in the distance runs.

On the women’s side of the event, the Blue Streaks brought home four titles from the Greater Cleveland Championships.

Freshman Nicki Bohrer and sophomore Maureen Creighton both finished with an identical time of 1:21:28 in the 500 meter run to break a school record.

Their time of 1:21:28 bested the previous 500 meter record of  1:21.73, set by Markita Thompson in 2003.

The 500 meter run event was a race that the Blue Streaks excelled in as freshman Gab Kreuz took third and junior Andrea Brown was fourth to complete the JCU quartet.

Kreuz also came in fifth place in the 200 meter run.

The women’s team finished in third place in the competition with  86 team points and the men’s team finished in fourth place on their side of the bracket with a team total of 118 points on the day.

Lenhart admits both will be tough to beat again this week when the conference championships get underway today at the University of Akron.

“Ohio Northern is the program with the bullseye on their back,” said Lenhart, who has won 29 OAC championships since the Blue Streaks joined the conference in 1990.

John Carroll is one of the teams in close pursuit, as the men took second last year while the women finished in third. Making those finishes more exciting was the fact that many of the Blue Streaks top performers were underclassmen, some at their first conference meet.

Last year, rookies Rachael Mizner and Julia Adams finished first and second, respectively, in overall team points. Mizner was named the conference’s Swimmer of the Year for her fantastic showing at her first conference meet. Lenhart again expects big things from that duo.

“They’ll both be right there again. Obviously they were terrific last year but they both came back and worked hard,” said Lenhart. “To their credit, they’ve each worked harder this season and gotten better. Now the field will be better overall and the times should be up, but having been there once the fears should be calmed and they will know what to expect. We have high expectations for those two, though.”

On the men’s side, Lenhart was excited about the potential of juniors Eric Davis and Alex Vereshchagin.

“Eric has been interning with Deloitte Touche so he hasn’t been doing too much competing this semester,” Lenhart said. “But he’s been doing a lot of work on his own. He’s the kind of kid that’s always in good shape, even after the season ends. I’m not worried about him.”

Davis’ classmate Vereshchagin has made a name for himself in his first two years with the program.

Last year, he earned All-OAC status by finishing in the top three in three different events: the 50 and 100 Freestyle events, as well as the 100 Breaststroke.

“Alex has a chance to make the NCAA tournament, and when you look at people like Julia [Adams] and Rachael [Mizner] we have some swimmers who are right there,” said Lenhart.

If nothing else, Lenhart feels that a lot of school records could fall.

“Oh yeah, not a lot are safe,” he said when asked if he thought any program records had a chance of falling.

“I think that quite a few records could fall this week,” said Lenhart. “I think when you look at our guys Freestyles and Freestyle Relays, those could certainly fall. I really like where we’re at with our girls relay teams, and there’s a shot of the 50 Freestyle record being broken.”

The scary thing for teams around the OAC is that this is still a young program, as only two men and three women are seniors. With so much young talent, there’s the possibility that someday soon, Lenhart will enter these championships with the feeling the Ohio Northern coaches have this week: the bullseye on their back.

For me, that means the start of baseball season as pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this week.

Tim Kurkjian and the crew are back on “Baseball Tonight” and publications with fantasy baseball rankings are all over the newsstands.

I’m giddy at the thought, but I’m afraid that not too many people share in my excitement.

We can call baseball America’s pastime, but let’s face it: it’s not anymore. Football is far and away the most popular sport in this country.

According to FoxSports.com, last month’s NFL Pro Bowl exhibition reeled in 13.4 million viewers. The World Series, which was also on Fox, attracted an average of just 14.3 million viewers over five games.

Just last week, officials at the University of California-Berkeley upheld a decision to cut baseball, making it the only Division I school in the state not to field a team.

I’ll concede that there’s a lot wrong with baseball.

My beloved Cleveland Indians have next to no shot (a 100:1 shot, according to BoDog Online Sportsbook) to win the World Series. Other teams in small markets can’t realistically compete either because of the salary structure.

It should be noted that the two teams that met in the 2010 World Series, the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers, opened last season as huge underdogs to win it all. A $100 wager on either team would have profited you $3,000.

There are questions about the integrity of the game and performance-enhancing drugs, but many of those questions seem to have gone away since Major League Baseball introduced stricter penalties back in 2006.

Some find baseball to be boring, dating back to their playing days as a kid when they had to watch pitchers that couldn’t throw strikes walk people around the bases.

I don’t often sit down to watch a random baseball game, but I would watch grade school football if it was on television. Football translates better to TV. I get it.

There’s something special about baseball – something that’s hard to put into words. Maybe I’ve watched “Field of Dreams” too many times, but I can’t wait. Play ball!

Contact Tim Ertle at

Auburn was led by Heisman Trophy winner Cameron Newton, the do-it-all quarterback who was ruled ineligible for a day after NCAA investigators looked into claims that Newton lost his amateur status when his father initiated a pay-for-play scheme.

Newton was re-instated after it was ruled he had no knowledge of his father’s wrongdoing, but there’s still the (small) chance down the road the NCAA could discover that Newton knew of the violations. In that case, Oregon would be the national champion.

There’s precedence for that happening, as the NCAA has stripped teams of wins retroactively after finding rules violations. In many cases, it has been years after the violations occurred when the penalty was finally handed down. It makes no sense.

More than a year after the University of Memphis lost to the University of Kansas in the 2008 men’s basketball national championship, the NCAA stripped the Tigers of all 38 wins they earned in 2007-08 because they used an ineligible player, believed to be Derrick Rose.

The official record book says Kansas won the national championship, but has no mention of Memphis being in the championship game. The NCAA can say that Memphis wasn’t in the Final Four, but we all know they were. We saw them. 

John Calipari, who coached that Memphis team in 2007-08, also had his Final Four run in 1995-96 with the University of Massachusetts vacated after their star player, Marcus Camby, was ruled ineligible for accepting money and gifts from an agent.

The same thing happened with former University of Southern California star Reggie Bush. The Trojans vacated wins from his time there because he broke NCAA rules. Bush was removed from record books, and it’s just a silly, worthless punishment.

He went there and played. He won a ton of games and we all watched. To say otherwise is just untrue. 

The NCAA can put an asterisk next to records if they want, but to me, vacating wins and saying things didn’t happen when we all saw them serves little purpose.

Once the season ends, what’s done is done. Let’s let it be.

This past Saturday, 17 members of the John Carroll University wrestling team attended the 45th annual Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Invitational and came away with better results than a year ago – a sign that the young Blue Streak team is maturing and making strides toward becoming the team they aspire to be. 

Competing against eight other colleges, including two rivals in Baldwin-Wallace College and Case Western Reserve University, John Carroll placed fifth out of nine teams. Last year, the team took sixth of 10 teams. 

“We placed fifth, which was better than last year,” said junior Vinny Pizzuli. “Overall, I think we did pretty well.”

The tournament started at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday and kicked off with JCU’s 125-pound sophomore John Cobos and ended close to 6 p.m. when senior heavyweight Tim Lambert wrapped things up. Undoubtedly a long day, it was well worth it for a team trying to find itself early in the season.

“RIT was a good day for us,” junior captain Bryan Steinmetz said. “It was our first tournament with Division III teams so a lot of our newer guys got their first wins of the season.”

Some Blue Streaks were yet to get in the win column in 2010 after the season started with matches against Division I Cleveland State University and participation in the Catholic Invitational Tournament – an event that had some Division II teams in the field. 

JCU’s only Division III opponent all year had been Case Western last week, a match which the Blue Streaks easily won 32-13.

Senior Kevin Nycz, who wrestled at 133 pounds, echoed Steinmetz’s feelings toward the rewards of the weekend.

 “It’s a good way to get the freshman wrestlers to get winning matches in and start to build confidence,” he said. 

JCU racked up 84 points, only 10 points shy of Baldwin-Wallace. SUNY Cortland took home the top spot with 148.5 points.  

The Invitational was the last match of the semester for the boys, which leaves them looking forward to their annual trip to Florida during Christmas break.

“We take about 22 or 23 guys, based on who earns the trip through offseason workouts, our team fundraising, attitude and work ethic,” said Steinmetz. 

Those who qualify for the trip hop on a bus to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for a two-day competitive tournament, the Florida Citrus Invitational, which begins on Dec. 29. Afterwards, the team heads to Key West to train.

“We perform two-a-day workouts between wrestling, lifting and running. Then we spend the rest of the day on the beach, or playing cornhole as a team,” said Steinmetz. 

The Florida trip is something that the team looks forward to all year – and then spends quite some time afterwards reminiscing about.

It’s certainly a time for the team to come together, but a trip that is taken seriously within the program. It’s a time-honored tradition for Blue Streak wrestlers, and team leaders show the younger guys “the Blue Streak way.”

 “We have veteran guys like Tim Lambert, who have stepped up to take leadership over the upperweights, and Kevin Nycz in the lower weight classes. Then juniors Sean Gill, Vinny Pizzuli, Connor Suba and I fill the leadership positions throughout the rest of the lineup,” said Steinmetz.

The hard workouts and struggle to cut weight to maintain their eligibility help form a bond within the team, and the Florida trip goes a long way in bringing the team closer together. 

“The team is like one big family and they’re great to be around. Everyone gets along and it’s always fun. We learn a lot about our team,” said Pizzuli.

If I decide to go look for employment, I often wonder what kind of money I have the potential to make. According to the unscientific survey that was conducted by studentsreview.com, communications majors enter the workforce with an average salary of $42,300. 

The site didn’t disclose much, other than the fact that $42,300 was the average starting salary for the 516 recent graduates with communications degrees they polled.

For you accounting majors, the hard work in the Boler School may pay off as the 377 accounting majors reported an average starting salary of $53,838.

I wished, for a second at least, that I had considered a degree in business. But later that night when watching ESPN, I heard an analyst say that Sam Bradford, the top overall pick in last year’s NFL Draft, was celebrating his 23rd birthday.

Bradford’s working his first job and his salary is a wee bit higher than most of ours will be – to the tune of $86 million over six years.

He’s a 6-foot-4 gifted athlete that has a rocket for an arm and a skill set that is in extremely high demand. But $86 million for what he’s done in college?

So far Bradford has impressed and looks like five years from now, he could be in the conversation to be the best quarterback in the NFL.

But five years from now, couldn’t an accountant be the best CPA in his entire firm? Couldn’t an education major be the best teacher in America? 

They certainly could be … but they also could fall flat on their faces and be a failure. That’s why you start with a bottom salary and work your way up.

The NFL has it all backwards in paying kids straight out of college more than the best in the business. For Bradford to make more than $14 million while Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees makes $10 million is insane.

A lockout in the near future may be inevitable, and a rookie pay scale has to be one of the first things discussed. Nowhere else in the world would a kid out of college make more than someone at the top of their craft. That needs to be changed.

Contact Tim Ertle at 

In a game that featured more than 1,000 yards of combined offense and ten touchdowns, it was ironic that a potential game-winning field goal that sailed left of the uprights would decide the outcome. 

Despite posting a season-high 484 yards of total offense on Saturday, John Carroll could not out-score the star-studded Heidelberg offense in a 37-35 loss at Mayer Field in Tiffin, Ohio.

John Carroll fell to 4-5, 4-4 in the conference with the loss – their first to Heidelberg since 1993 in a stretch that covered 16 games.

The Student Princes were led by the trio of senior quarterback Andrew Miller, senior wide receiver Mike Preston and freshman running back Germany Woods, who totaled 559 yards of total offense in the win. 

They improved to 5-4 overall and 4-4 in the OAC. It marks the first time since 1997 that Heidelberg has won five games in a season.

JCU had a fantastic start after the defense forced a punt and the offence pieced together a six play, 99-yard scoring drive on their first possession.

Junior quarterback Devin O’Brien, known for his running capabilities, wasted no time throwing the football. O’Brien capped off the drive with a 16-yard pass to sophomore running back DaQuan Grobsmith to give the Blue Streaks the early lead. 

A 51-yard completion to sophomore tight end Ben Madden with an additional 15 yards after a late hit out of bounds penalty set up the touchdown, and the Blue Streaks led 7-0 five minutes into the game.

Unfortunately for JCU, Heidelberg has as good of an offense as anyone in the country. Coming into the game, Miller had the fifth most passing touchdowns in the country (and a school record 25) as well as holding the top spot in the Ohio Athletic Conference with 277.3 yards of total offense per game. 

His top target Preston, a 6-5, 205 pound receiver, ranked sixth in the country with 122.5 receiving yards per game and had recorded at least one touchdown in every game this season. Throw in Woods, who averaged almost 93.0 yards per game on the ground, and the Student Princes become a multi-faceted powerhouse, one that would score back-to-back touchdowns to take a 14-7 lead. 

The second score came on a designed fake field goal in which the quarterback Miller served as the  holder and scrambled 17 yards to give the ‘Berg the lead.

Looking to answer that score, the Blue Streaks concocted a little creativity of their own. O’Brien lined up in the shotgun with two running backs to his right. He took the snap, took two hard steps toward the line of scrimmage, and then fired a perfect pass to senior Frank Ross who hauled in the game-tying touchdown. Earlier in the game, Ross became the first player in school history to haul in 200 career receptions.

Heidelberg went back to the ground game, running five times for 60 yards. Sophomore Brad Jones re-established the lead with a 15-yard run for a score. With 6:16 to go in the second quarter, the host Student Princes led 21-14.

Yet again, the Blue Streaks answered with a four play, 78-yard drive that was capped off with a 41-yard touchdown burst from Grobsmith that tied the game at 21. The sophomore running back finished the day with a new career high of 174 yards.

But if there is anything Heidelberg can do well, it’s score. They did one more time before the half as Woods found the end zone for the second time in the game to give the ‘Berg a 28-21 lead at the break.

In a first half that saw a combined 690 yards of total offense, each team’s defense certainly needed to regroup.

“We knew coming into the game that they had a potent offense,” said Ross. “But our guys got into a great rhythm – negative plays were very minimal and we also had plenty of big gains.”

“Early on in the year, we didn’t really come out flying to the ball on defense,” said senior linebacker Luke Whitworth. “But every play now, there are almost 11 guys crashing on the ball carrier. Unfortunately in the first half, we didn’t do that very well. But we definitely made strides defensively in the second half.”

That included holding Heidelberg to three points on a goal-to-go situation that gave Heidelberg a 31-21 lead – which was the biggest lead either team held all game.

After a Blue Streak punt, the Student Princes were moving with authority. Finally, John Carroll’s defense caught the break it deserved. Junior C.J. Seitzinger popped Jones at the line of scrimmage, who coughed up the football. Freshman linebacker Josh Varon recovered the fumble, and the momentum swung back in favor of the Blue Streaks.

Coach Regis Scafe’s offense went back to what they have done best all season – running the football. After six runs totaling 41 yards, O’Brien faked a handoff and found senior Sean Webster wide open in the back corner of the end zone for the score. The PAT from sophomore Brad Marchese was good and narrowed the deficit to three points.

JCU didn’t trail for long after that as they rode Grobsmith – who carried the ball on nine of the ten plays on the drive – over the goal line for the touchdown. With 6:10 remaining, John Carroll led 35-31.

But the ‘Berg couldn’t be stopped. Behind Miller, Heidelberg methodically moved the ball down the field. The Student Princes pieced together a 13-play, 63-yard drive that gave them the lead. Preston caught a screen pass and hurdled would-be tacklers for a 15-yard touchdown reception. Heidelberg missed the extra point attempt wide left, leaving the score 37-35 with only 48 seconds left in the game.

Senior Bobby Mangiarelli returned the kickoff 43 yards to the Heidelberg 42, giving the Streaks excellent field position. O’Brien picked up 17 yards in the air after two pass plays, followed by Grobsmith running to the right to give the team a better look at the field goal attempt. Unfortunately, the attempt from 41 yards sailed wide to the left and the ‘Berg hung on for victory.

“A lot of credit goes to our offense,” said Scafe after the game. “We were caught up in a shootout, but hung with them the whole day. We found ourselves down 10 going into the fourth quarter and we came back to take the lead. They played extremely well all day.” 

O’Brien threw for a career best 224 yards and three touchdowns in the losing effort. The Streaks amassed 260 yards on the ground as they increased their season average to nearly 194 yards per contest. 

The Blue Streaks have the chance to finish the season strong on Saturday. They could still finish as high as fourth place in the OAC with a win over Baldwin-Wallace College. 

“I don’t think I’m going to need to tell these guys too much going into next week,” said Scafe. “We’re playing B-W and we will definitely be ready. We’re looking forward to finishing this season on a high note.”

Calling himself a “good athlete” seems to be selling himself short. Good athletes don’t break school records as Ross has done. 

After switching to wide receiver during his sophomore year, he’s re-written the record book for that position.

He’s already broken the school record for receptions in a career and, if all goes well, he’ll become the Blue Streak leader in career receiving yards as well. Currently, he’s second in that category.

So far this season, Ross leads the team with 27 catches for 239 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Back in spring ball, Ross wasn’t even sure he would be on the team.

He earned his degree last May and was looking to enter the coaching profession, but things didn’t fall his way. He lost out on a graduate assistant job at Ball State, ironically to Don Shula’s grandson.

JCU head coach Regis Scafe allowed Ross to coach the Blue Streak wide receivers, and after being granted an extra year of eligibility because of a medical redshirt granted by the NCAA, he elected to come back for a fifth season.

Despite the fact that the Blue Streaks are 1-3 after last Saturday’s loss to Otterbein, Ross has no regrets about coming back.

“It’s frustrating being 1-3, but I don’t have any regrets about coming back,” Ross said. “This year has been good for me in that all of the people I came in with, all of my close buddies, they’re gone now. So it’s been good for my personal growth and development. I don’t need to have as much of a social life. I’ve been there and done that, and I’m here for the game now.”

It really is all about football for Ross. He’s enrolled in graduate school for the semester and taking the minimum of nine credit hours to be eligible under NCAA rules. 

After the season and semester come to an end, Ross will get back on the prowl to find a coaching job.

“I have every intention of coaching in the NFL,” he said. “I want to be the next Josh McDaniels, and I’m not going to stop until I get there.”

He already sounds like a coach when he sums up the Blue Streaks season.

“We’re a good football team, and we can honestly say that. But the reality is we’re 1-3, and yeah we have played good teams, but that’s just people making excuses for us,” Ross said. “We’ve played three teams in the top 25, but if we want to be in the top 25, we have to beat teams in the top 25.”

At the end of the season, Ross hopes to continue to play either in Canada or the Arena League. He admits that once you stop playing, you don’t go back. But once he’s done playing, it’s coaching that he wants to pursue.

He has some pretty good role models around campus to emulate.

“Coach Scafe knows how to win,” Ross said. “He gets us to play with effort and desire. That stuff is there. The pieces are in place, we just have to put it all together and be on our Ps and Qs.”

For Ross, effort is the biggest thing.

“We have a lot of guys working hard. We’re not satisfied with the progress of the program the last three or four years. It has been very difficult and it’s hard to turn around. We’re working towards it and bringing in the right people,” he said.

In addition to showing Ross how to handle a team, Scafe has made it a point to help his best player accomplish his NFL coaching dream.

“If you look at it, there are four guys in the NFL with prominent positions that are Carroll guys,” Ross said. “And to think that all of those guys came from a Division III school. Coach Scafe and Coach [Tom] Arth know all of them and are going to help get me in touch with those guys after the season.”

Ross knows that coming to JCU certainly helped him get closer to his dreams.

“I didn’t really expect all the connections when I got [to JCU],” Ross said. “But it’s been an absolute blessing to come to John Carroll and it has certainly helped me towards meeting my goals.”

Tomorrow will be the three-month anniversary (but who’s counting?) of that fateful day when he made his decision on national television to join the Heat. 

But just when I was starting to move on, LeBron James dropped the next bombshell, claiming that he received so much backlash because he was an African-American.

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. 

LeBron: people don’t hate you because you’re black. They hate you, that’s for sure, but it’s not because you’re black.

Race had nothing to do with it whatsoever. You promised a championship, didn’t deliver, and then quit when it got too hard.

The same people that allegedly hate you for being black were the same people that spent their hard-earned money to buy a #23 jersey. 

They’re the same people that broke open the piggy bank to buy the newest LeBron shoes from Nike and proudly boasted to be a “witness” to seeing you play. You were loved … and you were black.

There are people out there that hate people based on the color of their skin, and that’s unfortunate. But that’s a small percentage of people, and I think the race card gets played too often in sports. 

Rev. Jesse Jackson said Cavs owner Dan Gilbert treated LeBron James like a “runaway slave,” this after Gilbert paid James more than $62 million to play basketball for seven seasons. Nice pay rate.

Even other African-American athletes thought James’ race card was far off.

“It’s like watching a movie,” former NBA great Charles Barkley said during a radio interview last week. “Just when you think it couldn’t get any stupider, it gets more stupid.”

Skin color doesn’t matter. Fans care too much about winning to care about something as insignificant as that. 

Fans in Philadelphia have embraced an African-American that participated in a dog-fighting ring as their new quarterback. Fans have forgiven and now adore African-American Kobe Bryant who had a highly-publicized extramarital affair.

The point is, people don’t care about race. I’m not even sure we really care about behavior. Sins are forgiven the second a fantastic play is made. Michael Vick had seven touchdowns in his first three games, and now black and white people are buying #7 jerseys for their kids. 

We don’t care what color your skin is, we just want to win.

Rainey was charged with aggravated stalking after he sent a girlfriend a text message that, when cleaned up for print, read “Time to die.”

When police arrived, he told his girlfriend that she should just wait and see what happens to her after the police left.

Rainey was booted from the team by Gators head coach Urban Meyer, but the fact that he’s the 27th played arrested should raise concerns. 

Of those 27 arrests, not all were “huge deals.” Many players were arrested for underage possession of alcohol and received a slap on the wrist. Still, a handful of players were arrested on charges of battery and assault. In a few cases, their victims were women.

And still, the NCAA does nothing. 

The University of Southern California, on the other hand, is banned from postseason play because of illegal (by rule, not legal standards) benefits that former Trojan running back Reggie Bush received back in 2004.

I don’t think Florida should be banned from postseason play. That would be punishing the whole group for the actions of a few. But perhaps the governing body that is the NCAA could take away a few scholarships for Florida, as they did to USC, and encourage the Gators to clean up their program that way.

I think it’s unfair to the current players at USC to be punished for what one player (and maybe a coach and athletic director that have both since left the school) did before the current athletes stepped on campus. I also think that what the Florida players are doing as a collective unit seems much worse than what Bush did. 

Bush allegedly accepted cash and his parents were given a home by an agent. It’s against the rules, sure, but nobody was greatly hurt in the process. At Florida, news of players getting DUI’s and assault charges has become old hat, and that’s where people really get hurt.

Bush ultimately returned his Heisman Trophy and USC was stripped of their 2004 national title by the Football Writers Association of America. The school had to pay that way, as well as losing 30 football scholarships over a three-year span.

The NCAA has to keep things fair and they can’t have schools like USC getting better players by cheating. But to me, there are programs with worse things happening that need to be corrected first.

I love them. I love them. I love them. You get the point.

But it’s getting to be quite clear that they don’t love me back and it’s getting old.

Every Sunday it’s the same thing. Home games have become a ritual that, when I look at it mapped out on paper, seems tortuous to go through:

Wake up. 

Go downtown to tailgate. 

Convince myself we can win. 

The game starts. 

Opponent scores.

Opponents scores again.

I realize we can’t win. 

Game ends.

We officially don’t win. 

Then I get mad and go home.

In life, when we do something we don’t enjoy, we typically don’t do it ever again. At least if we can help it.

As Browns fans, and Bills fans are included here too, we do it to ourselves week after week, year after year. 

Heck, we’re going on decade after decade.

We never learn, or our love is too strong that we’re blinded by the facts.

If you speak up in protest or stop watching, you’re then labeled a bandwagon fan.

However, professional football is a business and we, the fans, are consumers. In no other business in the world would a company sell a bad product, and consumers continue to buy, buy and buy.

After Sunday’s game, the Browns second loss (of many – I’ll go with 13 or 14) of the season, a gentleman I was tailgating with brought up a good point.

He said how he respected people of my generation for our patience. In our lifetime, the Browns (and Bills) have been miserable. Yet, we continue to show support and buy the product that they’re putting out on the field.

I thought about that long and hard. Maybe fans should stop going altogether. Some people would say you’re a bandwagoner and you aren’t a real fan if you don’t support your team through thick and thin. But at the current pace, we’re acting as stupid consumers.

I’ve been fortunate enough to bum tickets off friends for quite a few Browns games in a row, but would I buy tickets now? Probably not. I don’t want to pay top dollar for a bargain-bin product.

When the product is good, people will come back to watch. That’s not being a bandwagoner, that’s being smart.  If the teams build it, the fans will come.

 The John Carroll women’s soccer team has one goal in mind: improve upon their semifinal exit in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament from a year ago.  

The Blue Streaks totaled a 3-8-1 record a year ago in non-conference play before going 6-2-1 to finish the season.

The women are well on their way to improving their first half record after splitting games this week with Case Western Reserve University and Medaille College. 

Their current record stands at 3-4, and they are coming off a convincing 4-0 winning effort against the Medaille Mavericks.

The Blue Streaks defense has been so important all year long. In the game against the cross-town rival Spartans, John Carroll’s defense did not surrender a goal until the 75th minute. A goal just moments before the end of the game brought the final to 2-0, but the Blue Streaks defense held their heads high and carried that momentum into Saturday’s contest.

“This year’s defense has gotten stronger every game,” said sophomore Amanda Buxton. “The communication and marking have increased our overall play and will keep getting better over time.”

All of that hard work was evident early and often in the Blue Streaks bludgeoning of Medaille. 

In the third minute of the game, junior Rachel Grdina put JCU ahead with her third goal of the season. 

Freshman Jackie Murrer knocked home her first collegiate goal late in the first half to give JCU the commanding edge at the break. 

Grdina added her second goal of the night and team-leading fourth of the season just over 10 minutes into the second half, and freshman Nicki Bohrer sealed the win with a goal in the 69th minute. 

With the win, the Blue Streaks improved to a perfect 3-0 in home games. 

Men

  The John Carroll men’s soccer team dropped two of three contests this week after starting the year 3-1. 

John Carroll holds a 4-3 overall record and they anticipate next Saturday’s return home for only the second home game in the friendly confines of Don Shula Stadium this season. 

The Blue Streaks lost a 2-0 contest at Hiram College on Sept. 14 and lost a 2-1 matchup against Hope College on Sept. 17 before halting the losing streak at two games with a 2-1 victory over Albion College on Sept. 18.

Only one of the seven games the Blue Streaks have played so far has had a final score decided by more than two goals. 

In each of those six games, John Carroll’s opponents have not scored more than two goals per contest.

“We have played some great defensive teams this year,” said sophomore midfielder Wycliffe Odhiambo. “They have waited for us to attack while trying to score on quick counter-attacks. They did a nice job of that on Tuesday [Hiram] and Friday [Hope], but we adjusted well on Saturday [Albion].”

Odhiambo is coming off of an All-Tournament selection in last week’s Clarion Hotel Soccer Classic.

“I am a lot more confident in myself this season. I’m taking my shots and I’m finishing better,” he said. “But I need to be more authoritative. I need to run harder and faster at the defense.”

Junior goalie Carl Contrascier has made his presence known this season, too. He has posted a 3-1 record in his four starts this season while also saving 11 shots. Senior forward Jeff Kosek leads the team with three goals, while Odhiambo and senior midfielder Joe Ciacchi have contributed two goals each.

The team will return home for the first time in nearly a month when they host Misericordia University on Saturday at 10 a.m.

The Blue Streaks defeated Grove City College by a score of 2-0 on Sept. 10 in game one of the 2010 Carroll Classic. They then knocked off Oberlin College on Sept. 11 to go 2-0 at their own event and earn a share of the title with Case Western Reserve University.

Because of the fact that this was a Classic, and not a tournament, second round matches were not contingent on results from the first day. The Blue Streaks and Case Western both finished the two-day event with a 2-0 record and a plus-five in the goal differential category.

Scoring five more goals than their opponents is something the Blue Streaks probably didn’t expect to do entering the weekend as they were riding the wave of a goal-scoring slump.

In the first three games of the season, only freshman Genny Goergen found the back of the net. However, in the last two games, four different Blue Streaks tallied a goal.

Junior Betsy Haigh and freshman Sarah Bolton got the goal parade started against Grove City.

Haigh found the back of the net in the seventh minute, knocking home a ball that was assisted by senior Val Korb and Goergen.

Korb then assisted on the goal to Bolton, the first goal of Bolton’s young career. Korb lofted it towards Bolton’s direction on a corner kick, and the freshman did the rest.

Senior Molly Gradowski recorded the shutout in goal, her first of the season, to give the team their first win of 2010.

They would get their second win by using an identical recipe: an early goal, solid defense and goalkeeping throughout, and insurance goals late.

Sophomore Amanda Buxton scored in the 24th minute, the game’s only score in the first half.

In the second half against Oberlin, junior Rachel Grdina left no doubt about the outcome.

The junior forward scored two goals within two minutes of each other to give Grdina the first multi-goal game of her career, but perhaps more importantly gave her team a cushion to cruise to victory.

Gradowski was again solid in net, stopping six shots for her 10th career shutout.

“I felt like this was our best game yet,” head coach Tracy Blasius said after the game. “We are moving in the right direction. We have had trouble finishing, so scoring three goals was great.”

The men’s cross country team, participating in their second race of the young season, took third of six participating teams at the Ric Sayre Invitational.

Three Blue Streaks finished in the individual top 11 to propel the team to their finish.

Junior Jake Smith finished fifth overall with a time of 26:33.06, while his sophomore teammate Pat Burns was five spots behind him. Burns took 10th with a time of 26:56.90. 

Freshman Chuck Mule finished just after Burns in 11th place with a 27:09.49 to wrap up the impressive Blue Streak trio.

Women’s Cross Country

Just by taking a look at the leaderboard at Walsh University’s Ric Sayre Invitational, you could guess what team would end up on top.

Three Blue Streaks at the top of the list meant that John Carroll would be the team far ahead of the competition.

Freshman Anna Busta, in her second collegiate race, was the first runner to cross the finish line. Her time of 19:12.36 was seven seconds faster than Chelsey Bruce from the University of Mount Union.

Blue Streak sophomore Ashley Aberl (19:21.00) took third, while JCU senior Kelly Grieve was fourth (19:21.44).

Men’s Golf

In back-to-back days, the men’s golf team earned back-to-back titles. They also had back-to-back runner-up finishes.

Fall tournaments often allow a team to submit multiple foursomes into competition, so the Blue Streaks “A” and “B” teams finished one-two at both the Walsh University Fall Tournament and the Hiram College Invitational.

It didn’t hurt that the Blue Streaks had the individual winner at both events. 

Sophomore transfer Greg Elber won on Sept. 11, while junior Michael Hartnett took the honors on Sept. 12.

Women’s Golf

The women’s golf team got off to a bit of a rough start this weekend by placing ninth at the 12-team Yellow Jacket Invitational, hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College.

The two-day event, held at Sweetbriar Golf Course in Avon Lake, Ohio, consisted of 36 holes and 12 schools from around the region.

JCU led by senior Ashley Pettibon who fired a  90, and then came back with an 88 on the second day, finished 25th overall.

Sophomore Jackie Leuby, junior Kristen Courtney and freshman Maggie Hutchison all placed in the top 50.

On paper the Browns should win. That’s on paper though, and as I know quite well as a Cleveland fan, things don’t always go as planned.

We could lose to the lowly Bucs, and even if we do, 72,000-plus people will file into the orange seats at Cleveland Browns Stadium the following week to watch the Browns battle the Kansas City Chiefs.

That’s because this is a football town. It’s like Buffalo and it’s like Pittsburgh in that no matter what, on Sunday afternoons everything stops to watch the gridiron gangs for a few hours.

In case you lived under a rock for the summer: LeBron James left Cleveland.

Gone. Forever. And he’s not welcome back.

He took his talents to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat and left the city in his dust.

But the minute he did that – 9:28 p.m. on July 8, 2010 – people in Cleveland started counting down until the start of Browns training camp.

LeBron James broke the heart of nearly everyone in northeast Ohio – and yet we feel better because our football team that has won 59 games in the last 11 seasons is starting their season shortly.

We already forgot that the Browns went 5-11 a season ago. We do remember, however, that they are riding the wave of a four-game winning streak, the longest in the league.

It’s sad, but it’s true.

I’m sure people from Buffalo and Pittsburgh started counting down to Latrobe and Rochester, respectively, right after the Sabres and Penguins were eliminated from the playoffs.

I love baseball. But let’s face it, it’s no longer the American pastime. Football is what we all look forward too, and thank God it’s finally here.

In the National Football League, optimism is always at an extreme high. There’s so much parody in professional football that every offseason we, as fans, trick ourselves into thinking that this could potentially be ‘‘the” year.

Football has a healing effect that helps you when your megastar, and cash cow for the city’s economy, bolts. It helps you when your pursuit of Lord Stanley’s Cup abruptly comes to an end. It helps you in the dog days of summer when your baseball team is 25 games below the .500 mark.

And it’s finally here. Enjoy.

John Carroll University kicked off the 2010 football season just down the road. In the end, the host Case Western Reserve University Spartans outlasted JCU, 30-13.

John Carroll (0-1, 0-0 Ohio Athletic Conference) is coming off of their first losing campaign in over 20 years, while the Spartans (1-0, 0-0 University Athletic Association) have been somewhat of a national powerhouse over the last few seasons. With the win over JCU, the Spartans have now won 32 consecutive regular season games.

Case has established their aerial attack offense as one of the best in the country over the last few years, so the Blue Streaks pass defense was certainly going to be a focal point in this game. 

“My assignment this week was simply to shut down (Zach) Homyk,” said senior defensive back Jonathan Cooley. “He was an All-American wide receiver last season and posed the biggest threat to us. Containing him was going to be key.”

Cooley led the unit with 15 tackles on the evening and did not allow Homyk to find the endzone.

However, the Spartans led early when senior quarterback Joey Baum connected with teammate Shaun Nicely on a 28-yard touchdown pass and catch to put the Spartans up 14-0 late in the first quarter. Case would outgain the JCU offense 184-42 in the opening period.

 After adding a field goal on their next offensive possession, the Blue Streaks trailed 17-0 before they were able to get on the board. 

Senior running back Teree’ Harris capped off a seven-play, 52-yard drive with a six-yard run, the first offensive touchdown of the season. JCU entered halftime trailing 17-7.

Things in the second half wouldn’t get much better, as the Blue Streaks struggled to find a rhythm on offense all night. In his first appearance as a starter, sophomore quarterback Michael Locke finished 11 of 24 for 111 yards and one interception while also rushing for 44 yards. 

Unfortunately, Locke’s receiving core dropped six passes on the evening. He also had a 14-yard touchdown scamper late in the second half.

The Blue Streaks linebacking core is likely to be the stronghold of the defense this year. Juniors Emmett Lydon and C.J. Seitzinger combined for 21 tackles.

“As a unit, we feel we know each other a lot better this year,” said Lydon. “While last year was more of a learning process for us, we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses much better this time around. Our communication has really improved.”

If the Blue Streaks want to improve upon their 3-7 mark from a year ago, they are going to have to find a groove on offense. Although Locke is a young quarterback, he has two offensive linemen back from last year’s front that only allowed eight sacks all season long.

The Blue Streaks will have two weeks to prepare for another national powerhouse in the newly-named University of Mount Union. 

The Purple Raiders handled the Blue Streaks – and the rest of the conference – without many problems last fall, and all preseason polls point to the Purple Raiders repeating as conference champions. 

“It’s a good test for us early in the season,” Lydon said. “They obviously have a great program, so it’s an opportunity for us at this point in the year to see where we’re at.” 

JCU will battle the Purple Raiders on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 1:30 p.m. at Don Shula Stadium.

After being considered one of the favorites for the 2010 Ohio Athletic Conference Championships, the John Carroll University men’s golf team finished in a tie for fifth place, 22 shots behind the top team from Otterbein College.

Of the five Blue Streaks that were competing, four fired a 79 on the first 18 holes. Sophomore Sam Scala was the Blue Streak leader on day one, two shots ahead of all his teammates with a 77.

Junior Joe Zucker heated up on day two, shooting a 74 that tied him for 10th place. The rest of his teammates were again clustered, with two shooting a 78 and the other two recording a 79.

Scala finished tied for 16th place, while junior Jeff Deal and senior A.J. Spalding finished in a tie for 22nd. Senior Blake Furgerson was 25th.

Not to be lost in the disappointing finish was the fact that JCU won four tournaments this season.

Men’s Tennis

With the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament set to get underway yesterday, the John Carroll University men’s tennis team is playing their best tennis of the season. The team has won three consecutive matches, and has managed to win 26 of 27 games in that span. 

After back-to-back 9-0 sweeps over Marietta College and Heidelberg College, the Blue Streaks finished the regular season on May 1 with an 8-1 victory over Wilmington College. 

JCU finished with a firm grip on the fourth seed in the conference tournament, setting up last night’s first round match at home against Capital University. The two teams met back on April 17 in Columbus, Ohio with JCU pulling out a 7-2 victory. 

The Blue Streaks are chasing their first OAC Tournament title since the 2006 season.

Women’s Tennis

Much like the men’s team, the John Carroll University women’s tennis team entered the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament having won three consecutive matches, and five of their last six matches dating back to April 14.

Of their last five victories, four were 9-0 sweeps of the opposition. Their most recent victory was  5-4 win over Wilmington College on May 1. 

With their 6-3 record, JCU tied for third place in the conference, but lost out in a tiebreaker to Mount Union College because the Purple Raiders won the head-to-head matchup on April 20 when they handed the Blue Streaks their only loss in the last six matches. 

That set up a May 4 match against Ohio Northern University in the first round of the OAC Tournament. 

JCU is in pursuit of their first OAC crown since 2004.

The sun is about to set on the Ohio Athletic Conference regular season for the John Carroll University baseball team, but the conference tournament is on the horizon. The Blue Streaks currently sit in third place and are in line to be one of the four teams that qualify for the postseason tournament for the second consecutive year.

The Blue Streaks had a chance to solidify their spot last week in a pair of doubleheaders against the top two teams in the conference: Heidelberg University and Marietta College.

The Streaks traveled to Tiffin on April 27 to square off against an OAC-leading Heidelberg team ranked No. 4 in the nation. The Blue Streaks managed only five hits against freshman ace Ethan Holt in the first game. Despite 10 strikeouts from junior Tony Evanko, the Blue Streaks would come up empty by a score of 5-1.

The usually reliable batters were unable to get timely hits in the second game as they stranded 12 runners in nine innings of play. Junior pitcher Tom Schaberl, who got the starting nod, exited the game in the fourth inning and was impressed by the ‘Berg lineup.

“They are a good hitting team. They are very aggressive hitters and they put the ball in play,” Schaberl said of the Student Princes.

Four players had multiple hit games in the second affair, but centerfielder John Skomra was the only bright spot in both contests, going 5-7 with two runs scored.

“We may have pressed because our senior class has never beaten them,” Skomra said of the ‘Berg. “That is a team we want to beat because these are the games we need to win.”

Skomra and the Blue Streaks hoped to offset the sweep with one of their own against perennial powerhouse Marietta College on April 28. 

Junior pitcher John Moonan was solid on the hill for the Blue Streaks, going five innings with three strikeouts and one earned run.

A combination of patient hitting and pitch selection allowed the floodgates to open in the second inning. The Blue Streaks forced pitcher Austin Blaski to an early exit with seven runs on four hits in the inning. Luke Langdon relieved Blaski and surrendered no runs on three hits, but the damage was insurmountable. 

Moonan and freshman reliever Rob Bellusci cruised the rest of the way en route to an 8-1 win.

“We have a great record when we score first. When we don’t score runs we put our pitchers in holes and we feel the need to press,” said Skomra.

The Blue Streaks were unable to get those first runs in the second game as Marietta burst out with three in the first inning off sophomore pitcher Chris Eggleton. JCU would eventually tie the game in the bottom of the fifth inning when freshman Ryan Pacyga grounded into a double play that scored senior Tim O’Brien. Senior Chris Koller relived Eggleton in the sixth and was tagged for the loss after allowing three runs in two and a third innings. 

The loss gives Marietta the upper hand in a tiebreaker against John Carroll should the two teams finish with the same record. JCU has four remaining conference games against Ohio Northern and Wilmington. 

They remain in third place, but wins in all four games assure a second consecutive postseason berth, so they control their own destiny.

As for the seniors, and Skomra in particular, a season culminated by an OAC Championship will bring the ultimate closure to four years of excruciatingly hard work.

“I want to win this thing. I want to keep playing until they tell us we can’t play anymore,” he said.

As I was painting, I had the television on in the background and they interrupted regularly scheduled programming to broadcast LeBron James receiving his second consecutive Most Valuable Player trophy. 

I stopped painting to watch for a moment, and I heard James talk about the MVP being a nice award, but it’s not the trophy he is after. 

 He talked about his goal being the Larry O’Brien Trophy, the prize awarded to the NBA champion. Repeatedly, he said he realized how much it would mean to the city of Cleveland.

Everything. Everything is what it would mean.

For those of you from Pittsburgh, you can proudly talk about the six Super Bowl rings and the recent capture of Lord Stanley’s Cup. 

Students from the Windy City were young, but they got a chance to see Michael Jordan’s greatness that included six championships and some got to celebrate in 2005 when the White Sox took home the ultimate prize.

But for the JCU students from Buffalo and Cleveland, it’s been a lifetime of “close, but no cigar.”

People that don’t watch sports don’t get it. They point out it’s the team that wins or loses, not the fans. But in a way, I have this delusion that if the city of Cleveland were to win a title, it would validate me as a fan. 

As I sat there with a paintbrush in hand, I kind of made a connection between the house I was leaving and being a Cleveland sports fan.

I thought about all the times I sat there in that living room I was painting and watched a Cleveland team lose. 

I remembered being a nine-year-old boy staying up late on a Sunday night in 1997 to watch Edgar Renteria hit a liner off Charles Nagy’s glove in game seven of the 1997 World Series to give the Marlins a title. I thought about all the times I came home to that house not being able to feel a limb after the Browns got grounded into the ground for 60 minutes.

Somehow, I feel like if the Cavs win the title, it will feel so good that it will cancel out all the bad things I’ve felt as a sports fan. It seems moronic, but sports fans are willing to endure decades of losing and tough times for a one-day parade and the memories that come with it.

I think a lot of people feel like me. Here’s hoping that when we return in September, Cleveland fans can feel validated, and LeBron’s still a Cavalier.