Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

By Phil Axelrod, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

This is a habit Slippery Rock doesn't want to break.

The Rock is headed to the NCAA Division II national baseball championships for the fourth time and the second time in the past four seasons.

Slippery Rock (48-11), which set a school record for victories in a season, moved up seven spots to No. 6 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll. The Rock will meet No. 21 Franklin Pierce (30-15) in the first round of the double-elimination tournament at 2 p.m. Saturday in Montgomery, Ala.

Slippery Rock reached the national tournament by winning the Northeast regional with victories against Shippensburg, 10-1 and 7-5, in the final two games. Slippery Rock's Mike Sikorski, a senior right-hander, pitched a no-hitter in a 2-1 victory against Kutztown in the regional for the first no-hitter in a Division II tournament game since 1993.

Sikorski is 9-2 with a 1.27 earned run average on a staff that includes Steve Norris (10-0, 1.74) and Dave Sansom (5-0, 4.24).

The team's leading hitters are infielder Billy Wolfe (.464), outfielder Joe Neidrick (.396) and infielder Alan Reichl (.354, 9 home runs, 58 RBIs).

Strong showing

The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference will be well represented at the NCAA Division II national track and field championships this weekend in Edwardsville, Ill., led by IUP's Noah Christian in the javelin and Becky Bullard in the heptathlon and high jump; Slippery Rock's Karyn McCready in the javelin and Linsey Westerman in the 400-meter high hurdles; and Edinboro's Aaron Rowe in the 5,000 and 10,000-meter runs.

Here's a summary of the PSAC participants:

IUP's Christian, a senior from Homer-Center High School, finished second at the nationals last year and is currently 11th in the country with a throw of 205 feet. He is attempting to become the sixth IUP student to win a national championship throwing the javelin. IUP's Mark Bridge is the 2002 champion.

IUP's Bullard set school records in the heptathlon and high jump in the PSAC meet and ranks second nationally with a 5-9 3/4 jump and seventh in the heptathlon with 4,839 points.

IUP's Mindy Sawtelle qualified with a time of 36:09.37 at the Penn Relays that seeds her sixth in the 10,000 meters.

Edinboro's Rowe earned All-America honors last year, finishing third in the 10,000 meters and sixth in the 5,000 meters. He has the third-best qualifying time -- 29:24.59 -- in the 10,000 meters.

Edinboro's Cassandra Leopold has the 10th-longest throw of 140-6 in the javelin.

Slippery Rock's McCready, a two-time PSAC champion who finished fourth in the javelin at last year's meet, has the third-best qualifying toss of 156-1.

Slippery Rock's Westerman, a senior from Freeport, finished eighth in the 400-meter hurdles to become a 2002 All-American and was ninth in the 100-meter high hurdles to just miss being a double All-American. The top eight places are All-Americans. Westerman enters the national championships with the ninth-fastest time in the 400-meter hurdles (1:01.85) and 10th-best time in the 100-meter hurdles (14.21).

Teed off

Freshman Justin Tulk, the first Grove City golfer to qualify for the NCAA Division III championships, tied for 31st place in the four-day event at Dornoch Golf Club in Delaware, Ohio. He had rounds of 75, 75, 74 and 76 for a 16-over 300.

Gannon's Dave Patronik, who is competing in the NCAA Division II national championships this week in Sunriver, Ore., is the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year. Patronik finished in the top 20 in 11 of 13 tournaments this season.