Softball

The softball team came back from its trip to St. Louis 4-0 for the weekend and 19-1 for the year. Three of the four wins that came this weekend count as regional victories and are important if the Storm wishes to return to the national tournament.

The Storm took out Maryville College, Millikin University, St. Mary’s of Minnesota and Washington University on its way to the perfect weekend.

Head Coach Henry Christowski was pleased with his team’s efforts. “We played very well, our pitching was excellent and our D (defense) was really super. Our hitting was pretty good, although at times we didn’t produce as many runs as we would have liked to.”

One person who did produce runs for the Storm was Michelle Montgomery. The Junior from Newton had a big weekend in helping the Storm score runs. Montgomery hit a home run in the Maryville game, had an RBI double for the only run against Millikan and had another RBI double and scored the other run in the 2-0 victory over St. Mary’s.

“She had a very big weekend for us. She came through and delivered so many times in the clutch situations. She is just seeing the ball very well, hitting the ball very hard and is just a tough out right now,” said Christowski.

The Storm will now try and protect its 19-1 record against conference opponents starting this week. The Storm travels to Wartburg today for another conference match-up.

Baseball

The men’s baseball team traveled to Lamoni to take on the Graceland Yellow Jackets Sunday and split to make its record 9-9 in non-conference games.

Both games were decided by one run with Simpson taking the first 7-6 and then dropping the second 10-11.

“Graceland swung the bat as well as anyone we are going to face this year,” said Head Coach Jon Sirianni.

In Simpson’s win, senior Brian Cyronek went 3-4 and junior Brett Murphy went 2-4 with two RBIs to lead the Storm. Shawn Parker pitched 5 and 1/3 innings getting the win and J.D. Hews tallied the save.

In the high scoring loss, it was again Murphy leading the way offensively. He went 2-4 again hitting two home runs and totaling five RBIs.

“Basically we were inconsistent defensively, although we got good pitching and much improved offense. It just seems to be that we are inconsistent defensively at times,” said Sirianni.

The Storm will try and improve its 9-9 record today when it hosts Luther.

Men’s & Women’s Track

Ice, wind and rain isn’t what the Storm tracksters were looking for at the team’s first outdoor meet last week. But, that’s what it got.

“It was cold, really cold,” said Head Coach Tim Byers. “We ran into 30-degree weather, probably 30-35 mile an hour winds and ice pellets.”

The Storm had to battle the weather and a tough field of competition that included several NAIA teams and Division II teams.

“Our kids stood right up and performed as well as we expected them to perform,” said Byers.

Senior Zach Allison highlighted the men’s side winning the 400-meter open. Allison ran a 48.51 time in the cold weather conditions winning the race by over a second. Allison missed provisional qualifying by .01 in the first meet of the year.

Junior Jessica Capper, freshman Jen Wendt and senior Tracie Whitney led the way for the women’s side. Capper placed third in both the shot put and in the discus. Wendt took fifth running a 2:23 open 800-meter race and Whitney finished sixth in the 100-meter dash and seventh in the 200.

“Tracie had a very good 100, she made the finals. She had a really good meet also,” said Byers.

Simpson did not compete in all the events that it had originally hoped to compete in due to the weather and length of the meet.

The Storm will travel to Northwest Missouri State Saturday and will be hoping to run into warmer weather this time around.