A Central Look Back

As the school year comes to an end, I have started to take a look back at all of the sports I have gotten to cover this year.  I have covered basically ever sport at some point or another and it has been a tremendous opportunity.

Not every player gets to talk to coaches and players for a actual job.  Everyone has been great and easy to talk which makes my job, while being an introvert, much easier than it could have been.  interviewing has been a difficult for me, as you can guess from the sentence above.  However, starting back to last summer when I was just in participation, I have grown more confident because of the athletes and coaches.

I started off with email interviews at the very beginning because, well I was scared to do anything else.  My first email interviews were soccer head coach Mike Cook and softball pitcher Kalynn Schrock.  While small, it gave me some confidence that I could get in contact with these athletes  and I began just calling.  Maybe the easiest interview was Dax Leone who I have actually interviewed in person.

There are plenty more interviews to talk about but I figure the the first ones were the biggest in my career so far because they helped me the most.  I have loved every minute of this year and all the sports I have gotten to watch.  It has truly been special.

What I Have Learned

I learned a lot of things from the blog that I adopted and the blogger himself.  The Blog that I adopted was The Sports Fan Journal started by a blogger named Eddie Maisonet.  Maisonet started with a smaller blog called Ed the Sports fan but decided to create another for sports fans.  In my interview with Maisonet he gave me an intriguing insight into his blogging world and also gave me some strong advice for blogging in general.

Maisonet has been blogging for around six years.  He started blogging under Ed the Sports Fan but then started the Sports Fan Journal instead.  He changed his blog because of the amount of writers who wanted to contribute to Ed The Sports Fan.  2011 is when he started his new blog the Sports Fan Journal and there are many more contributors to the blog.  He felt then was the time to make his blog bigger and change.

Maisonet is actually a fellow Oklahoman, growing up in Lawton and going to Lawton Eisenhower high school.  He lived in Oklahoma for 23 years and went to Langston University before moving out of the state.  He now lives in Oakland California and besides his blog he also has a column on another blogging site SB Nation.  He also works for SLAM magazine as well.  He is currently employed at Google and working on his Masters Degree at the University of San Francisco.

When it comes to followers the blog has over five hundred followers while Eddie has over three thousand followers, including some ESPN sports writers as well.  On Facebook the page has over six hundred likes.

When it comes to profits the blog does make some money.  Maisonet says it is enough to pay the phone bill.

I think this blog is not like any other sports blogs is that there is no "play-by-play" blogs like what you see on those other blogs.  The Oklahoma Sports blog as a lot of these, this blog is more opinion oriented. 

There are a couple of strengths to this blog.  Firstly the set up of the blog is well done.  The home page is clean and its not packed full of stories.  If you want to find a story in a category its pretty easy to find.  Another strengthens to me is the writing in and the most of the topics.  They write more in depth opinionated sports articles, which I really like to read.  One topic is a "white team" in the final four. It is a great topic because you do not get topics like that on many blogs.

One weakness though is that there seems to be stories that do not have much to do with the content on the blog. One story talks about Grand Theft Auto which I do not think belongs on the

Ed gave me some great advice for the world of blogging.  The first thing that he told me was to just stick with it.  I was told to set a goal for how much I want to blog and to stick with that goal.  He said that is the only way to learn if I truly enjoy what I am doing or not. The other thing he told fell in line is to find my niche in blogging. He said to find something that involves expertise or access.  Finally, he talked about honing our voice and becoming an authority in blogging.  This is hard because everybody has a blog these days and it takes a lot of repetition to accomplish this goal. This second is important and has been popular advice from others as well.

This week in Central Sports Softball hits the road again, baseball begins a series and Tennis seems to be getting back on track.

The softball team has won 15 out of their last 15 games including 11 out of 12 in conference and will travel to Missouri for a pair of doubleheaders.  The Bronchos will play Friday against Southwest Baptist then Central Missouri on Saturday.  The Bronchos  offense has been on fire of late notching multiple run rule victories in their streak.

Baseball who cracked into the top 25 last week will look to play better after losing three out of their four games against Missouri Western. The Bronchos were supposed to play Wednesday against Southwestern Christian but the came was canceled because of rain.  UCO will host Northeastern State on Friday.

After hitting a wall earlier in the season with four straight losses, the tennis team seems to be getting back on track for this season.  The team has won three straight matches improving to 10-6 on the season.

Central Recap

It has been a busy week this week for Bronchos athletics.  Golf,  Wrestling, Baseball and, Softball have all been in action over the past week with a good amount of success coming with it.
 
We'll start with the wrestling team who took five wrestlers to Cleveland Ohio, each looking for a title or in one case, to defend their title. Znick Ferrell and Jordan Basks were each eliminated after losing two matches but Casy Rowell, Chris Watson and defending champion Cory Dauphin each made it to the finals.
 
Watson would fall to Eric Burgey of Notre Dam and Dauphin had his 54 match winning streak come to an end also to the hands of Notre Dame.  Rowell would come out on top however, he defeated Nebraska-Kearney and number 1. Daniel DeShazer in overtime to become a National Champion.  Rowell would win the Outstanding Wrestler as well.

The Men's Golf team earned themselves a title in Washburn.  Logan Gray shot a 71 to help lead the team to an 8 stroke victory.  As for the women, they finished runner up  Taylor Neidy and Aly Seng each shot 81s for the Bronchos who finished behind Columbia.

Baseball faced Lincoln this weekend and the bats came alive and UCO earned two run rule victories over the Blue Tigers. The Bronchos won their first game 15-4 behind a ten run third inning at Wendell Simmons Field.  Matt Johnson put an exclamation mark on the game with a three run blast.  The second game was no different in a 14-2 rout.  Phillip Wilson went 4-5 and JAred Sterling pitched five scoreless innings to improve to 4-1.

As for the softball team, The Bronchos continue to roll through opponents.  UCO has won 11 straight games and swept five consecutive doubleheaders to improve to 19-7 on the season.  The streak stayed strong today with two shutouts and a perfect game from Kalynn Schrock in a 10-0 rout of Rogers State.  Hannah Justus led the team with two home runs. 

Mark Mazetti

Mark Mazetti came to UCO and he was a really interesting speaker.  I thoroughly enjoyed his thoughts on what he calls the shadow war.  He spoke about hot the pentagon and CIA have both kind of transformed into one another since 9/11 began.

The CIA is now a more of a man hunting agency while the Pentagon transformed into an intelligence gathering agency. 

Also, the way we do operations has changed over the years as well.  We now do more drone operated operations in now which we have had a monopoly on, but are losing that monopoly.

Overall, the lecture was fascinating to listen to and there were a lot of interesting points that he made.  It was well worth my time.

Central Preview

It is a busy weekend this week for UCO sports.  Basketball, rowing, golf, baseball, and softball are all in action.

The UCO men are in Kansas City for the MIAA tournament.  The Bronchos will look for revenge against Fort Hays State on Friday.  UCO has lost two heartbreakers to the Tigers this season.

The ladies will be making their first MIAA quarterfinals appearance against second seeded Emporia State.  The Hornets are 25-3 on the season so it will be a tough task for UCO.

Men's golf is in California on the tenth for a tournament. The rowing team begins their season on Saturday.  The squad will participate in StrOklahoma. 

The baseball team will be on the road in Missouri as they travel to face Southwest Baptist. The Bronchos are 7-3 on the season.

And finally, Softball will have their unofficial home opener on Sunday.  The Bronchos host Lindenwood in a double header and then Lincoln in a rescheduled doubleheader on Monday.

The Bronchos had five wrestlers qualify for the Nationals Championships in Cleveland, Ohio on March 14-15.  Cory Dauphin extended his winning streak while capturing the title along with Chris Watson at 165.

Jordan Basks qualified the hard way.  Basks lost his first two matches but came up with a stunning fall in the fifth place match.

Znick Ferrel has the two most exciting matches of the day.  Two late reverses in two matches will be sending him to Cleveland.

Casy Rowell fought his way through the consolation bracket for a third place finish.  Rowell won three matches on Saturday.

Overall the Bronchos finished sixth in the standings with 83 points.

The Top 5 went like this:
1.  Nebraska-Kearney
2. Lindenwood
3. St. CLoud State
4. Fort Hays State
5. Ouachita Baptist