Purdue wins 3rd NCAA title

The Purdue Women's Golf team won a national championship, the third* title in school history. Although leading by 7 strokes entering the final round, that lead was squandered to just 1 after Maude-Aimee LeBlanc bogeyed hole #18.

SoCal had a chance to tie it with a 10-foot birdie attempt on the final hole but the putt missed right. Since 1993, either a Pac10 school or Duke had won every national title.

*The other two NCAA Championships were the 1999 Women's Basketball team and the 1961 Men's Golf squad. They still trail IU by 20.

RunnerUp Champs

So far in 2010, Lawrence Central has lost to Brebeuf 3 times in County, including runner-up champions in both Golf and Baseball. Sure high school is a much smaller scale than the NFL, Olympics, NCAA basketball, WNBA, Confederation Cup and yes, even minor league hockey - the commonality is they're all teams in the § galaxy that have been to the championship this past year only to lose.

Update: Chalk up 2 more: Notre Dame LaX just lost to Duke in the Natl championship and LC Boys Track placed runner-up at State - but hey, at least the Girls won!
Update #2: LC football lost the State Championship to Fishers Tigers. The curse continues!

§ Galaxy of Stars Spring Report Card: A-

Lawrence Central won the Marion County Boys Track meet last night @ North Central, edging out Ben Davis and Warren Central, and set the meet-record in the 4x800 relay (7:53.30) This meet is generally regarded as the second-toughest Track&Field competition in Indiana, behind the State Finals which are held @ IUPUI in June.
The baseball Bears play @ Victory Field tomorrow night in the County Championship versus Brebeuf. The game will add to the fierce rivalry between the two schools this year: Brebeuf eliminated both the basketball Bears (by 1 point) and the golf Bears (by 4 strokes) to win the County Championship last week.

The 2011 class juniors are showcasing their hoop skills this summer in hopes of wooing top national programs for scholarship offers. Michael Chandler (LN), Cody Zeller, Branden Dawson, and Jeremiah Davis are all undecided, while Marquis Teague (UK), Ryan Taylor (UL), Darwin Davins (XU), and Austin Etherington (IU) are other Indiana stars ranked in the Rivals top100. Although it doesn't appear so, Indiana is actually the 2nd best state (behind Ohio) when it comes to retaining talent from high school to college.

The BigTen has remained quiet leading up to their meeting in Chicago May 17-19 to discuss possible conference expansion. The latest rumors are that Missouri, Nebraska and Rutgers are being invited to join and that Notre Dame, Syracuse and Pittsburgh are also candidates. Speaking of Notre Dame...
Fourteen Irish teams were honored for their classroom performance, including football and mens basketball. Butler basketball also finished in the top 10%, along with two other Final Four teams MSU and WVU (surprisingly, Duke did not make the cut.) If a team's APR consistantly falls below 925, they face possible sanctions from the NCAA. Speaking of Hoosier Hoops...
IU finished 11th nationally in average attendance (15,296) with just a 10-21 overall record; no other team in the top 25 had a losing record. For the 34th consecutive year, the BigTen was the best conference in the land at 12,591 per game.

And finally, the Cincinnati Reds have been on bit of a roll lately, with their last two starting pitchers both throwing complete game shutouts. On Monday, Bronson Arroyo allowed only 5 hits and a run, then Johnny Cueto and Homey Bailey followed that performance by allowing just five hits combined. In other baseball news, my fantasy team is still in first place. Booyah!