newarking

Well, it was a great ride.  As a note…  The Blue Hens lost to Duke in the quarterfinals.  Great roller coaster of a season guys! 

Coach Bob Shillinglaw, in his 29th season at Delaware, has his team working together in a march to the teams first ever NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Final Four appearance.  The scheduled games are all in Annapolis this weekend. 

Semifinals
Saturday, May 26
M&T Bank Stadium, Balitmore, Md.
Johns Hopkins (11-4) vs. Delaware (13-5), noon
Duke (16-2) vs. Cornell (15-0), 2:30 p.m.

Championship
Monday, May 28
M&T Bank Stadium, Balitmore, Md.
Semifinal winners, 1 p.m.

All three games will be broadcast on ESPN2, so catch the fever on Saturday afternoon.  And GO BLUE HENS!

I came across a University of Delaware Lacrosse Team game this afternoon, and took some photos of the action. I don’t think that this was the Varsity team playing, but it was pretty fast paced. According to the U. of D. pages, the Varsity team is playing Drexel University today in Philadephia.

The game was taking place in the field behind the Carpenter Sports Building rather than the Fred P. Rullo Jr. Stadium.

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“I had a good weekend in college one year that was sort of like this,” said Mench, a Delaware standout who is suddenly short on words when talking about himself. “It’s a rarity. I’m just having fun right now.”

Kevin Mench was a monster baseball player in his days at Newark, playing for the University of Delaware.  I remember that weekend.  I think one of those baseballs he crushed went flying through my backyard one day.

I believe that he set the School’s record for homeruns in a single season, and homeruns in a career. 

He’s been in the local news a lot recently.  There aren’t too many Delawarean’s playing in the Major Leagues, or in any sport at all.  A couple of weeks ago, the stories were about him getting new shoes after learning that his feet had grown since the last time he measured them at 15.

Guess the shoes have made a difference.  He’s hit homeruns in 6 consecutive games and has 20 runs batted in over the last week.  It would be nice to see him take the new shoes, and run through a full season filled with monster shots over outfield fences. 

And me, I’m going to have my shoe sizes checked.  It’s been a long time, and it really might help my batting.  Then again, I don’t play baseball.

 Update: Mench gets number seven in a row - One more to go to tie the major league baseball record.

Newark, Delaware, hit the news this weekend in a big way, and World Champion figure skater Kimmie Meissner is at the center of the media blitz. Kimmie won the World Championship this weekend in Calgary, Canada.  She trains at the University of Delaware in their Ice Skating Science Development Center

ABC writes about the rising star in U.S. Performs Well at World Figure Skating.

Reuters calls her a new teenage prodigy in Meissner spices up world championships.

MSNBC talks of her stunning ascent, and notes that U.S. showing at Worlds bodes well for future.

The Chicago Sun-Times says that she “pulled off one of the biggest upsets in World Figure Skating Championships history” over in Nothing routine about Meissner’s win.

Google News is showing more than 400 news articles about Kimmie Meissner and this weekend’s championship.   Newarking hopes that the good press continues to roll in, leading up to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.   It would be nice to see Kimmie there.  

Maybe I watch too many Disney sports movies, like The Rookie, or Glory Road, or Miracle, but a drama as compelling almost happened at the University of Delaware.

The school fired their basketball coach on March 13th after two seasons in a row in which the team lost 20 or more games.  They then set out to find a replacement, and had talked with a number of candidates.  This morning, we discover that the job had been offered to an assistant coach from Kentucky, and then withdrawn by the University’s Board of Directors.

The reason why?

A previous DUI conviction from two years ago that was discussed during the job interview, before he was hired as coach.  University of Louisville’s head coach, Rick Pitino held a press conference upon learning that his assistant, Kevin Willard, was offered a position as a head coach, and then snubbed for the job.  The Louisville Courier Journal has more, including this quote from Coach Pitino:

“What happened was a mistake, and he owned up to it,” he said. “For this to be pulled from him is very disappointing. And I hope the board at Delaware, I hope they can look themselves in the mirror and I hope they don’t live in any glass houses.

“They just missed out on one of the finest basketball coaches I’ve witnessed in my life. But more important than that, they missed the opportunity to be around one of the finest people I’ve encountered in my life.”  

I can’t help but feel that the University made a mistake with this decision.  An editorial from the Courier Journal, Willard atoned for his mistake; will Delaware?, describes in detail how Kevin Willard has taken the DUI conviction and used it as a lesson for the students he coaches about drinking and driving.  It also discusses his credentials, and his character. 

It sounds like Delaware has missed out on employing a man who would have been an excellent role model to the students who would have played for him.