College Volleyball Notebook: Ivy League vs. Pac-12

It will be presumably easier for Yale Bulldogs fans to travel from New Haven, Conn., to University Park, Pa. (the Penn State campus) than it will be for Utah Utes fans to trek into the Quaker State from Salt Lake City. But, the two teams will meet there at 5:00 p.m., the winner will very likely face host Penn State, a national championship contender, in the next round.

For Yale (20-4), Kendall Polan (pictured top) is the three-time Ivy League player of the year. Her teammates include fellow all-Ivy League team members Mollie Rogers and Kelli Johnson. For Utah, players to watch include Erin Redd-Brando (wearing number 17, bottom), a senior middle-blocker.

Here are a look at four games on Friday, all times are eastern:

Utah vs. Yale 5:00 p.m. Penn State

Charleston College @ Duke 7:30 p.m.

Univ. of Cal-Santa Barbara @ San Diego 10:30 p.m.

Wichita State @ Kansas 7:30 p.m. on ESPN3


For other games, check out our sister blog: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

http://www.espn3.com

http://www.kuathletics.com

http://www.yalebulldogs.com

NOTE: Incidentally, this is our 2,500th entry!

NCAA Gymnastics Preview_ Corrie Lothrop of Utah

The NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships will be underway starting Friday from Gwinnett, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, and though the seventh-ranked Utah Utes may seem like a slight long-shot, the team has been known to perform well under pressure thanks to the guidance of co-coach Greg Marsden.

One of the gymnasts to watch from the Utes squad is Corrie Lothrop, a sophomore from Donvers, Mass., who was named PAC-12 Gymnast of the week on Feb. 7 for her outstanding 39.475 all-around score, which included a 9.9 on the balance beam, in a win over Georgia.

Lothrop was also named to the first team all-around team for the PAC-12 Conference, along with her teammate Stephanie McAllister. Lothrop was also named Honorable Mention for the PAC-12 All-Academic Team.

Sports Desk- Utah Edges Stanford in Women's Gymnastics

Senior Kyndal Robarts scored individual victories on the vault beam helping the Utes win its home meet over Pac-12 rival Stanford 196.3-196.1. Robarts had a career-high 9.975 on vault, a 9.875 on beam and a 9.80 on floor.

Robarts was also awarded with the Special Performance of the Week for the Pac-12 Conference; she became the third Utes awarded with that title this season.

Her teammates senior Cortni Beers and sophomore Corrie Lothrop are the other Utes gymnast who won the honor.

In a vastly different part of the country in Ithaca, NY, on the campus of Cornell University, the home team Big Red finished second to the Penn Quakers at the Ivy League classic over the weekend. The other two Ivy schools with women's gymnastics programs Brown and Yale, finished third and fourth respectively.

Tiffany Chen of Cornell won the Ivy title on vault. The Big red scored a 191.85, the team's highest score of the year.

For the Quakers, senior Laura DiPaolo helped pave the way to victory with a 9.725 on vault, and her freshman teammate Amber Woo scored a 9.725 on beam.

The scores for the visiting teams were: Penn (192.65), Brown (191.075) and Yale (190.725).

Congrats to Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics

The University of Alabama won their fifth women's gymnastics championship on Saturday in Cleveland thanks to the efforts of Kayla Hoffman (pictured here on floor) and Geralen Stack-Eaton (pictured here talking to Coach Sarah Patterson).

Kylee Botterman (whew!, we almost typed her name with one e!) of Michigan won all-around with a 39.525 as she edged out Hoffman from Alabama (39.5).

For the Crimson Tide, Stack-Eaton won the individual floor exercise event with a 9.937. Other individual winners included Marissa King of Florida who won vault with a 9.875; Kat Ding of Georgia who scored a 9.875 to win uneven bars and Sam Peszek of UCLA who won the balance beam with a 9.9 score.

Other teams had gymnasts who fared well including the Utes who finished fifth overall, but the team had stand-out performances from veteran gymnasts Gael Mackie and Stephanie McAllister.

SIDEBAR: Today was a good day for Geoffrey Mutai as the Kenyan runner finished the Boston Marathon in record time with a score of 2:03:02. His fellow Kenyan Moses Mosop finished second. And, Ethiopian runner Gebregziabher Gebermariam, who will qualify for our top ten list of impossible names (which we hoping to post one week from today) finished in third. Of course, we fully realized that we probably will have to apologize for not spelling his name right!

Stack-Eaton also won the floor exercise event with a 9.937 score.

Sunday Sports Desk

All the talk in this part of the country, well between Maryland and South Carolina, has been on the Duke-UNC game in Chapel Hill last night in which the UNC Tarheels defeated the Duke Bluedevils 81-67.

But, we wanted to congratulate the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs for winning the Big South championship over Coastal Carolina University by a 60-47 score in Conway, SC (Myrtle Beach) yesterday.

My alma mater Radford University and my mom's alma mater Winthrop University are also Big South teams, so I always hope they do well in the NCAA tourney, as Winthrop did a few years back. Of course, it would be nice if Radford could win the tourney every year!

We also like to keep tabs on Turkish soccer (my late father was from Turkey) even though I haven't watched a game in two years. This weekend, the scores were as follows: Manisa 2 Kayseri 1; Ankaragucu 2 Konya 0; Gaziantep 3 Sivas 1; Eskisehir 1 Bucaspor 0; Bursaspor 1 Istanbul BB 1 (tie); GalataSaray (Istanbul) 0 KDCK 0 (tie); Trabzonspor 2 Besiktash (Istanbul) 1.

For more info, on the games, you can check out Ahmet Bob Turgut's Twitter feed at (twitter.com/turkish soccer).

Lastly, our very favorite sport is women's collegiate gymnastics and there were many meets of interest this weekend.

Due to space and time constraints, we will focus on just two of them.

For starters, Florida (#1) edged Utah (#5) in Salt Lake City thanks to stand-out performances from Gator gymnasts Alaina Johnson, Marissa King and Mackenzie Caquatta.

But, for the home team Utes, Fumina Kobayashi and Cortni Beers finished in a three-way tie for first place on the balance beam with Ashanne Dickerson of Florida, who also scored a 9.9 on vault.


And, our home state North Carolina State Wolfpack gymnastics team won a key road meet over Pittsburgh today thanks to a stand-out performance from Jess Panza, who scored a 9.925 on the balance beam. Panza's score was the highest single event score for a Wolfpack gymnast this season.

The image above, by the way, is of the late, great Howard Cosell (1918-1995) who would have perhaps been horrified to find out that in 2011, due to modern technology, there are many more things to do on a Monday night than watch NFL football on tv. In fact, if one desires, they can play World of the Witchcraft with their 'friends' in Australia for 48 hours in a row.

Yeah, I think that's a bad idea too, but those guys (well, I suppose women can get addicted to WOTWC too) do make us bloggers appear to be people who have real lives.

Road Trip USA (1 of 20)_ A Night at the Opera

While we were listening to WVTF, the NPR station in Roanoke, Va., yesterday, I thought it was interesting that we heard the last minutes of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," which was being broadcast from Spartanburg, SC. Then, the next NPR show that aired was a live broadcast of the contemporary opera "Nixon in China," by the New York Met Opera.

All of this made me wonder how long it would take to get from Wade's Family Restaurant in Spartanburg (a city that is relatively close to Clemson University), which was mentioned in "Wait, Wait..." to the famed opera house (the opera pictured here is actually one of my favorites "Rigoletto.")

And, you get to take a guess here as to that answer...

Is it?:

a)10 hours and 17 minutes
b) 11 hours and 49 minutes
c) 12 hours and 28 minutes
d) 13 hours and 42 minutes

You would actually go through Roanoke while taking this trip!

SIDEBAR: Since I am a huge college gymnastics fan, I thought it would be interesting to mention that long-time powerhouse The University of Utah will be hosting Michigan on Friday. And, the Utes have a very unique promotion called Short Person Appreciation Night. Anyone who is under five feet tall gets in free! Today, happens to be the 19th birthday of sophomore Fumina Kobayashi of the Utes who is 5'2. Her teammate Nansy Damianova, a Canadian freshman from Montreal who speaks Bulgarian (?!), is 5'1.

NCAA Women's Gymnastics Regional Winners

There was a major surprise at the University of Missouri as the host school and Oregon State advanced over five-time defending champ Georgia to reach nationals in Gainesville, Fla.

The Florida Gators also qualified for the national meet on their home floor by beating Utah in Salt Lake City by a score of 197.675-196.900. Ashanee Dickerson, Maranda Smith and senior leader Amanda Castillo paved the way for the victory. Utah will also advance as they finished second thanks to outstanding performances from star gymnasts Daria Bijak who did alas havea surprsing fall on floor.

At Penn State, Oklahoma (first) and LSU (second) advanced even though Nittany Lion gymnast Brandi Personett beat out Oklahoma gymnast Hollie Vise (a former Olympian) to win the all around on her home floor with a score of 39.5*

And, at UCLA, the hometown Bruins won with a very impressive 197.825 score thanks to Anna Li (pictured) and Vanessa Zamarripa.

Stanford advanced in West Virginia along with Michigan.

And, Alabama (first) and Nebraska (second) qualified for nationals with their placements at the regional meet in Lexington, Ky.

*- CORRECTION: It was pointed to me by an Oklahoma Sooners gymnastics fan than Hollie Vise did not actually compete on the vault so Penn State's Brandi Personett, the all-around winner at the regional meet, did not actually beat her out. I was concerned that this might cause Oklahoma's governor C. Brad Henry to have this blog banned not only in Norman (he happens to be an OU grad), but also Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Broken Arrow. But, we think that we overted that. I had actually assumed that the governor was a Republican since Oklahoma is a very red state, so much so that I almost didn't bother to wiki him. But, much to my surprise, Gov. Henry is a Democrat! I guess the lesson here is never make assumptions, especially when it comes to the delicate matter of collegiate sports!

Weekend Sports Desk- College Gymnastics, Turkish Futbol and the ECHL

There is a groovy rock song by The Police which came out in the early '80s called "Too Much Information." As I was working on stories about a college gymnastics meet between Utah and Florida in Gainesville, Fla., a crucial soccer game in Turkey between league-leader BursaSpor and DenizliSpor (Turkey is my late father's country) and a seven-game winning-streak by the Charlotte Checkers minor league hockey team, it became obvious that I was a bit overwhelmed.

So, today, I will combine the key info for the state of college gymnastics, Turkish soccer and ECHL minor league hockey into one post.

We'll try to keep it (relatively) simple!:

TURKISH SOCCER: BursaSpor (pictured here) won its home game in Bursa, Turkey, over DenizliSpor last week by a 2-1 to gain further ground over Istanbul powerhouses GalataSaray, Fenerbahce and Beshiktash in the league standings. BursaSpor remains in first place this week despite being upset by Istanbul BB 2-1 this weekend.

In BursaSpor's game with DenizliSpor, the goals for the winning Green Crocs were scored by Ozan Ipek and Sercan Yildirim. The lone goal for DenizliSpor came from Darryl Roberts, a Trinidad and Tobago national player, who interestingly enough played soccer at Liberty Baptist University in Lynchburg, Va., which was founded by the late fundamentalist minister Jerry Falwell.

In addition to Ipek and Yildirim, the Green Crocs have been helped by the solid play of Bulgarian goal-keeper Dimitar Ivankov, Serbian defender Ivan Ergic and Romanian mid-fielder Giani Stelian Kirita.

But, the Turkish soccer world is perhaps most discussing Fenerbahce's 1-0 win over arch rival Galatasaray by a 1-0 margin earlier today. Besiktash also won its game with EskisehirSpor 3-2.

COLLEGE GYMNASTICS: In Salt Lake City, Utah, in front of a record crowd of 15,030 spectators the currently eleventh-ranked U The University of Utah Utes (pictured here), one of the strongest women's gymnastics programs in the NCAA, defeated their rivals The Brigham Young Cougars by a 147.4-146.65 margin. The scores were the highest for the Cougars this year.

It was senior night at the Huntsman Center, and Utes' gymnasts Daria Bijak, a film major from Germany who was escorted by her boyfriend and mom, Annie DiLuzio, who would go on to score a 9.9975 on floor, Jamie Deetscreek, who also performed well on floor with a 9.95 and Beth Rizzo, who returned to the lineup from injuries to perform a 9.8 on floor. Bijak won bars with a 9.925.

BYU senior Megan Donehue said the high turnout was not a distraction for the Cougars as she told the school's sports information office that it actually added to the excitement of the meet. Donehue tied teammate Natalie Eyre for the Cougars' best score on bars with a 9.875. Another outstanding performance came from Cougar Danielle Goldman who scored a 9.825 on vault.

For those watching the meet in SLC or on the internet, one of the highlights had to be the techo-pop floor routine from Cougar gymnast Madeline Johnson, who scored a 9.8 on the balance beam.

Prior to the home meet, the Utes traveled to Gainesville, Fla., on March 19 to face the then fifth-ranked Florida Gators, who were holding their own Senior Night to recognize the likes of fan-favorite Amanda Castillo who won bars with a 9.995 during her final home meet. The Gators won the meet by a 197.55-196.50 margin. Though the Utes did not win the meet, Bijak had an outstanding night as she scored a 39.225 on the all-around, tying her second best career score.

Salt Lake City is home of the host venues for the NCAA regional meets. The pairings will be announced on Monday.

I am hoping to post more entries about a VERY busy weekend in NCAA gymnastics later this week.

ECHL Hockey- Another Salt Lake City team looking towards the post-season are the Utah Grizzlies, with star player Ryan Kinasewich, who are trying to catch up with the Western Division-leading Idaho Steelheads (from Boise) who have the ECHL's best goal-tender in Richard Bachman.

But, here in the southeast, the focus has been on the streaking Charlotte Checkers, a team that had won seven consecutive games before falling on home ice to the Florida Everblades 4-3 on Friday night. But, the Checkers turned things around on Saturday with a 4-2 home win over the Reading Royals (from Reading, Pa.).

Checkers' star player Andrew Carroll scored the game-winning goal in front of 12,044 fans, which was the largest crowd of the season for the team.

The Checkers (pictured here) have also been helped by goalie Ryan Muncie, who had won six straight home games and newly-acquired rookie forward Brock Bradford, who was a star player at Boston College.

The team's next home is against the Gwinnett Gladiators from Georgia at 7:30 p.m. on March 30. As of last week, the Checkers were chasing the South Carolina Stingrays from Charleston for the lead in the southern division of the ECHL.


FINAL NOTE_ Well, that's a wrap! I think I covered everything except NASCAR (an entry about the Final Four is on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire"), a sport I don't really follow which is ironic because I live 35 miles away from a major speedway. But, my cousin Erroll Gokbudak can't enough of the sport, and he lives in Chicago?!

Women's College Gym Shakeup (Take Two)

Ouch! My whole first attempt at posting this entry went up in smoke and it was quite a long one too!

Let's get to the chase. Last week, Auburn University (pictured here) pulled off a major upset by beating five-time NCAA champion the University of Georgia.

Some of the major college gym meets for this weekend, most of which are scheduled for Friday, include Georgia's home meet with Kentucky, a team which is having a banner year.

I was hoping to see third-ranked Florida come to Raleigh, NC, for a meet with North Carolina State and George Washington University. But, a nasty winter storm is going to affect virtually every place in Virginia and North Carolina, except those lucky Wolfpack fans in Raleigh (but they do get rain!). The NC ST team features two outstanding gymnasts in sophomore Brooke Barr and freshman Jess Panza this year. Hopefully, we will get to see them some time soon (I hope!).

Top-ranked Alabama heads to snow-free Baton Rouge, La., to face 12th ranked LSU. UNC heads to Maryland, but College Park, Md., is in the storm zone! Out west, Denver goes to Provo, Utah, to face Brigham Young U, Utah visits the Arizona State and UCLA heads to the University of Arizona.

Lastly, the Illinois State RedBirds host Ball State. Emily Matko, from my hometown of Roanoke, Va., is a gymnast for the RedBirds and her mom is a friend of mine. I guess everyone knows who I'm pulling for in this one!

Here is a run-down of the Top Ten teams this week. NC St is ranked 22nd.

1. Alabama
2. Oklahoma
3. Florida
4. Utah
5. Oregon State
6. UCLA
7. Arkansas
8. Stanford
9. Georgia
10. Nebraska

UPDATE_ A few minutes after posting this, we learned that George Washington University was not going to compete in Raleigh. For the info on that meet which was between Florida and North Carolina State tonight and other weekend gym meets, go to collegegymfans.com

I'll be there myself after I check out my Twitter page!

Know Your Mayors (Entry 17 of 21)- Ralph Becker of SLC, Utah

Today we continue our long-running series on American mayors with a profile of Salt Lake City, Utah's mayor Ralph Becker (b. 1952) who has been mayor of the Utah capital since 2008.

Becker (D) was preceded by outspoken liberal mayor Rocky Anderson, who served from 2000-08. Anderson established SLC's Green Program. He was also surprisingly friends with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The two worked together in bringing the Winter Olympics to SLC.

Becker was a member of the Utah House of Delegates from 1996-2007, and he served as the House Democratic Leader.

Though Utah is among the reddest states in the union, SLC usually votes Democratic.

Becker's career has been mostly in Urban Planning, though he also worked for the National Parks Service in his younger years. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah.

Becker is also an avid skier, which might be a hard thing for Mayor Mufi Hannemann (he is the mayor of Honolulu!). But, I presume that Becker is not much of a surfer either.

Merry Christmas from LeBron James!

If you aren't doing anything besides drinking egg nog and playing with the family cat on Christmas Day, you may want to watch at least some portion of the Los Angeles Lakers game with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

LeBron James should make the game interesting, though it's being played in L.A.

SIDEBAR: Lots of last-minute shoppers today, including Paul Flynn of Salt Lake City, Utah, who told local tv station KLC that he just had to be at the Fashion Place Mall in SLC on Christmas Eve:

"My fiancee actually works in this mall," Flynn told the news station. "I didn't have the opportunity before today to come out and shop for her."

UPDATE: LeBron James and the Cavs ended up winning this game.

My Super Six Predictions

The NCAAs women's gymnastics championships will be held at the University of Nebraska next week.

Unless the last two years, I will not be in attendance this year, but like every college gymnastics fan, I thought I'd give my Super six predictions.

Utah gymnast Kristina Baskett, pictured here, will be among the showcase gymnasts in Nebraska.


Here they are, in order of where they might stand at the end of competition:


1. Georgia
2. Utah
3. Stanford
4. Florida
5. Arkansas
6. UCLA

Alabama or LSU also might make into the Super Six.

Surprisingly enough, the host school Nebraska, usually a national power, did not qualify for nationals nor did Michigan, which is also known for its outstanding program.