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Daily Bears Report 3/26/2017 - Spring Practice and Matt Rhule “Goal of the Game”

WBB in Elight Eight, Equestrian wins Big XII, Track & Field wins eight titles, football spring practice videos plus more.

By Ohio Baylor Fan
NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament-East Regional-South Carolina vs Baylor Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Today’s Events

Lady Bears Basketball

  • For one of the rare times in their careers, Mississippi State’s Teaira McCowan and Baylor’s Kalani Brown will be at eye level with an opponent.

Full AP Story at Star Telegram dot com:

Whichever 6-foot-7 center gets the best of the matchup Sunday could vault her team into the Final Four.

McCowan got Brown’s attention by scoring 20 of her career-high 26 points in the fourth quarter of Mississippi State’s Sweet 16 win over Washington on Friday.

“Big, strong, big in the post,” Brown said. “Got to block her out and do my work early or get punished. You can’t let her get deep. Just do my work early, run the floor hard.”

But for a team with two national championships and three Final Fours, a berth in the regional final isn't nearly enough to consider the season to be successful.

“I think when they came to Baylor, they wanted to get to a Final Four,” Mulkey said Saturday. “I think anybody that comes to Baylor wants to get to a Final Four. We've set the bar that high.

Equestrian

  • No. 1 Baylor equestrian ran away with the 2017 Big 12 Equestrian Championship trophy, downing No. 2 Oklahoma State, 11-7, in the final round on Saturday afternoon at the Willis Family Equestrian Center. From Baylor Bears dot com.

The two sides kicked off the competition with fences and horsemanship, with Baylor taking a 3-2 edge in both events to take a 6-4 lead in the meet.

In fences, Alicia Gasser, Gabby Conte, and Shannon Hogue posted points for BU, with Hogue’s 170 standing as the meet-high mark.

In horsemanship, Kaylee Mellott, Charlotte Green, and Kelsie Holman helped BU put three more on the board, with Mellott’s 150 setting the meet-high score.

Baylor Equestrian: Big 12 Championship Preview

Acrobatics & Tumbling

  • The top-ranked and defending national champion Baylor acrobatics & tumbling team will return home to the Ferrell Center to take on No. 8 Gannon Golden Knights today at 1:00 p.m. CT. From News Channel 25, KXXV.

The Bears (3-1) started the 2017 season with a victory over Quinnipiac before losing their next match at Oregon. However, the Bears have rebounded nicely with back-to-back road wins over Glenville State and Fairmont State. The Bears have posted season high overall scores in each of their last two matches, notching a 285.010 in their last match against Fairmont State, and will look to improve upon that number Sunday.

Gannon (3-1) opened its season with a tri-meet victory over Glenville State and Adrian College, but lost its next match to Alderson Broaddus. The Golden Knights were able to rebound with a narrow victory over King University, 272.765-268.255, on March 11.

Track & Field

The event titles, seven for the women and one for the men, propelled the women to a second-place finish in the team standings with 145 points, while the men were fourth with 96.5 points.

The BU women cleaned up in the track events, starting in the sprints. Taylor Bennett cruised to victory in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.51, which was .37 seconds better than anyone in the field.

Baseball

The Bears (18-5, 2-3) evened the series with the Sooners (22-5, 1-1) behind stellar pitching from starter Montana Parsons and reliever Kyle Ott.

With Parsons throwing well, the offense gave him runs to work with in the third and fourth innings. A T.J. Raguse RBI double and Matt Menard sacrifice fly in the third got the scoring started. Then in the fourth, an error pushed across a run and Raguse drove another in with a single.

A wild pitch in the seventh and an eighth-inning RBI walk by Josh Bissonette and RBI ground out by Raguse gave the Bears a 7-0 lead that stood.

BU starter Montana Parsons (2-1) earned the win, giving up just five hits and two walks with four strikeouts in seven innings. Ott finished the final two innings, allowing three hits with two strikeouts. OU starter Devon Perez (4-1) took the loss, surrendering four runs on six hits and two walks with nine strikeouts in five innings.

"Coming off of yesterday's game, you can see the power that Oklahoma has. Watching what [Montana] Parsons did tonight, being able to handcuff them a little bit -- it's an impressive offense -- seeing the numbers that they put up. To see what we did with that today on the mound was really impressive." -- Head Coach Steve Rodriguez.

Baylor finishes its series vs. Oklahoma with a 12:05 p.m. CT rubber match on Sunday.

Softball

  • No. 14/14 Baylor softball (27-6, 1-1 Big 12) split the first day of conference play at Kansas (19-13, 1-1 Big 12), winning 6-1 in the conference opener and falling 6-4 in 10 innings in game two on Saturday evening at Arrocha Ballpark at Rock Chalk Park. Visit Baylor Bears dot com for full story.

Kelsee Selman (14-3) took both decisions, throwing a total of 10.2 innings and allowing a combined two earned runs and six hits, striking out 12.

Tennis

First serve is set for 1 p.m. (CT).

In the most recent meeting, the then-ranked No. 57 Lady Bears dropped a 4-2 decision to the then-ranked No. 12 Red Raiders on April 10, 2016. Baylor leads the all-time series against Texas Tech 26-13 and has won five of the last seven matchups.

After the dual match against Texas Tech, the Lady Bears continue their road stretch with play at Iowa State and West Virginia on March 31 and April 2, respectively. The Iowa State match is set for 3 p.m., while action at West Virginia begins at 9 a.m.

  • The fourth-ranked Baylor men’s tennis team will play a doubleheader against No. 28 Memphis (12-4) and Prairie View A&M (4-19) Sunday at the Hurd Tennis Center. Full story at Baylor Bears dot com.

The matches are set for 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., respectively. The Bears are 5-0 all-time against each team. BU last played Prairie View A&M in 2013 and Memphis in 2015.

The Bears (16-3) return to action after winning their first-ever BNP Paribas Collegiate Challenge in last weekend in Indian Wells, Calif., at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. BU has won eight of its last nine matches, and received its highest ranking of the season so far. Baylor is 6-0 at home this season.

Following the doubleheader, Baylor will visit Tulsa next Sunday at 1 p.m., in its last non-conference matchup of the 2017 regular season.

Football

  • His neck still kind of ached. By most normal standards, he hadn’t had enough sleep.But Matt Rhule loves to coach football – and he wasn’t about to miss practice. Full Brice Cherry story at BearsExtra.

About six hours after landing in Waco after flying in from New York, Baylor’s first-year football coach was back on the field, jogging around and chattering instructions at his new charges. Rhule attended the Baylor men’s basketball team’s loss in the Sweet 16 on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. But Baylor had a scheduled practice – its first in pads, actually – set for Saturday morning, and Rhule had no intentions of applying for an excused absence.

“I fell asleep on the plane,” said the coach, who landed in Waco at around 2 a.m. on Saturday. “Five hours is enough for me.”

Goal of the Game -- Baylor Head Football Coach Matt Rhule
Baylor Football: Jeff Nixon Mic'd Up
Baylor Football: Second Spring Practice Recap
Baylor Football: Third Spring Practice Recap [2017]
Baylor Football: Fourth Spring Practice Recap [2017]

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