BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | MARCH 3, 2009 7:20 AM

Finishing last at the Big Ten indoor championships is not what Iowa women’s track and field head coach Layne Anderson expected when his squad left for Bloomington, Ind., on Feb. 26.

But with a team short on experience and numbers, that is what happened over the weekend.
The meet was not a total loss for the team, though.

Sophomore Bethany Praska scored points for Iowa, finishing sixth in the 600 meters with a time of 1:31.08. Senior Renee White earned three points for her team with a third-place finish in the long jump. Sophomore Karessa Farley made it to the finals of the 60-meter hurdles after posting a time of 8.35 in the prelims but failed to finish the final race when she fell going over a hurdle.

Also scoring in the meet was the distance-medley squad of freshmen Betsy Flood, McKenzie Melander, sophomore Tiffany Hendricks, and senior Racheal Marchand. The Hawkeye relay team came in third place with a time of 11:27.34.

Marchand, competing in the final Big Ten meet of her career, blazed past the field for second in the 5,000 meters with a collegiate-best time of 15:55.70 that also serves as an automatic qualifier for the NCAA indoor meet.

The time was only 0.07 of a second behind Wisconsin’s Gwen Jorgensen, who took first.

“I was going out to win the 5K,” Marchand said. “But I was happy getting second because the woman I lost to was very good.”

Iowa’s finish was a reflection of the work still left to be done by this young Hawkeye squad.

Anderson feels as though the addition of some more experience to the team will help them become more competitive going into the outdoor portion of the season.

“It’s hard to enjoy individual achievements when the team doesn’t do well,” he said. “We’ve got to develop everyone and improve in a lot of different areas.”

Certainly looking forward to the second half of the 2009 season are the Hardesty sisters, Amanda and Lindsey. The two posted collegiate bests, Amanda Hardesty in the 3,000 meters and Lauren Hardesty in the 800. The two make up a core of the team Anderson hopes will continue to improve.

The rest of the Hawkeyes will be looked to even more with the departure of a major point scorer such as Marchand, who is now deciding between whether to continue her running career post-college.

So far, Iowa has recruited eight scholarship athletes and hopes to have two more to go along with the 10 non-scholarship athletes it hopes to bring in during the fall semester.

Marchand leaves with some words of wisdom for both the incoming and current Hawkeyes.

“It never gets easy in the Big Ten,” she said. “It only gets harder.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | JULY 14, 2009 7:15 AM

Even though the matchup of Iowa’s two sophomore guards was seemingly the evening’s highlight on Monday, the past and the future of Hawkeye basketball stole the show.

The combination of incoming Iowa freshman Brennan Cougill and former Hawkeye Darryl Moore proved to be the difference for Vinton Merchants in a 105-103 victory over Jill Armstrong of Lepic-Kroeger Realtors.

Iowa sophomore Anthony Tucker, one-half of the obvious attraction on the court, dropped 19 points on four 3-pointers in the first half against Armstrong while managing the game well en route to the win.

Cougill poured in 35 points, most of which came in the paint off of second-half chances and hard-nosed battling in the post against former Drake player Aliou Keita. He did have one 3-pointer in the first half, which reminded the crowd in the North Liberty Community Center that he is no one-trick pony.

The Sioux City native still believes he has work to do though before the 2009-10 season gets into gear.

“I thought I played well, battled down low,” he said. “I air-balled a free throw, but there’s always something to work on and get my legs back under me a little bit this summer.”

http://web-server1.daily-iowan.uiowa.edu/video/12049.mov
( Daily Iowan video feature )

Video in QuickTime format, click here for free player download

Moore, a 1998 graduate of Iowa, had 18 points of his own highlighted by a monster dunk in the first half over one of the Armstrong players. The solid overall play of the old-timer made it feel like Bill Clinton was still in office, as he took over the game from the start.

Cougill, just entering his first season as a Hawkeye, has learned a lot from playing with Moore.

“He’s just been telling me how physical the Big Ten can be and the sort of things you can get away with under the hoop that you might not have in high school,” Cougill said.

Iowa sophomore Matt Gatens, who made up the other half of the evening’s attraction with Tucker, had a quiet night. His shot was off, with many of his attempts falling off the front of the rim on his way to a 3-point performance.

“It was difficult,” he said. “I tried to regroup at halftime, but I couldn’t quite get my legs under me.”

With a rough time putting the ball in the hoop, the City High product focused on setting up his teammates, tallying 10 assists.

Cougill is not the only one to get a few tips from an older guy. Half of Gatens’ teammates are ex-college players who have proven to be helpful.

“Guys like Matt Schneiderman have been here before,” Gatens said. “They’ve been here before and been through college and had success in college, so to watch how hard they play all the time is beneficial.”

The game was a 20-point blowout in Vinton’s favor for most of the night, but Armstrong turned it on late in the second half, pulling within two at the buzzer on the third-consecutive 3-pointer from UNI-bound Matt Morrison.

“Matt had a great game, especially at the end with those 3s,” Gatens said.

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 7:15 AM

Garrett Dunn has always been the tall kid.

You’ve seen his type —standing in the back middle of the class picture, a head above everyone else. The one with the awkward lean in his neck from craning over friends and feet too big to buy shoes at a traditional footwear store.

Usually, these kids are also the awkward ones who trip over themselves and have difficulty getting around. At 6-8 and 18 years old, one would think Dunn would fall under the “all of the above” category.

But the freshman on the Iowa men’s tennis team is not your average 6-8 athlete.

A four-star recruit according to tennisrecruiting.net, Dunn was recruited heavily out of high school by Michigan State, Penn State, and Arizona before signing with the Hawkeyes.

After spurning the obvious sport for someone with his height — basketball — Dunn fell in love with tennis at a young age and focused on the game all through high school. He never tried another sport except for cross-country during those awkward middle school years, when he went for a trial run.

His height, while a definite oddity on a tennis court, has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages.

While he’s able to get around the court with relative ease, there are still some hiccups along the way.
“I feel like I’ve really grown into myself as time has gone on,” he said.

That’s saying a lot — Dunn was ranked 115th nationally by tennisrecruiting.net. He must have been able to move pretty well in high school as well, making further improvement a nightmare for opponents.

Of course, being 4 inches taller than his next tallest teammate has its advantages, too.

“In terms of pure reach, I am able to reach for a ball much farther than shorter guys,” Dunn said. “It also helps on my serve and getting certain angles without having to jump.”

While it may look as though he would have the advantage over any opponent he faces, what it really comes down to is preparation and being ready for players on the other side of the net.

That is another way in which he helps his team. While it’s rare to compete against someone his size, the challenge does arise, and no one is more ready for a tall opponent than the Hawkeyes, who practice against Dunn day in and day out.

Senior Patrick Dwyer sees the benefit of practicing against someone who may be similar to a future opponent.

“Guys like that are great at the net,” Dwyer said. “It’s just great for us as a team to be able to compete against a guy like Garrett everyday.”

For now, the freshman giant is focused on getting acclimated to school and a climate that doesn’t stay above 75 degrees year-round.

And of course there’s always those questions in the air.

“Everyone always asks me about my height,” Dunn said. “How tall I am. Do I play basketball. But I don’t care. It’s not a big deal. It’s just part of me.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | SEPTEMBER 09, 2009 7:10 AM

When it comes time for college, normally most people want to get as far away from home as possible. Upon graduation, they normally get a job somewhere other than where they lived or went to school.

Nowadays, modern American life has made it increasingly difficult to find families who stay in one place from generation to generation.

But the Houghtons are one of those families.

Iowa head coach Steve Houghton grew up in Iowa City, and when it came time to depart for college, he went with what he knew rather than explore the unfamiliar.

Then when it came time to get a job, he found a way to stay close to the town he has always known.
Today, after 29 years on the job, he is called the “Dean of Big Ten Tennis.”

“It’s a reference thing to my longevity in the Big Ten,” he said.

And that longevity is nothing to thumb your nose at. In a era in which most college coaches have the same kind of job security offered to a Detroit factory worker, Houghton has proved that a coach can stay in one place as long as he likes.

Of the 11 teams in the Big Ten, Michigan State is the only team with a coach whose tenure comes anywhere close to Houghton’s. And the Spartans’ Gene Orlando started more than a decade after Houghton began with the Hawkeyes, in 1980.

Being from the town you coach in and recruit for can be a definite advantage when trying to woo the top prospects each year to come to Iowa City.

Senior Patrick Dwyer remembers his first impression of Houghton when he came on his visit to Iowa.

“You could tell how passionate he is,” Dwyer said. “Being from here and having played here, you can tell he is having fun with what he’s doing.”

Houghton says it is an asset to have coached in Iowa City for so long. When potential recruits come through they know that they will have Houghton as their head coach for all four years they are at Iowa.

“Recruits like that they will have the same coach for all four years, that I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

While it may seem small in the college decision-making process, stability can have a large effect on an 18-year-old from Sweden, Germany, or Canada. To recruits, Houghton becomes someone they can look to for help and guidance as they feel their way through their first year on campus and beyond.

“They’ll come to me if they need to buy something or need somewhere to eat — something like that,” Houghton said.

These small endeavors can overwhelm a first-year student-athlete at a big university, so Houghton’s familiarity with the area becomes an asset in not only recruiting but also in creating a family-like atmosphere within the team.

For the 29 years that he has coached at Iowa, he has played a father-type role while standing at the helm of the men’s tennis team, helping to intertwine many different nationalities and customs in the Hawkeye squad. And there doesn’t seem to be an obvious end in sight.

“I got the chance to stay here and have been here all 29 years,” he said. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | FEBRUARY 20, 2009 7:34 AM

After spending more than a month on the road, the Iowa women’s track and field team will return home for today’s Iowa Invitational, set to begin at 4 p.m. in the Recreation Building.

Among the Hawkeyes’ competition this afternoon will be Bradley, Coe, Simpson, Augustana, and North Central College.

The home meet follows some dynamic Hawkeye performances last weekend at the Iowa State Classic, in which three members of the team earned NCAA provisional marks in their events.
But today’s meet in Iowa City is being looked at as a segue for the Hawkeyes.

“This weekend will be kind of a tune-up,” head coach Layne Anderson said. “It will be nice to be in town to get rested for the Big Ten championships.”

Several athletes will rest for the championships by not competing at all, including sophomore Karessa Farley and senior Racheal Marchand, two of the provisional qualifiers.

“I will just rest for the Big Tens and then get ready to compete,” Farley said.

Others will be questionable for the meet, and Anderson said the coaches will “play it by ear before the meet.”

The Hawks, however, are not blowing off the meet. This is the last chance at a solid race before the team heads to Bloomington, Ind., for the Big Ten meet, Feb. 28.

“If we didn’t think the meet was important, we wouldn’t be competing and we wouldn’t have it on our schedule,” Anderson said.

Today will also be a prime opportunity for some of the younger members to get a chance to compete.

With freshmen Betsy Flood, Mckenzie Melander, Lindsay Anderson, and Nicole Erickson and sophomore Bethany Praska running well in recent weeks, this meet will provide another chance at continued improvement.

It will also give such athletes as freshmen Josie Takes, Jackie Laesch, Jordan Williams, Brittany Dlhy, and Danielle Berndt a chance to get valuable experience.

“Everybody competing has a chance to step up,” said Layne Anderson, and he expects his younger athletes to take advantage of an opportunity to score some points.

Last weekend’s meet, while highlighted by the provisional qualifiers, had several personal bests and outstanding races, something the team hopes to follow up on.

Among the top performers were Praska in the 600 meters, senior Renee White in the triple jump and hurdles, junior Rhonda-Kaye Trusty in the 200 meters and 60 meters, and Lindsay Anderson in the 3,000 meters.

With the team healthy, Coach Anderson feels good about the squad as the Big Tens approach.

“If you can’t get up for that competition, then you shouldn’t be in the sport,” he said. “That’s what we prepare for, and that’s what we train for.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 7:20 AM

The Iowa men’s tennis team finished tied for seventh place with two other Big Ten teams last year, but just barely.

With just a point to go, the Hawkeyes fell to Wisconsin, 4-0, at the Big Ten Tournament in April and missed fifth place.

Head coach Steve Houghton has been optimistic about his team’s chances this season, though, describing his squad as a bunch of up-and-comers on the national scene.

“Last year was very similar to the year before, as we finished right in the middle of the Big Ten,” he said. “We’ve gotten a ton better over the past couple of years, and people around the country would probably label us a team on the rise.”

A team on the rise indeed. After finishing near the bottom of the Big Ten from 2004 to 2007, the past few years have been a vast improvement, with two seventh-place finishes in 2007-09 and 2008-09 — the latter year coming close to an even better ending.

While going from last in the conference to seventh consistently over a two-year span may seem like baby steps for a program labeled as being “on the rise,” it is important to note the strength of the Big Ten, which Houghton said is one of the top “two or three conferences in the country.”

http://web-server1.daily-iowan.uiowa.edu/video/12906.mov
( Daily Iowan video feature )

Video in QuickTime format, click here for free player download

While the Hawkeyes have a fall schedule full of invitationals, the real fireworks will be touched off next spring. On April 2, Iowa will face No. 2 Ohio State, and on April 11, the Hawkeyes are scheduled to play the No. 12-ranked Fighting Illini in Champaign, Ill.

“Every Big Ten match is a big match for us,” senior Tommy McGeorge said. “They’re always a lot of fun.”

One instance of the Hawkeyes’ new-found prominence on the national scale is their invitation to participate in the Kickoff Classic in Waco, Texas, on Jan. 29, 2010, when Iowa will be pitted against No. 7 Baylor. The event traditionally brings in the top 50 or 60 teams.

One Hawkeye who definitely has that date circled is sophomore transfer Marc Bruche, who came to Iowa from Baylor via Germany and has a chance to compete for the No. 1 spot on the team, Houghton said.

Bruche is not the only new arrival that Iowa will look to for help this season. Two freshmen, Connor Gilmore and 6-8 Garret Dunn will be asked to make big contributions throughout the fall and spring.
However, the majority of the load will fall on the elders of the group.

Senior trio Patrick Dwyer, Reinoud Haal, and McGeorge, along with junior Will Vasos, will collectively assume the leadership role left behind by graduated senior Christian Bierich — last year’s Big Ten singles champion.

The crew has been working feverishly in the off-season with help from assistant coach Steve Nash, who employs a bevy of different techniques to make the Hawkeyes the best-conditioned team in the conference.

That work ethic has spilled over to the players, who have trained through the summer when there are no coaches to push them.

“You’re just always trying to stay in shape,” Dwyer said. “We’ve been hitting the ball for years, so it’s pretty much just making sure we’re ready mentally and physically.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | SEPTEMBER 23, 2009 7:20 AM

Traditionally, tennis is a sport passed down through generations.

Sophomore Will Vasos came across the sport a bit differently. His aunt and two sisters replaced his parents as a guide into the tennis world.

While the sport was in his blood, it somehow skipped a generation with his mother and father, who never played the game. Growing up, Vasos said a “family effort” helped him pick up a racket.

When the time came, he easily adjusted to high-school tennis. He started in the No. 1 spot immediately as a freshman for Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colo. And his sister, Bobbe, currently an assistant coach at West Point, was the head coach of the school team when he arrived.

By his senior season, Vasos was among the top 100 tennis players in the nation and had teams from Michigan State to North Carolina State calling his number.

But family ties helped him decide where he wanted to go.

“He contacted me when he was a junior,” Iowa head coach Steve Houghton said. “One thing about Will is that he has Iowa roots.”

With family members in both Waterloo and Des Moines, Vasos felt right at home in the Hawkeye State. His also had a cousin on campus — Meg Racette, who started at No. 1 for the Iowa woman’s team from 2003-06 and was named All-Big Ten twice.

Before the recruiting process got into full swing, Vasos had a good idea where he would continue his career on the hard court.

“I looked hard at Michigan State,” he said. “But I kind of always knew I wanted to come here because of all the family I had nearby.”

He said he wouldn’t have chosen anywhere else, describing his first year on campus as “perfect.” He credits the coaching staff and tightly knit team for helping him the transition from high school to college play.

And that transition has indeed gone smoothly.

Following last year’s fall season, he moved up to the No. 4 spot for singles — a big move for a freshman who was expected to barely break into the Iowa lineup.

He was also a surprise in the doubles game, teaming up with senior Tommy McGeorge to create one of the best No. 3 doubles tandems in the Midwest. The couple won their first 12 matches en route to a regional No. 15 ranking.

The duo ultimately finished 18-3 overall, and Vasos went 11-10 in singles, numbers that generated high expectations for this season.

Houghton said Vassos will be a major component for the Hawkeyes’ this season in the Big Ten, and Iowa will rely on him to pick up some of the slack left behind by the graduation of last year’s conference singles champion, Christian Bierich.

And if the pressure gets to him, and he needs someone to talk to? Well, his family will be nearby.

“They’ve always been there to get me going,” Vasos said.

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | AUGUST 21, 2009 7:07 AM

It is a common saying in sports that the off-season is where the most work gets done — where each person on the team can improve himself and lift the team to the next plateau.

Nowadays, it seems as though elementary-schoolers have personal trainers and follow elaborate regimens to help them prepare for the next T-ball season.

But instead of spending hours upon hours on the court, running sprints, and slaving over every detail, the members of the Iowa men’s tennis team are employing a more laid-back approach to off-season training between late April and early September.

Other than a few check-ins from Iowa head coach Stephen Houghton, who was unable to be reached for comment, tennis players are free to prepare themselves however they choose.

One of the most common ways they stay in shape outside of the college season is entering open tournaments. Sophomore Mitch Beckert attended several over the summer and was pleased with what he took away from them.

“I had a really good summer for tournaments — won a couple and had a couple good scoring tournaments,” he said.

Without a rigid program to follow during the off months, the tennis players tend to work on their own with the understanding that on their return to school, they will be in shape to compete when the season opens.

“It’s pretty much like you do your own thing,” senior Patrick Dwyer said. “But believe me, everyone knows you need to come back in shape for those first two weeks of practice.”

One reason for such a relaxed environment is the players’ inability to remain near each other, because many of their hometowns range from Davenport to Tucson, Ariz., and Moscow, spreading the team out for much of the summer.

Despite that, the off-season generates several summer stories about tournaments and training, which teammates share when they get back into Iowa City.

“The fun thing about getting back to school is seeing everyone from the team and hearing about the tournaments they’ve been in,” Dwyer said.

The one thing that keeps the tournaments regional is the time and money required for the players to attend the higher-profile national tournaments.

Dwyer’s reason for not entering many of those larger tournaments was simply because of a lack of resources and an inability to take time off work to participate in camps, tournaments, or a training session.

The way the men’s tennis team prepares for each season is very much a throwback to a time when simply playing the game was enough to get ready to compete against the best in the nation, which is precisely what Iowa will do when it takes on top-ranked Baylor on Jan. 29 in Waco, Texas.

But are Beckert, Dwyer, or any of the other Hawkeyes worried about their preparation?

“I think that we’re the one of the best-conditioned teams in the Big Ten, if not the best,” Dwyer said. “Everyone knows that, and we are ready to achieve our goals.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 7:20 AM

Canadian Tom Mroziewicz first picked up a tennis racket when he was 5 years old, in Bandung, Indonesia. The sophomore on the Iowa tennis team learned how to hit the ball from his father, Wojtek, a semipro player while growing up in Poland.

At 11, Mroziewicz began to play competitively while living in Toronto. At that time, he dropped his dad and began working with a real coach.

Mroziewicz saw more of the world by his 8th birthday than many will see in a lifetime. Born in Canada, his family moved to Warsaw, Poland, for two years, where his father, an aeronautical engineer, worked with airline companies.

There, he said his first words — in Polish — picking up English later on.

He, along with mother Alicja and two siblings, followed his father’s job all the way to Bandung and back to Toronto.

That was where Mroziewicz attended Richview Collegiate High School and began to excel in his chosen craft.

He finished fourth at the 2006 and 2008 under-16 national tournaments, thrusting his name into the spotlight when colleges came calling.

Unlike many young top-ranked athletes, Mroziewicz didn’t allow himself to take tennis too seriously. Perhaps because of his opportunity to see so much at such a young age, the Hawkeye tennis player “has never let tennis control his life.”

Instead he describes the sport as simply “being there.” That outlook allowed the business major to focus more on school and not allow tennis to impede on the other things he has going on.

Iowa head coach Steve Houghton remembers first hearing about Mroziewicz.

“I went up to Canada and saw him play in a tournament and was really impressed with what he could do,” Houghton said. “He looked like a really good college player.”

Mroziewicz showed up to campus in the fall of 2008 and felt at home right away. Used to the impersonal nature of Toronto, he felt welcome immediately in the Hawkeye State because of the differences from his hometown.

The fall portion of the season didn’t go quite as planned. Both Mroziewicz and his coaches expected the youngster to be in the lineup right away, but with older players doing well, he was kept out until the Purdue Invitational, in which he beat Stephen Shao of Marquette in his first collegiate match.

With the rough fall season behind him, Mroziewicz turned his sights to cracking the lineup during the spring portion of the season. He did precisely that, entering the roster right in the middle of Big Ten season when he beat Stephen Vogl of Indiana.

Mroziewicz stayed in the lineup at the No. 6 position for the rest of the season and finished the 2008-09 campaign with a 3-2 singles conference record.

Being part of a very international team, Mroziewicz fits in perfectly, taking advantage of his opportunity to communicate with others from all across the world, which will have to suffice for travel — at least for now.

“It’s cool to see different cultures, a Russian guy, a Dutch guy. We all became friends,” Mroziewicz said. “It’s a way to learn about the world indirectly.”

BY DI STAFF | DECEMBER 15, 2009 7:30 AM

Toby Gerhart

This was not the year of the quarterback.

And in turn, it was obvious this year’s Heisman Trophy would not go to a signal-caller.

That automatically ruled out Florida’s Tim Tebow and Texas’ Colt McCoy, vaulting Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, Alabama running back Mark Ingram, and Stanford running back Toby Gerhart into the national spotlight — the brightest of those three stars being the 6-1, 235-pound running back from Stanford.

The Doak Walker award winner ran for the most yards (1736) and touchdowns (26) in the Football Bowl Subdivision, more than qualifying himself as the best player in the country.

Part of the Heisman process is deciding the effect a player has on his team. No one had more of an effect than Gerhart.

Coming into the Cardinal roster as a freshman, Stanford was a one-win team without much of a personality.

This year, that group of losers defeated No. 9 USC, No. 8 Oregon, and No. 24 Washington.

The Heisman meant to be given to the singular best player in the country, no matter how the team does. In giving the award to Ingram, the committee lost sight of individual performance and instead focused on the performance of a team.

Gerhart might well be one of the highest-drafted running backs in next April. It’s just too bad the team didn’t go undefeated.

— by Jake Krzeczowski