The BU Locker Room

Monday, April 16, 2007

With Summer Around the Corner, Basketball Camps are just a Call Away.

Bellarmine University is to hold basketball camps throughout the summer. These camps are held for young boys and girls from the ages of six all the way up to seniors in high school. Camps will be held from June 4th all the way up wintil July 20th, however, there are different camps each week for the different ages.

The "Jr. Knights Camp" will be held from June 4 through June 8. This camp is held for boys and girls who are six and seven years old. Camp will start at 9 a.m. and will conclude at 11 a.m. each day.

"Boys Fundamental Camps" will take place over three different weeks. All three sessions are aimed for ages eight through 12 and will be on the dates of June 11-15, June 18-22 and June 25-29. Sessions will start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 4 p.m.

"Girls Fundaments Camps" are held for the same ages as the boys fundamental camps and will also begin and end at the same time. The session for this camp will be July 16-20.

Bellarmine University's Head Men's basketball coach Scott Davenport and Women's Head Coach David Smith co-direct these camps. Davenport led the Knights to thier first GLVC tournament birth in 6 years during his first year at the helm. David Smith is also going for his 500th win in the upcoming season, a milestone few women's college basketball coaches have reached.

For more information on these camps as well as the boys and girls high school camps you can visit the bellarmine athletics website. You can also get prices for camp and an application for sign-up as well.

Visit here for brochure.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Ferch's Behind the Scenes Experience

From March 24-28, Connie Ferch, a Bellarmine student-athlete, got to be a part of one of the most talked about things in Louisville. Ferch was asked to help coach the McDonalds West girl's team.

"My experience was great," stated Ferch. Her main job as a coach was to keep track of minutes played by each girl and handle substitutions. That’s a pretty big task for a young coach, but she handled it with eloquence.

There were 12 players on each team and each must play a minimum of 12 minutes. Ferch stated, "That is easier said then done. We developed a rotation system, but within a few minutes of tip off, we crumbled it up and decided it wouldn't work."

Most of the excitement was not necessarily taking place on the basketball court. Although that was the reason the players were there, it was just as much about experience and having fun, as it was actually winning the game.

The opening event for the week was a dinner held at the Marriot downtown. That just started the list of appearances and luncheons the teams had to attend. Ferch, who had an open invite to all of the events, got to experience things that the average spectators did not get to.

"Overall, it was a great experiences and was cool to see some of the preparation that went into the game," commented Ferch. Although Ferch's team did not win the game, it was still "an experience I would love to have again."

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Cheerleaders Prepare for upcoming season

Individuals wanting to tryout for the 2007-2008 Bellarmine Cheerleading squad need to mark their calendars! Tryouts will be held on April 27, 28, and 29th.

Bellarmine Cheerleaders cheer at all of the home basketball games as well as some away basketball games. Practice generally starts when school starts in the fall, though we will go to summer camp this year. A date has not been set for that. We practice twice a week for 2 ½ hours as well as extra conditioning in the fall before basketball season starts. The cheerleaders also do some community service-judging various cheerleading tryouts and competitions throughout the community.

They are expected to be role models and be good representatives of Bellarmine University. Currently, we are not a competition squad, however this is not to say that we wouldn’t in the future.

The requirements to make the team are as follows:

**Excellent Jumps-will have demonstrate at tryouts a toe-touch and then another jump of choice.

**Previous stunting ability, whether it be as a base or a flyer.

**At the tryouts, you will be taught the fight song, as well as another band dance and a cheer. Motions and technique while performing these will be judged and scored.

**Tumbling is required. You will have to show a standing back-handspring and a running round-off backhandspring to make the team. Any other tumbling ability is a bonus.

The tryouts material will be taught on April 27 and 28 and then the actual tryout will be on April 29th. If you are unable to attend the tryouts, a private tryout or a tape submission showing your cheerleading ability can be arranged.

Click here for your try-out information form.

If you have any questions, please contact the following people! We look forward to seeing you at tryouts!

Coaches:
Katie Curran: Goodman379@aol.com
Kristin Klein: kristinkleinrn@yahoo.com
Captains:
Crystal Early: cearly01@bellarmine.edu
Tiffany Simpson: tjames01@bellarmine.edu

You can also check the squad out on their
BU athletics webpage, or on their facebook.com group BU's finest the Cheerleaders.

Softball season is up and running on Bellarmines’ campus as of last Sunday when the Knights had their first home game. During the perfect weather we had over the weekend the Knights took on University Wisconsin-Parkside for their GLVC opener.

The Knights wasted no time on scoring with a double to left field in the first inning by Anna Mehr from Lousiville. Clean-up batter Kim Locke from Avon, Indiana then followed up with a single to right, scoring Mehr for what would be the Knights lone run of the game.

In the fourth UW-Parkside evened things up with a narrowly avoided tag at the plate to tally the Rangers’ first run.

The game was even until the top of the sixth when a misfortune for the Knights happened. Two outs, and a runner on first, Ranger catcher Allison Wodziak hit a grounder to short passing freshman Emily O’Bryan from Evansville, Indiana. Then UW-Parkside’s, Katrina Homa, launched a three-run homer over the left field wall bringing in the game-winning run.

In the second game was a lot closer, the scored was knotted at 0-0 until the eighth. Stephanie Polio from Louisville and Sharon Brill from Louisville led off the eighth with back-to-back singles. The Bellarmine centerfielder lined a shot up the middle, which grazed off Shimkus’ glove, driving in Polio for the victory.

Two losses against No. 23 Lewis University are bittersweet to some Knights.
Bellarmine junior Claire Horstman f rom Westerville, Ohio established a new strikeout mark in the second game as she fanned eight Lewis batters. Horstman now has 322 career strikeouts, surpassing Jamie Robinson on the Bellarmine list.

In the first game against Lewis, both teams failed to score a run until the top of the sixth. The Flyers added an insurance run in the seventh on Beth Shelus’ RBI single. Bellarmine never got a runner past first base in the game.

In the second outing, Lewis scored the only run of the game on a suicide squeeze play in the first inning.

Jorie Doll from Battle Ground, Indiana broke up Lewis starter Jenna Howard’s no-hitter in the fifth with a single down the right field line, but failed to advance past first.

The Knights had a chance finally when Anna Mehr from Louisville was hit by a pitch. Kim Locke from Avon, Indiana was the only BU player to get multiple hits on the day, followed up with a single to right. Mehr turned second hard and tried to move to third base but was gunned down by Lewis’ Lisa Gartland.

Look at her go

Bellarmine junior Denasha Mondy from Louisville was named the GLVC female track and field athlete of the week by league officials today. Denasha Mondy also known for her great abililties on the basketball court for the Lady Knights, shattered records, in record time this Track season. Running in her first collegiate track meet ever, she won both the 100 and 200 meter sprints in the Gerald England Invitational hosted by the University of Indianapolis.

In both the 100 at 12.07 seconds and 200 at 24.66 seconds were BU records. In fact,she shaved a second off the previous Bellarmine top 100 meter time of 13.02, set by Maisah Edwards during the 2005 season.

In addition, both of Mondy’s times met the provisional standard for the NCAA national outdoor meet this year. Currently Mondy is ranked first in both the 100 and 200. She has ran the 200 in 24.66 seconds with the next fastest time at 25.79; in the 100 she ran in 12.07 seconds with the next fastest time at 12.64. In track to be running ahead by a tenth of a second is doing quite well.

Mondy a graduate from Ballard High School was a three-time Kentucky High School Gatorade Athlete of the Year and won 10 individual state titles. She elected to play basketball in college, however, and has been the Knights starting point guard the last two seasons after playing her freshman year at the University of Evansville.

If you want to check out Mondy in action or the rest of the BU track team they will be back in action this weekend at the Cumberland Invitational.

Click here for more information on women's track from this season.

Bellarmine Men's Assistant Coach to take Job at U of L

On Easter sunday the University of Louisville announced the recent expansion of their coaching staff. Eric Scott, former assistant coach to Scott Daventport and the Bellarmine Knights will now be director of basketball operations for Rick Pitino and the Unversity of Louisville.

Before coming to Bellarmine Scott was program assistant for U of L from 2003 to 2005. He also had a two year stint in the NBA in international basketball operations, where he tracted progress of american players overseas, helped players obtain visas as well as having a hand in USA basketball representative selections.

Scott graduated from Penn. University with a bachelors degree in U.S. History in 1998. He later recieved his MBA in sports management from Seton Hall University in 2003.

Coach Scott will be greatly missed by the players and coaching staff here at Bellarmine, and we wish him the greatest of success in his future!