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.”

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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

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | OCTOBER 01, 2009 7:20 AM

It’s common operating procedure in wrestling for grapplers to hold wrestle-offs in hopes of moving up the ranks within the team.

Iowa men’s tennis coach Steve Houghton employs this same tactic throughout the fall portion of the Hawkeyes’ schedule.

The challenge matches are a way for the coach to figure out the composition of his team, making it easier to decide what spot each player will compete at in upcoming meets.

“We have played two challenges so far,” Houghton said. “I have been able to get an idea of what I have on the team but nothing will be for sure yet.”

After beating up on each other for the past few weeks, the Hawkeyes will finally turn their sights to the opposition by splitting for the weekend.

Four representatives — sophomores Will Vasos and Marc Bruche and seniors Nikita Zotov and Tommy McGeorge — will travel to the All-American Tournament in Tulsa, Okla.

“It’s going to be some of the overall best talent in the nation,” Houghton said. “If you’ve won one match or two, you’re doing well for yourself.”

Last year, Big Ten singles champion and then-senior Christian Bierich won two matches over nationally ranked opponents before getting knocked out in the third round.

Because of the lack of challenge matches to date, the coach, who has more intrasquad matchups planned for the coming weeks, has instead looked to the team’s other weekend tournament as a chance to get a feel for those on his roster.

Evantson, Ill., is the destination for the rest of the team. With the challenges taking on lesser importance, the tournament serves as a chance for some youngsters to prove themselves.

“This is just a chance to see where we’re at, see where everyone stands in the lineup,” sophomore Tom Mroziewicz said.

One Hawkeye who is headed to Northwestern, senior Reinoud Haal, missed a chance at participating in the All-American tournament because he is still conditioning himself after undergoing foot surgery in the summer.

He will likely compete in one of the top flights this weekend.

All of the Iowa players will play several matches in the tournament, a treat for the coaching staff, which embraces the chance to see the younger players compete — some for the first time.

For freshmen Garret Dunn and Connor Gilmore, this will be a chance to get a feel for the college game when they are tossed into their first test.

“I was telling my guys to be sure to take advantage of the matches this weekend,” Houghton said. “Some stuff will show up, good and bad — you can only tell once the balls start flying.”

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | MARCH 24, 2009 7:30 AM

The Iowa women’s rowing team got its spring season off to a fast start last weekend, competing in the Longhorn Invitational in Austin, Texas.

The Hawkeyes’ varsity and novice squads both finished with strong performances winning 16 of their 24 races, with the first varsity 8 boat winning all four of its competitions.

“I felt really good about it,” Iowa head coach Mandi Kowal said. “Our varsity did well going undefeated over the weekend.”

While the first varsity 8 boat had a clean sweep, the rest of the Hawkeyes hit a few bumps dropping races against Central Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma.

The Hawkeyes were overmatched in some races, making the losses a little easier to swallow.

Iowa’s second varsity 4 boat lost to Oklahoma’s first varsity 4 in the first race of the weekend, and the Iowa second novice 4 boat lost to Wisconsin’s first novice team.

“Some of the losses make sense against who we were competing,” Kowal said.

The meet was the team’s first since Nov. 16, when the Hawkeyes participated at the Rivanna Romp in Charlottesville, Va.

“I thought we did really well and have made a lot of improvements from last year,” senior rower Laura Kanaris said. “I felt like we made a statement.”

After going to Austin on March 14 for a scrimmage with No. 14 Wisconsin, the Hawkeyes headed right back down to the Lone Star State the following week.

The constant racing, along with the chance to compete with some of the best competition in the country, are two things Kowal sees as advantages for her team as it delves further into its schedule.

“The most pleasing thing was having races back-to-back,” she said. “You can really improve drastically from race to race.”

Southern teams don’t have winter to deal with, which allows them to practice year-round, something Kowal would love to have but admits is not a huge advantage.

“In the beginning of the season, they are faster, but by the end of the season, it should be equal,” she said.

The Hawkeyes supplement not being able to get in the water with plenty of indoor practice, much of that spent on rowing machines. Of the seven schools in the Big Ten with women’s rowing teams, five of them are ranked nationally in the top 20.

With that kind of competition right in their backyard, the Hawkeyes looks forward to some good races.

“It is always beneficial for us to row against higher-ranked teams,” Kanaris said.

Iowa’s schedule from here does not get any easier. Next week, the Hawkeyes return home for competition against Minnesota and Creighton on Lake Macbride. The Golden Gophers are ranked 19th nationally.

“Minnesota is strong, and I expect it to compete well,” Kowal said.

After its lone home competition of the spring, the team will head to San Diego for the San Diego Crew Classic, where it will do battle with some of the best crews from across the country.

Kowal isn’t worried about the pedigrees of the other teams, though.

“Some teams rise to the occasion and have some of their best performances against better competition,” she said.

The Hawkeyes look to continue working toward becoming the team that rises to the occasion.

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | OCTOBER 15, 2009 7:20 AM

In college sports, physical skills and talent aren’t enough.

And Iowa sophomore tennis player Chris Speer is a model specimen of hard work and determination.

As a youngster growing up in suburban Chicago, he first picked up a racket at the age of 5. That was all it took for him to fall in love with the sport.

His parents immediately enrolled him in the Care Academy, a tennis club specializing in grooming young talent in the Chicagoland area.

Attending the prestigious tennis academy became a daily routine for Speer, who began playing national tournaments as a 12-year-old. And before he could blow out 13th-birthday candles, the kid who picked up a tennis racket as a hobby eventually found himself nationally ranked in the top 10 for his age group.

Speer played in tournaments all over the country almost every weekend.

“I almost spent more time with my coaches than my parents,” he said. “They had to work, so I would go with my coaches to the tournaments.”

By the time he was in high school, the phenom started to hit some bumps in the road. Injuries set him back during his first two years of high school at Stevenson in Lincolnshire, Ill., and he experienced a scare in his junior year when he had trouble with a rotator cuff.

But he made it through all the setbacks, and in his senior year he helped deliver Stevenson, one of the more illustrious schools in Illinois, the state runner-up trophy en route to the best men’s tennis season the school had ever seen.

“Everyone came to the games,” Speer said. “Students, teachers — everyone.”

His final prep season wrapped up, it was time to take his game to the college level. Again he returned to the Care Academy, where his coach had set up a match for him to show his stuff for Iowa head coach Steve Houghton.

Houghton liked what he saw and offered Speer a spot on the team, and he committed in late June before his freshman year.

It didn’t take long for the young tennis star to figure out he was in a whole new game.

“I didn’t get to play, but I learned a lot, cheered our guys on,” he said. “I know that if I work hard enough I’ll get my chance to get in there and play.”

Playing in only one event last season, he poured himself into the training regimen assistant coach Steve Nash laid out for him.

He has been looking to challenge matches to work his way up the roster after being left home this past weekend.

It is easy to see his determination; each hit in practice looks as if he is putting all those years of training behind it — the long hours, hotel rooms, and plane rides all bubbling to the surface before the ball returns to the other side of the net.

Houghton, a former Hawkeye tennis player who entered into the lineup his first day on campus, looks at the way players get through rough spots as a sense of their character.

“How are you going to handle diversity?” the coach said. “These are kids who never sat on the bench in high school, so a lot of the success is based on their perseverance.”

Last weekend, Speer stayed in Iowa City while four other Iowa players traveled to the Purdue Invitational. But he has remained undeterred.

“I’m real motivated to get better and show people who I am,” Speer said.

BY JAKE KRZECZOWSKI | FEBRUARY 23, 2009 7:30 AM

On a night when the Iowa women’s track and field seniors were honored, two led the way in the Hawkeyes’ first-place finish at the Iowa Invitational on Feb. 20 against Augustana, Bradley, Coe, North Central, and Simpson.

Seniors Mandy Chandler and Renee White won their events. Chandler claimed victories in the weight throw with a collegiate-best toss of 54-041⁄2 and the shot put with a throw of 42-09. White won the 60-meter hurdles with a season-best time of 8.60.

“I’m just trying to get my technique down and my times down, so that when I go to the Big Tens, I’m in a position to score points for my team,” White said.

Joining in on the Senior Night festivities was former Hawkeye All-American Peaches Roach, who won both the long jump and 60-meter dash in convincing fashion.

Also basking in the spotlight were the Iowa underclassmen. Sophomore Amanda Hardesty won the mile with a time of 5:05.26, her best time this season.

Freshman Betsy Flood continued the youth trend by winning the 600 meters with a time of 1:36.22, followed by a cluster of five Hawkeyes who claimed the top-five spots in the event, all with collegiate bests.

With most of the more seasoned veterans sitting the meet out, the young corps of Iowa was able to have a chance to shine.

Senior Racheal Marchand, junior Rhonda-Kaye Trusty, and sophomores Karessa Farley and Bethany Praska all took a break from competition on Feb. 20 in order to concentrate on next weekend’s Big Ten championships.

“The bulk of our scorers sat out,” head coach Layne Anderson said. “For a lot of the kids, it was a chance to take another step forward in their career.”

With the final home meet out of the way, the Hawkeyes are now looking forward to the Big Ten championships, which will take place next weekend in Bloomington, Ind.

They will spend time building on the things they’ve done all season. The team will stay in what Anderson calls its “maintenance mode” all through this week in preparation for a strong showing in Bloomington.

“The most important thing is to stay in the routine we’ve been in all year,” he said. “The work is done. This week is all about fine-tuning.”