We’re already three weeks into the collegiate gymnastics season, and the Denver Pioneers are off to a great start. The team started the season off with a win at home on January 8th, followed by two second-place finishes on January 13th and 20th. Their fourth meet will be the best competition we’ll see in Magness in the regular season this year as the #1 Oklahoma Sooners travel to Denver for a meet this Sunday, January 29th.
Denver’s upset of top-five Stony Brook was a milestone in the Pioneers’ program development. Photo: Marc Piscotty
While men’s hockey and lacrosse take up the lion’s share of fan interest for most Pioneer fans, it’s important to recognize some otherDU athletic teams who continue to climb higher into national prominence and greater conference impact:
The 13th-ranked DU women’s lacrosse team beat its very first top five opponent since coach Liza Kelly took the helm in 2006, upsetting (#6/#4) Stony Brook (N.Y.) University, 11-7, behind Bea Behrins’ three-goal hat trick. This was a statement win for the program. The Pios have been a top-20 program for a while now, but have had trouble beating the very top echelon teams. Sunday’s win over SBU kept DU undefeated at 4-0 and may see the Pioneers knocking on the door of a top-10 ranking. The Michigan Wolverines come to town this Tuesday to face the surging Pioneers for a 12 noon start.
The sixth-ranked DU women’s gymnastics team scored its second highest all-time score (and the highest score of this season) with a 197.725 on Sunday afternoon before over 4,000 fans at Magness Arena, to win the meet over Iowa State and Boise State. This kind of scoring should keep DU in the hunt for a top-five national ranking as the season moves into the stretch run.
The DU men’s (#24th nationally) and (#47) women’s swim teams once again won the Summit League title for the sixth year in a row. DU was so dominant at the Summit League Championships that the DU women set an all-time league record for points, and DU mens and women swimmers won 37 of 38 of the swimming events overall. That’s an incredible achievement – perhaps the swimming equivalent of winning the Summit League basketball title game by 30 points, and repeating the winning margin for six straight years.
DU women’s basketball (15-12, 8-6 Summit league) continued its rise into a winning program with a dramatic road win at North Dakota. Often-injured senior Pioneer Haley Simental hit the long-range three point shot-of-her-college-career to send the game into overtime at the buzzer, in a game that the Pios would later win, 92-91. With the OT win, the Pios’ have earned at least a top-five seed at the Summit League tournament next month.
The DU women’s tennis team, ranked #40 nationally, are 7-2 this year in a sport where 317 teams compete nationally. DU has already defeated brand name schools such as Oregon, Wisconsin, BYU and Colorado this season.
All of these teams deserve our support, and we look forward to seeing how they compete in the coming months.
LetsGoDU friend CD Dunks reminds us that there is no need to use the term ‘mid-major’. And the same goes for ‘secondary sport’ – i.e. any sport that is not called football or Power-Five conference basketball. The big question is: Has Peg Bradley-Doppes simply built one of the finest athletic department in the land? Continue reading Crimson & Gold touch propels Denver to national powerhouse status→
At this very moment on Feb. 20, 2017, for the first time in history, our two flagship sports, ice hockey and men’s lacrosse, are both ranked #1 in the country in all the major polls of those two sports.
For our small private school in the Rockies with 5,500 undergrads and a budget 1/10th the size of some of the large D-I football powers, with our opponents spread out all over the country and requiring jet planes to get to 85% of DU away games, this is an astonishing, epic achievement.
Additionally, our men’s soccer team finished #3 in the country this fall. And our women’s gymnastics team is currently ranked #8 in the country, the highest the program has ever been ranked. And DU women’s lacrosse is undefeated this year and ranked #14/15 in the country. And our nationally ranked swim teams (#20 men’s and #26 women’s) just swept the podium in EVERY EVENT at the Summit League Championships last week.
I say all this because we need to take a moment to realize just how frickin’ good our athletics program is right now. No program in the country gets better performance for the buck than DU does. And now is the time to tell your friends from bigger schools that the Pioneers are on top of the country in two sports. Let’s hope both can end their seasons with a National Championship.
For those of us oldsters who remember the days when DU played hockey in a decrepit old WWII surplus naval drill hall and DU lacrosse played mostly clubs and small colleges on muddy fields in front of 50 people, we can only say how proud we are to see just how far DU has come as a national sports power.
When Denver centerback Kortne Ford (above/Photo by David Grooms) carved open the Clemson backline to convert Alex Underwood’s cross to score the game-winning goal in Dec.2’s NCAA Soccer Quarterfinal with a minute left in the game to book a first-ever DU berth in the College Cup, it set off a big celebration for every Pioneer fan.
Three DU 2016 Olympians: Left: Jessica Lopez ’09 Gymnastics, Venezuela, Top Right Espen Kofstad ’11 Golf, Norway; Lower Right: Simona Castro ’13 Gymnastics, Chile. Photos Courtesy University of Denver
Three University of Denver athlete graduates will represent their respective countries at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil — one men’s golfer and two women’s gymnasts, representing the countries of Norway, Venezuela, and Chile, respectively. Continue reading Three Pioneer Alums Headed to 2016 Rio Olympics→
Denver’s toughest athlete is set to compete against the nation’s best.
DU gymnast Nina McGee will be heading to Fort Worth later this week to compete in the women’s NCAA Gymnastics championships as an individual qualifier. Unlike many other competitions, McGee will be traveling to the event without any of her teammates. She will be a contender for the national all-around championship after finishing 11th overall last year. The championships will be held at the Fort Worth Convention Center Arena, April 15-16. Continue reading Gymnast Nina McGee Goes for Texas-Sized Achievement→
