Locker Room Notes

Men’s Tennis

Ryan Dunn ’10 led the Vikings both on the court and in the classroom.

Dunn, a Fond du Lac, Wis., native, was named a first-team ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American in June. Dunn, a biology major who sports a 3.86 grade point average, was chosen for the at-large team and was the only student-athlete from the Midwest Conference to earn first-team honors. Dunn is the first Lawrence student-athlete to be named to a national academic team since wrestler John Budi ’07 was chosen in 2007.

Dunn also placed second at No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles at the Midwest Conference championships. Dunn, who finished his career with a school-record 57 singles victories, teamed with Jason Dunn ’13, his younger brother, to take second at No. 1 doubles. Jason Dunn also grabbed second place at No. 2 singles.

The Vikings qualified for the four-team Midwest Conference Team Tournament for the third consecutive season. Lawrence fell to Lake Forest College in the semifinals, but the Vikings came back to beat St. Norbert College 5-4 in the third-place match.

The Vikings broke new ground when they won the Midwest Conference North Division title for the first time since the league went to divisional play in 1993. Lawrence posted a 4-0 mark in the league and broke the school season record for dual match victories with a 16-9 mark.

Softball

Four Vikings collected post-season honors after the team completed a 16-16 season and finished third in the Midwest Conference North Division.

First baseman Alex Goodson ’10 was a first-team All-Midwest Conference selection for the fourth consecutive season and was chosen for the National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-Great Lakes Region team for the third time.

Goodson, a Plainfield, Ill., native, hit .456 on the season with 11 doubles, two triples, seven home runs and 30 runs batted in. Goodson also compiled an .856 slugging percentage. One of the most prolific hitters in Lawrence history, Goodson finished her career third in batting with a .408 average. She ranks first in Lawrence history with a .735 slugging percentage, 41 doubles, 21 homers and 122 RBIs.

Pitcher/infielder Shannon Murray ’13 also was chosen for the all-region team. Murray hit .347 with seven doubles, one triple, one homer and 16 RBIs. She also posted a 10-6 record and threw only the second no-hitter in school history. Murray blanked Alverno College 10-0 on April 1 to toss the first no-hitter for the Vikings since 2004.

Joining Goodson on the all-conference team were outfielders Katie Simonson ’12 and Cathy Kaye ’13. Simonson finished the season with a .358 average, four doubles, four triples, a homer and 13 RBIs. Simonson set a school record with two triples in a game against D’Youville College on Lawrence’s spring break trip to Florida. Kaye was second on the team with a .398 batting average. She piled up 11 doubles, two triples, six homers and 17 RBIs.

Golf

Tom Vyskocil ’10 capped his career in style by earning all-league honors at the Midwest Conference Championships at Aldeen Golf Club in Rockford, Ill.

Vyskocil, a Brookfield, Ill., native, carded rounds of 83, 80 and 77 for a 54-hole total of 240 on the par-72 layout. Vyskocil made the all-conference team for the first time in his career. Lawrence finished eighth in the team standings.

Adam Ferguson ’10 paced the Vikings with an 80.3 stroke average during the spring season.

Baseball

Robert Rashid ’11 earned all-conference and all-region honors in a rebuilding season for the Vikings.

Rashid, a center fielder from Evanston, Ill., was a first-team All-Midwest Conference North Division team selection. He also was given a pair of honors by the American Baseball Coaches Association. Rashid was a third-team All-Central Region selection and was selected for the Gold Glove Team.

Rashid hit a team-high .366 with 10 doubles, two triples and 23 runs batted in. One of the nation’s leaders in stolen bases, Rashid stole a school-record 32 bases. Rashid also recorded a .970 fielding percentage.

The Vikings finished fifth in the North Division and posted a 7-29 overall record. Lawrence’s biggest win of the season was a 10-9 victory over No. 25 UW-Stevens Point. It was the first time Lawrence had defeated a ranked opponent since the Vikings topped the third-ranked University of St. Thomas (Minn.) in 2005.

Track and field

Rose Tepper ’13 joined some select company as she was one of only four freshmen at the Midwest Conference Championships to win a league title either indoors or outdoors in 2010.

Tepper took the title in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 3 inches, at the league’s outdoor meet at Illinois College.  Thrower Nick Kerkman ’12 placed in two events to pace the men’s team at the conference meet. He took sixth place in the hammer throw with a toss of 144-5 and placed seventh in the shot put with a distance of 43-2.5.

Both the Lawrence men and women finished ninth in the team standings.

Kerkman also broke the school record in the hammer throw at the UW-Oshkosh Invitational. His throw of 145-1 shattered the mark of 142-5 set by Mike Pierquet ’08 in 2006.

Hardwood Heroes

The successes of the Lawrence University men’s basketball team over the past decade have been well documented. A trio of Lawrence alumni have flexed their muscle on the Wisconsin high school hardwood lately.

Jeff Chew ’78, Steve Collins ’89 and Craig Haase ’93 have all captured Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) championships in the past two seasons.

Haase, the coach at Hartland Arrowhead High School, squared off against Collins, the coach at Madison Memorial in the Division 1 boys’ championship game back in March. Haase’s team posted a 72-51 victory and denied Collins a second consecutive state title.

Collins’ Memorial team beat Racine Horlick 56-41 for the Division 1 title in 2009. That was the second state championship for Collins, whose team also won the Division 1 crown in 2005. Chew won his first WIAA title in 2009 when his Menasha St. Mary Central girls’ team beat Potosi 45-42 for the Division 4 championship.

Chew, who won a Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association with the Zephyrs in the late 1990s, was a football and baseball standout at Lawrence. Chew was asked to play basketball by coach Russ Ullsperger, “With playing two other sports, it wasn’t conducive to getting through Lawrence,” Chew said with a chuckle.

Chew, who has worked at Pierce Manufacturing for the past 32 years, has coached at St. Mary Central for 16 seasons and amassed a record of 284-100 for a .740 winning percentage. Chew has picked up seven conference championships along the way and is being assisted by former Lawrence women’s basketball player and St. Mary Central teacher Jubilee Johnson ’98.

“The year before (2008) we were state runner-ups, and the girls had a taste of what it was all about,” Chew said. “The girls understood their roles real well. They also understood the game. It was kind of a unique group, and they came together to be successful.”

Collins has put together a stunning run of success during this decade. Memorial has reached the WIAA state tournament for seven consecutive seasons with the Spartans finishing first or second six times. Prior to Collins’ arrival, Memorial, which opened in 1966, had never been to the state tourney.

“I think they had had five or six winning seasons before I took over,” said Collins, who has a record of 232-60 (.795) and seven Big Eight Conference titles to his credit. “We had two or three groups come through that were basketball players and they bought into everything. It snowballed from there. I would have never thought that (we would have had this kind of success). I feel very blessed. I get asked that question a lot. It’s one of those things I try not to think about. You try to live in the moment. I’m already excited about next year’s group.”

A Madison native who attended cross-town rival Madison East, Collins played basketball at Lawrence for Mike Gallus. Collins likes to joke with his players, which includes one of the nation’s best in Vander Blue (he’s headed to Marquette University in the fall), that he had one of the best shooting percentages in Lawrence history. “I only took shots I knew I could make,” Collins said with a laugh. Collins will now annually face former Lawrence teammate Matt Miota ’91, who was recently hired as the boys’ basketball coach at Madison East.

While Collins and Miota were teammates, he had never met Haase until the pair shook hands before the tip-off of the state title game in March. Memorial built an eight-point lead at the half before Arrowhead stormed back to win the first boys’ basketball title in school history.

“We talked about doing something no Arrowhead team had ever done before. I told them they literally were going to write
their own history,” said Haase, who has a record of 163-73 (.691) in 10 seasons at Arrowhead. “There wasn’t a lot of pressure on us when we got there. I think that played to our advantage. I told them during the shootaround, ‘You guys will be dancing on this W (at half-court of Kohl Center) when it’s all done.’ ”

Haase, who attended Arrowhead and has taught United States history there for 16 years, said he had trouble comprehending what his team had done. “It was an overwhelming feeling,” he said. “There were a lot of thoughts racing through my head. You try to look around and take it all in.”

Haase also played for Gallus at Lawrence but started his college career at rival Ripon College. He said after two years at Ripon, he needed a change if he was going to continue to playing. “It was a real blessing,” Haase said of the move to Lawrence, where he earned All-Midwest Conference honors in 1993. “It’s one of the things that I’m thankful for — that Lawrence gave me a chance to play basketball.”