Third Place!

A message from Coach Mike Steele:

Here’s a brief report on the 2009 Boxer results for the trip to Nationals at the U. of Minnesota: for the first time ever, PU handball took third place nationally, beating the U. of Texas and Texas A&M for that spot—the first time we have ever knocked off those two in the same year. The first full day of the tournament, last Thursday, to start the day Boxer players won their first twelve matches in a row...an unbelievable streak. For comparison, a 4 or 5-win streak was the best prior record. During the streak, Boxer handballers met and defeated players from U. Minnesota, Texas A&M, U. Texas, Lake Forest (the eventual champs), San Jose State, Cal Berkeley, a couple of Irish schools, and Missouri State (eventual #2). We ended up that day with a 17-5 record. By Friday morning, our great women’s team had doubled its entire point total from 2008! We did not win any individual titles, although Mimi Takemune reached the medal semi-final round before losing. Capt. Aaron Garner reached the top 8 for the third year in a row. He has missed All-american status each time by an inch.

This was a wonderfully cohesive team, cheering each other in matches as late as 1 am. They also supported Evan Brown of Oregon who flew and stayed with us.

When we arrived to watch some of the final matches on Sunday, we learned that things did not pan out as well as Texas and Texas A&M would have thought. Neither of these teams secured the victories they needed in order to score more team points than Pacific. Thus, we are not 4th place after all, but 3rd!

We made it safely back to Forest Grove without any travel snafus. Thank you to Mark, Rachael, and Justin for driving us to and from the Airport this week.

GO BOXERS!

Day Four

I am sad to say we are all eliminated as of this afternoon, but overall we had an excellent tournament, so I can't complain. The banquet was this evening and the food is always terrible, but at least it was better than eating in the Gopher Hole (yes, this is their dining hall). Congratulations to semifinalists Mimi Takamune in Women's Intermediate and Evan Brown (Oregon) in Men's A!

Today's Results:

Men's C

Merscher v. Sterret (Lake Forest)-- L (6, 7)

Men's A

Brown (Oregon) v. Brian Quigley (NUIG Ireland)-- W (?, ?)

Brown (Oregon) v. Alex Tovar (Pima Community College)-- L (?, ?, ?)

Women's Intermediate

Takamune v. Lauren Kjolhede (Southwestern)-- L ((18), 3, 0)

Congratulations to all of our players. We had the best tournament we have had since roughly 2002. We finished 4th place overall this year! Our women scored double the team points we scored last year. And we had an incredible 12-win streak on Thursday.

This being my fourth year at Collegiates, I am sad that I have reached the end; I am sad that I didn't do better for my team, but in the end I am happy that I was part of the group that was able to bring Pacific back into 4th place (NCAA Division I at that) and I brought my all for that very moment in time. It has been a great tournament, and I am happy this is the way it will end. Thank you to all of my teammates for making this such a great year and a great team to be a part of. I will miss you all very much and I wish you all the best in the years to come.

To our head coach, Mike Steele: without you, I never would have discovered handball nor would I have improved as much as I did. You are the team. I have no idea what we will do when you retire. Thank you for four excellent years.

Full team rankings will be posted when we receive them from the United States Handball Association (USHA). Stay tuned for next year's tournament in February 2010 at Texas A&M University.

Day Three

Friday was the longest day ever. We had matches beginning at 8 AM and matches scheduled to play at 10 PM; however, now since we were into our classes and playing 21-point matches, the tournament got behind schedule and our last match finished at roughly 2:15 AM on Saturday. Hence why I am updating the blog now instead of last night. 

Friday was not as good as Thursday, we did not match our 12 consecutive wins and 17 wins for the day, but we played hard, we played well, and we are proud of our successes for the tournament as a whole.

Results for Friday, February 20, 2009:

Men's Novice

Nguyen v. Josh Salwey (Minnesota State)-- L (5, 1)

Men's Challenger

Williams v. James Flaherty (SUNY Stony Brook)-- L (16, 5)

Bateman v. William Dressell (Florida)-- W (forfeit)

Bateman v. Brady Adams (Utah State University)-- L (6, 20)

Men's C

Thomas v. Ben Kwiatkowski (Texas)-- L (18, 12)

Levine v. Chris Hazelton (Iowa)-- L (8, 11)

Komo v. Billy Craig (SCC)-- W ((16), 5, 10)

Komo v. Dan Sterret (Lake Forest)-- L (5, 2)

Merscher v. Akinfolami Akintonji (Texas)-- W (9, 17)

Merscher v. Steve Bremer (Texas A&M)-- W (1, 1)

Men's A

Brown (Oregon) v. Matt Acker (Texas A&M)-- W (11, 10)

Brown (Oregon) v. Ciaran Neary (Dublin City University)-- W (18, (2), 7)

Men's Open

Garner v. David Brainard (Missouri State)-- W (3, 11)

Garner v. Nikolai Nahorniak (Lake Forest)-- L (14, 7)

Women's Intermediate

Takamune v. Anneliese Szutenbach (Lake Forest)-- W (14, 3)

Takamune v. Melissa Roberson (Texas)-- W (12, 4)

Matsumoto v. Kayla Boggs (Southwestern)-- W (17, 6)

Matsumoto v. Madeline Brown (Missouri State)-- L (8, 13)

Women's C

Novak v. Brandy Jaworski (Florida)-- L (10, 4)

Snelson v. Krista Allen (Utah State University)-- L (3, 1)

Costley v. Jessica Merker (Florida)-- L (18, 2)

Allender v. Janice Wong (SUNY Stony Brook)-- W (9, 1)

Allender v. Lindsey Wuenker (Florida)-- L (8, 10)

Best Day Two in the History of Boxer Handball

We had an incredible day today with 17 matches won out of the 27 played. This is unbelievable; not only is it the best the Boxers have done in a single day, but it is double what we do in a typical day. This puts us in a really good spot for team point totals. Spectacular play today. We're hoping to rake in some more wins tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow won't be quite as busy now that we have all settled/clawed our way into our separate classes. 

GO BOXERS!!!

First Round Matches:

Men's C-Intermediate-Challenger

Chris Thomas (125) v. Dane Swanson (Minnesota, 100)-- W ((11), 10, 3)

Matt Levine (103) v. Tim Grothe (Texas A&M, 123)-- W (6, 8)

Jared Komo (111) v. Jordan Stanek (Missouri State, 114)-- W (4, 4)

Men's B-C-Intermediate

Casey Merscher (71) v. Antriksh Mithal (Texas, 90)-- W (5, 9)

Men's Open-A-B

Aaron Garner (3) v. James Zender (Lake Forest, 30)-- W (3, 4)

Evan Brown (Oregon, 15) v. Anthony Selestow (Lake Forest, 18)-- L (7, 10)

Women's C-Intermediate-Challenger

Jenny Novak (57) v. Desiree Ensell (San Jose State, 56)-- W (0, 0)

Sara Matsumoto (58) v. Kathleen Heng (Cal Berkeley, 55)-- W (5, 6)

Women's B-C-Intermediate

Sara Allender (44) v. Jessica Budjac (Minnesota, 37)-- W (3, (5), 6)

Megan Snelson (36) v. Rachel Peterson (San Jose State, 45)-- W (7, 7)

Lindsey Costley (34) v. Christina Cartenuto (Missouri State, 47)-- W (6, (11), 4)

Second Round Matches:

Men's Contender-Novice

Nguyen v. Reed Curl (University of Texas San Antonio)-- L (4, 5)

Men's Challenger-Contender

Weigel v. Totzke (Minnesota State)-- L ((9), 13, 2)

Bateman v. Steven Chau (SUNY Stony Brook)-- W ((6), 2, 6)

Men's Intermediate-Challenger

Williams v. Nick Eckelcamp (Missouri State)-- L (11, (11), 10)

Men's C-Intermediate

Levine v. Mithal (Texas)-- W (2, 2)

Thomas v. Cathal Walsh (DCU Ireland)-- W (3, 1)

Komo v. Zach Profant (Cal Berkeley)-- W (?, 8)

Men's B-C

Merscher v. Chris Patton (Texas A&M)-- L (1, 2)

Women's Intermediate-Challenger

Takamune v. Kim Conti (University of Texas San Antonio)-- W (3, 9)

Sherman v. Kelly Parmet (Southwestern)-- W ((13), 9, ?)

Women's C-Intermediate

Novak v. Kara Rosenbaugh (Pittsburgh State)-- W (7, 7)

Matsumoto v. Jamie Mackoul (Missouri State)-- L (5, 9)

Snelson v. Elizabeth Little (Fort Scott)-- L (13, 12)

Allender v. Joanne Logan (DCU Ireland)-- L (12, (10), 10)

Costley v. Nicole Moser (Lake Forest)-- L (3, 6)

Men's B Doubles

Levine/Merscher v. McCorry/Sherry (UUJ Ireland)-- L (?, ?)

Third Round Matches:

Men's Contender

Weigel v. Sammy Nguyen (SUNY Stony Brook)-- L (?, ?)

Day One

We departed from Forest Grove at 4 AM, flew out of Portland at 6:30 AM, landed in Minneapolis, caught the light rail, then the bus, and now we're here: University of Minnesota. It's been a long day, but surprisingly, there were no travel meltdowns. This is a rarity for the handball team if you have read anything about our previous adventures. The only real excitement was walking the wrong direction for two blocks in the roughly twenty-degree weather trying to find Qudoba (thanks, to Patty's wonderful iPhone navigations). It turns out there was an entire street full of restaurants only a block away from the rec. center. We learned this after we walked for six blocks there and back. Normally, we would not complain about the walk, except it is absolutely freezing here.

We also had a wonderful team dinner at a very classy establishment known as Burger King here in Minnesota. The other classy establishment close to our hotel (Arby's) was closed. 

Today was an excellent day of handball. Most of our newbies played today along with our doubles team. Today's results are as follows [Note: today's matches were played to 15]:

Men's Challenger-Contender-Novice

Chuong Nguyen (175) v. Steven Totzke (Minnesota State, 178)-- L (6, 5)

Men's Intermediate-Challenger-Contender

Danny Williams (140) v. Logan Vincent (Texas A&M, 149)-- W (4, (4), 4)

Josh Bateman (135) v. Michael Petefish (Florida, 154)-- L (6, 14)

Collin Weigel (143) v. Josh Pinter (Marquette, 146)-- L (3, 0)

Women's Intermediate-Challenger-Contender

Mimi Takamune (69) v. Whitney Moore (Southwestern, 76)-- W (0, 0)

Elizabeth Sherman (75) v. Kimberly Hughes (Florida, 70)-- W (3, 3)

Men's B Doubles

Matt Levine/Casey Merscher (8) v. Novak/Nordhal (Minnesota State, 9)-- W ((11), 8, 1)

Go Boxers!

Disclaimer: All opponents names are as listed on the tournament brackets. Pacific University is not responsible for the misspellings of the names listed anywhere in this blog.

Preparing ourselves for Minnesota...

This year the Boxers will be traveling to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the 2009 Collegiate National Handball Tournament. Joining us, will be Evan Brown, a freshman at the University of Oregon. Since Evan is not technically part of our team, he will be unable to contribute to our team points and will instead earn his own. Evan is a long time friend of the Boxers and we are glad to have him as a travel buddy. 

In Boxer news: We are returning this year with one National Champion (Jared Komo, Men's Novice) and we hope to produce more this year. The tournament begins on February 18th and ends on February 22nd. Blog updates will begin on the 18th. We encourage you to join us and cheer for us from afar. 

Thank you for your support and a special thanks to all of the donors who are making this trip possible!