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Show DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE 8 ERIN BURNS/The Daily Utah Chronicle Shelby Pacheco at bat during the game against Ole Miss on March 3. MCDONALD Continued from page 6 he's the right man to lead Utah to success in the Pac-12. Even this season, his team wasn't very talented outside of Delon Wright, but he got them to play hard, particularly on defense, en route to a .500 clip in one of the deepest conferences in the country. The way a season ends shouldn't be the only indicator of how successful or not a campaign is. Besides, Arizona is priming itself for a run to the national championship and was a buzzsaw in the conference tournament, and I don't entirely blame the Utes for folding down the stretch against St. Mary's. Utah got hosed by getting just a No. 5 seed. Utes fans aren't the only ones who second-guessed an entire season based on just a game or two at the end. Both Duke and Kansas bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in its first weekend, and suddenly many are wondering how good those teams' stud freshmen Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins really are. Both are expected to be among the first five players selected in the NBA Draft in June, but they struggled in the Big Dance. In the Blue Devils' loss in the first round, Parker didn't have his best day but still scored 14 points and pulled down seven rebounds. You wouldn't have known that from Twitter, though. So many people were suddenly saying Parker won't even Tuesday, March 25, 2014 SOFTBALL SWIMMING Continued from page 6 Continued from page 6 just hit the ball." Hogue doesn't believe the scoreboard reflects the proper story of the weekend, particularly Monday's game, which was called after five innings because of the mercy rule. "Honestly, the score is hardly ever indicative of how well you played against them," she said, pointing out the Ducks did a great job of capitalizing on opportunities to bring runs home. In Monday's tilt, Oregon scored seven runs in the third inning and six in the fifth. In all, Oregon was able to score in 12 of the 19 innings played during the series. While Utah struggled defensively, its offense did have some success, averaging nearly six runs per game. "We scored runs all three game against Oregon, which is a huge positive for us," Hogue said. "I don't think that there is a team in the country that has put up that many runs on them." This was particularly encouraging because in the circle for the Ducks in two of the three games was Cheridan Hawkins, who Hogue feels is one of the five best pitchers in the country. Hawkins pitched six innings on Saturday and five on Monday. She also hurled an inning of relief on Sunday. In Monday's contest, Hawkins tallied io strikeouts. Utes' pitchers only got six the entire series. "She throws a rise ball," Pacheco said. "That is really rare for a lot of pitchers, and it was really moving." After the series with Oregon, Utah moved its record to 11-12 overall and 1-4 in conference play. The Utes will next play Idaho State on Wednesday afternoon at Utah Softball Stadium. The game is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. MT. d.garcia@chronicle.utah.edu be a good pro, despite the fact that he averaged 19 points and nine rebounds this season. The negative reaction about Wiggins was even worse after he scored just four points on 1-of-6 shooting in the Jayhawks' loss to Stanford on Sunday. Yes, it's true he played poorly, but you can't disregard an entire season because of just one game. Wiggins has been a top prospect throughout the entire campaign, and one contest shouldn't change that. Thankfully, scouts are smarter than most fans, and that won't happen. Bottom line — don't overreact about one game. Look at an entire body of work before putting a label on how good or bad a player or team is. r.mcdonald@chronicle.utah.edu freestyle) and freshman Stina Colleou (ninth in the 200-yard breaststroke). All three of those performances came on the final day of the competition. "It was awesome," said head coach Joe Dykstra. "It was the best Utah has ever done in the NCAA championships, so when you have done something you have never done, it's awesome." The Utes started the threeday meet with a number of close calls, as swimmers just missed out on qualifying for the finals numerous times. "We were a little sluggish getting into the meet," Dykstra said. "We were just short in a number of events." Even as Utah let opportunities pass them by, they all knew their best events were still to come. At the end of the ioo-yard freestyle preliminaries Saturday morning, Swartz was with GYMNASTICS Continued from page 6 "Arkansas is an excellent team, especially at home," Marsden said. "There is no question that Arkansas is one of the better third-seeded teams in regionals, so both UCLA and us need to be at our best to not have them knock us off." Since six teams will be at the meet on April 5, the Red Rocks will start with a bye and then make their way to bars. Utah will then move to beam, followed by another bye, and will finish on floor and vault, its her team, waiting to see if she would be swimming in the second session. When her name came up i4th, ensuring her All-American status and giving herself another chance to swim, her teammates around her started to tear up. "They knew how much it meant to her as a senior," Dykstra said. "What the team has been through and all of that stuff to have that kind of accomplishments meant so much to all of them." Swartz improved on her seed in finals and broke the school record in the process with a time of 48.04. Another school record was broken in the 200-yard breaststroke by Colleou with a time of 2:08.35 as the freshman won the consolation final. "I couldn't be more proud of those girls," Dykstra said. "They all knew that their best events was the last day. So we all knew that in the back of the mind if we could get to the last day we would have our best shot." r.miller@chronicle.utah.edu two strongest events. "Every away meet we start on bars, so it's something we are used to, something we are comfortable with," Hansen said. "I think that we're going to go in there and have a grind mindset from the beginning." If the Red Rocks can manage to be one of the top two teams at regionals, they'll go to nationals in Birmingham, Ala. Utah has not missed nationals once in program history. "I feel good about being able to move out of this region if we hit our stuff," Marsden said. g.adams@chronicle.utah.edu Contact a. drysdale chronicle. utah. edu for information about being a news writer for The Daily Utah Chronicle. |