THE UWSP sports programs are putting together a pretty nice season so far. The volleyball earned a trip to the NCAA D-3 Finals with a Saturday victory over #4 ranked St. Thomas on the Tommies home floor where they had won 40 of the last 41 matches. The team has made it interesting too...falling behind in all of their tournament matches so far. They hedd to Holland Michigan for a Matchup with Hope College in the quarterfinals.
The womens cross country team is also headed to the NCAA Championship with an at-large bid. They will run in Hanover Indiana this Saturday.
The winter season is also off to a great start. The womens hockey team is unbeaten at 5-0-1 after sweeping River Falls this weekend. They play their home games at Ice Hawk Arena on the far east side of Stevens Point off of Highway 10. The mens hockey team is also unbeaten at 6-0 and is scoring goals in bunches. The play at KB Willet Arena, just off-campus.
And the mens and womens basketball teams continue their run of excellence. The men won their season opener over Lawrence 99-73 and feature a number of former area high school stars. hey play at Madison Edgewood tonight. The women got coach Shirley Egner her 600 career win over the weekend. They take on rival St Thomas on Thursday night at the Berg Gym.
Its a short drive to see some very good college sports....it is Division 3...but the action is top notch.
I was at the Wisconsin-UW/Green Bay mens basketball game on Saturday night and it was a nail biter. It looked like Green Bay was going to be able to pull the upset with a nice second-half run...but Frank Kaminsky asserted himself down the stretch...hitting a couple of tough shots and also coming up with a big block near the end. The Phoenix had a chance to tie but Kiefer Sykes missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Sykes played a whale of a game and it's hard to figure out how this speedy guard from Chicago was missed by the bigger schools. Green Bay is a good mid-major and the favorite to win the Horizon league and get an NCAA tournament bid. Wisconsin got some extended minutes from freshman Brandon Koening and Nigel Hayes...but if Kaminsky can give them an inside prescence like he did and help Sam Dekker, Ben Brust & Josh Gasser with the scoring load, the Badgers should be right there at the end competing for a Big Ten title.
The Badger football team rolled Indiana...but they do that every year. This weeks game should be much more interesting...although if the Badger offensive line & fullback Derek watt continue to block like they have it shouldnt be a problem to retain Paul Bunyun's Ax and continue to adavnce to an at-large BCS bid
Not much to say about the Packer game. Without Aaron Rodgers to score points, the packer defense has been exposed as not very good. Scott Tolzien has thrown 5 interceptions in the last two games. We said at the beginning of gthe year, if Rodgers went down it would be trouble, and that was exactly right.