Emma Hruby
Oct 31, 2022
Wisconsin volleyball can’t stop winning.
The No. 5 Badgers beat Minnesota 3-1 on Sunday, avenging a loss to the Golden Gophers last month and keeping hold of the top spot in the Big Ten standings.
Their win against Minnesota comes after they knocked off top-ranked Nebraska last Wednesday. It also marks their10th straight victory, with their last three coming against ranked opponents. Minnesota is ranked ninth in the country.
“Both teams put so much pressure, in different ways, on each other,” Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield said. “There were a lot of big-time plays by both teams and some errors by both teams because of the pressure that you’re under.”
Junior middle blocker Devyn Robinson had an outstanding final set, hitting six of her 13 kills. Led by Robinson, Sarah Franklin and Julia Orzol, the Badgers were able to respond after a tough loss in the third set to close out the win.
“Tonight, we got it taken to us in the third set and we responded – strength and unity – in the fourth set,” Sheffield said. “After Wednesday getting back in here and getting locked in on our next opponent, an opponent that swept us earlier, and being able to respond I thought was great. It’s a great team effort.”
The Badgers have dealt with some off-court turmoil lately, as a leak of private locker room photos and videos is being investigated by university police.
The leaked files — 40 photos and videos — came from the phone of a player, butno players on the team are under suspicion as part of the investigation, police said. One of the photos appears to have been taken after the team won the Big Ten title last November and shows members of the team posing with their sports bras lifted, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
The online circulation of the leaked photos highlights the vulnerable position of college athletes, Dani Rosen told the University of Wisconsin student newspaper. Rosen is the chair of Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment, a student organization working to improve prevent sexual violence on campus and improve support for victims.
Still, despite the off-court stressors of the leak and the investigation, the Badgers keep rolling. Next up: Another Big Ten battle, this one a road match against Illinois, which will air at 8 p.m. ET Thursday on Big Ten Network.
Women’s sports, straight to your inbox
Start your morning off right with Just Women’s Sports’ free, 5x-a-week newsletter.
Meredith Heil
Apr 22, 2024
25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.
Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.
The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.
It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.
Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.
Meredith Heil
Apr 22, 2024
USWNT regulars Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson furthered their cases for Olympic inclusion with their respective club victories on Saturday and Sunday.
After a roller coaster of a week that saw former Thorns head coach Mike Norris reassigned and a flurry of last-minute roster reshufflings as Friday's trade window closure loomed, the NWSL sprung to life over the weekend with standout performances from ninth-place Portland and third-place Chicago, among others.
After her blocked attempt at goal set up a volleying sixth-minute opener from veteran Christine Sinclair — now the only player in history to record a goal in all 11 NWSL seasons — Smith swiftly netted her own in the 27th minute off a breakaway run that eluded Houston's backline. The goal represented Smith's third of the season as well as her 35th for the Thorns, ultimately leading to the home side's first win of the season in a 4-1 routing of the Dash.
But that wasn't Smith's only stat of the evening. The star forward also lapped former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr to become the youngest player to reach 50 NWSL goal contributions across all games, chalking up 40 goals and 10 assists at the age of 23 years and 254 days.
"Obviously it feels good to get a win," said Smith in a post-match press conference. "But this is the standard the Thorns have always had. So a win is great, but a win is the expectation — we're hungrier than ever after the way we started."
170 miles up the road, Lumen Field similarly showcased some promising Olympic prospect footwork on Sunday. In Chicago's 2-1 victory over the lagging 13th-place Seattle Reign, striker Mallory Swanson racked up an impressive counterattack assist on fellow forward Ally Schlegel's fourth-minute goal. Swanson went on to find the back of the net herself before halftime, lacing an explosive ball into the top corner in the 31st minute, her second of the season after returning from a lengthy sidelining injury.
Speaking of injuries, fellow USWNT favorites Alex Morgan and Tierna Davidson were not as fortunate as their national squad teammates this weekend. Each exited their club matches early, Morgan with an ankle knock in San Diego's loss to Orlando and Davidson with an apparent hamstring incident early on in Washington's win over Gotham.
Meredith Heil
Apr 22, 2024
LSU came out on top at the 2024 NCAA women's gymnastics championship in Fort Worth on Saturday, besting Cal, Utah, and Florida to capture their first-ever title.
The Tigers' win was far from a landslide. LSU took the first rotation handily thanks to 2024 All-Around winner Haleigh Bryant's team-leading 9.9375 backed by four additional 9.9+ scores from her teammates. But Utah then responded with three strong beam performances of their own, causing the Red Rocks to slide confidently into second place by the end of the second rotation.
By the halfway point, all four teams fell within .288 points of one another before Utah overtook the pack with a dominant floor showing after three rotations. LSU then went on to ace the beam event with Konnor McClain's meet-leading 9.9625 score, coming away with the highest collective score ever awarded to the event in NCAA championship history. The achievement propelled the Tigers to victory, ensuring them the title after the final rotation.
"This team is full of individuals that have incredible character and integrity and love for each other and all the things you hear from coaches when they sit at a podium like this in a moment of victory, but I promise you it's a real thing," said LSU coach Jay Clark in a post-meet press conference. "I'm just so happy for them."
Contributing to Saturday's atmosphere of excitement was the absence of last year's champion and this year's heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners. Hot off earning the highest team score in NCAA history just last month, the top-ranked Norman squad suffered a shocking loss in the semifinals, where five major mistakes contributed to a third-place finish and a season-low team score of 196.6625.
With Oklahoma out, it was truly anyone's game.
"Every team was out there fighting for their lives — all four teams, it could have gone any of four ways out there," Clark told reporters. "As much as I feel for what happened to Oklahoma in the semifinals, I think it made for a championship that became so packed with emotion because every team out there believed they could do it. It was just tremendous."
LSU is now the eighth program in the sport's history to earn an NCAA women's gymnastic championship.
They share the honor with Georgia, Utah, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Michigan.
Emma Hruby
Apr 19, 2024
Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark.
In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.
"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."
"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."
Watch more of Kelley on the Street:
top stories
Watch
Who will win the WNBA Rookie of the Year? | Kelley on the Street
5 minutes 19 seconds
Women’s sports, straight to your inbox
Start your morning off right with Just Women’s Sports’ free, 5x-a-week newsletter.
