The No. 4 seeded Wisconsin men's hockey team continued its hot streak Friday, riding three unanswered goals to a 4-1 victory over No. 1 seed St. Cloud State at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul Minnesota.
The Wisconsin softball team (22-3 overall) will begin Big Ten play Friday as it travels to Champaign, Ill., to play three games in three days against conference foe Illinois. The Fighting Illini (10-12) carry a four-game wining streak into the weekend and look to knock off a Badger squad that is off to its best start in school history.
The Wisconsin men's hockey team will play Minnesota State in the quarterfinals of the WCHA Final Five on Thursday at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
After four months of ups and downs, buzzer beaters and heartbreaking defeats, we are finally here. March Madness has finally arrived. But before you toss yet another tear-soaked bracket into the trash following Thursdays opening round of games (yes I still call them opening round games because that’s what they are; Tuesday’s play-in games do not constitute a “first round”), take a step back and look at just how wide open this year’s tournament is.
The Steubenville rape trial, and Sunday’s verdict, has shed some light on the out-of-control direction which athletics in this country seem to be heading.
The hardest games to win are the ones to end another team’s season.
The Wisconsin softball team (22-3 overall) ended the non-conference schedule with a bang this weekend at the Louisville Classic. The Badgers won all four games they played, against North Carolina (18-8), Ball State (12-10) and Eastern Michigan (8-12) twice, after the final game against hometown Louisville was cancelled due to poor weather conditions.
CHICAGO- Storybook endings are nice but in the world of sports, they rarely come to fruition. After three games against top-10 competition this weekend in Chicago, the slipper finally fell off of Cinderella’s foot as No. 22 Wisconsin (12-6 Big Ten, 23-11 overall) went without a field goal over the final 7:03 that turned a 41-39 lead into a 50-43 loss at the hands of No. 10 Ohio State (13-5, 26-7).
Wisconsin arguably benefited the most from the Big Ten’s single-play cycling schedule this season, drawing both Indiana and Michigan only once during the regular season slate.
Wisconsin (18-3 overall) tries to continue their six-game win streak in the Louisville Classic starting this Friday, where will they take on four teams in three days.
After earning a win last weekend when it mattered the most, the No. 14 Wisconsin men’s hockey team will host Minnesota-Duluth in a best-of-three series at the Kohl Center this weekend.
Men's Hockey
It’s 7:00 on a Friday night, and as the lights dim over the Kohl Center ice and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” fades in, five words flash across the big screen, juxtaposed over a highlight reel of the season’s biggest moments: “Wisconsin, this is your team.”
Bo Ryan has done it again. The Badger men’s basketball coach received his third Big Ten Coach of the Year honor Monday after leading Wisconsin (12-6 Big Ten, 21-10 overall) to a fourth-place finish in arguably the best conference in college basketball.
What’s better than one Badger victory? Easy, two Badger victories! The Wisconsin Men’s tennis team (9-2 overall) produced just that by defeating UW Green Bay, and then Western Illinois. The double header started off quite well for the No. 70 ranked Badgers, as they earned the doubles point against Green Bay. The No. 2 doubles squad for the Badgers, featuring freshman Alexander Kokorev and junior Petr Satral, started off with an 8-4 victory against their counterparts Howard Scott and Michael Tebon. The duo of freshmen, Jakhongir Jalalov and Oskar Wikberg, could not complete their comeback as they started off down 4-0, made a match out of it by getting to 4-4, but lost in the end 8-5 to Michael Tenzer and Joey Leto. So it was up to senior Billy Bertha and Kostanov to win the doubles point for the Badgers, and they were definitely up to the challenge as they came back from being down 4-6 to win 8-6 against Erik Finkenbrink and Craig Cox. The momentum from the doubles victories carried into singles play as the Badgers continued to batter the Phoenix. Kostanov continued his yearlong singles domination by easily finishing off Leo Gomez Islinger 6-1, 6-1 at four singles. Next it was Jalalov at 5 singles who captured a 6-4, 6-2 victory against Howard Scott. With the Badgers up 3-0, all they needed was one more victory. That one victory ended up being harder than advertised as Billy Bertha never got it going against Michael Tenzer, losing 3-6, 1-6. So the meet hung in the balance of three matches, all of which went to a third set. Alexander Kokorev broke through first against Rowan Isaaks. Kokorev lost a tough first set 5-7, but remained resilient and came back winning the last two sets 6-4, 6-2 to clinch the meet for the Badgers. While the red and white had things all sewn up, two of the better matches continued to be held. Oskar Wikberg, the fantastic freshman, took the first set rather easily 6-3 and started off the second set up 4-1. However, that is where he started to encounter some problems as he lost control and gave up the second set to Craig Cox 6-4. Wikberg rebounded quickly and went up 4-1 once again in the third set, but once again history repeated itself and he collapsed and lost 5-7. The match of the day occurred at the two doubles spot, where Badger Petr Satral went to war against Erik Finkenbrink. They traded the first two sets, with Finkenbring winning the first 6-3, and then Satral roaring back by winning the second 6-1. The third set was truly a battle as they both traded games leading to an intense tie breaker, where Satral lost 8-10. However, the last two matches did not matter much, as the Badgers did win the overall meet 4-3. The men then quickly regrouped to face Western Illinois, and this time, the Badgers did not mess around. Instead of starting with doubles, the meet started with singles, and it was a huge mismatch across the board. The Badgers humiliated Leathernecks, sweeping the singles matches while not dropping a set in any of them. Since the meet was already decided, the teams decided to bypass the doubles matches and call it a day. The red hot badgers improved to 9-2 on the year, and will face a feisty University of Southern Florida squad next week Saturday at Nielsen.
The Wisconsin softball team (18-3 overall) stuck to their winning ways this weekend as they swept the competition at the Saluki Invitational in Carbondale, Ill. The Badgers relied on strong pitching performances and clutch hitting as they recorded wins over Belmont, Southern Illinois, Illinois-Chicago, and Eastern Kentucky on Saturday and Sunday.
It’s been a rollercoaster ride of a season for the No. 14 Wisconsin men’s hockey team.
MINNEAPOLIS — Win and you are in. That was the magnitude of the semifinal matchup in the WCHA Final Face-Off between the second-seeded Wisconsin women’s hockey team and third-seeded North Dakota Friday night in Minneapolis at Ridder Arena.
The first 39 minutes, 56 seconds weren’t the prettiest, but No. 22 Wisconsin (12-6 Big Ten, 21-10 overall) escaped with a win at Penn State (2-16, 10-20) on sophomore guard Traevon Jackson’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer Sunday at the Bryce Jordan Center.
The Wisconsin softball team (14-3 overall) will return to the Midwest for the first time this season when the Badgers take on Belmont (6-7), Eastern Kentucky (9-5), Illinois-Chicago (3-12) and the host team, Southern Illinois (9-8), at the SalSaluki Invitational in Carbondale, Ill., this weekend.
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Solutions by The State News
