Sports

Abbey Gray had a season she thought she could never top last year. As a sophomore for the Otterbein University women’s track and field team, Gray set school indoor records in the 60 meter dash (8.01 seconds) and 60 meter hurdles (9.14). However it took Gray all of five meets this winter to reset those records. The graduate of Waynesfield-Goshen High School topped her hurdle record by running a 9.02 in a preliminary heat of the SPIRE Indoor Track and Field Championships Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in Geneva, Ohio. She then reset the hurdle record (8.97) and the 60 dash record (7.98) at the All-Ohio meet Feb. 15 at Otterbein. “When I came in as a freshman, I saw all the upper classmen and you think about being that good one day,” says Gray, who is ranked 11th nationally in the 60 hurdles in the Feb. 26 NCAA Division III Event Report. “To (have a school record) feels really incredible.” This winter Gray has avoided the injuries that slowed her down her previous two seasons with Otterbein.

New Albany High School graduate Peter Kobelt and Worthington Kilbourne graduate Kevin Metka walked away from high school tennis with impressive resumes. Kobelt won the 2009 Division I state singles championships and the 2007 Division II doubles title with Skyler Engel and placed second in Division I singles in 2008 and in Division II doubles with Ryan Dodd in 2007. Metka was the 2010 Division I singles champion and the 2009 Division I doubles championship with Jonny Price. And yet, both had a hard time attracting much attention from collegiate tennis coaches. Kobelt only received offers from Ohio State and Michigan State. Metka, whose only other offer was from Toledo, ended up as a recruited walk-on for the Buckeyes. “Actually I didn’t get many looks at all,” says Kobelt, now a senior at Ohio State. “I was fortunate that Ty (Tucker, the Buckeyes men’s coach) offered me a scholarship based on (what Kobelt accomplished by his junior year of high school). A lot of schools didn’t know about me.” At the ITA Men’s Team Indoor National Championships, held Feb.14 -17 in Houston, the pair offered a quick refresher course for those coaches who overlooked them the first time around.

There’s no mistaking what the Ohio State University football team was looking for when Urban Meyer and company hit the recruiting trail this year. After losing its last two games of the 2013-14 season to Michigan State 34-24 in the Big Ten championship game and to Clemson 40-35 in the Orange Bowl, the Buckeyes were clearly focused on reestablishing its defense. Eleven of the 23 athletes who signed with the Buckeyes on Feb. 5 were expected to play defense next year, including four linebackers, four defensive backs and three defensive linemen. “Obviously we didn't perform up to standard,” says Meyer, who was 24-2 overall in his first two years with the Buckeyes. “We won a lot of games but there were some holes. (It’s) very easy to blame players or blame coaches (for those gaps). Just overall we need to freshen up our defense. That's what's going to get ready to take place over the next few months.” As far as holes go, the Buckeyes pass defense was a mile long crater last year. Although Ohio State was seventh in the nation in sacks, producing 3.0 a game, the team was ranked 110th nationally in pass defense, allowing 268.2 yards a game.

Thursday February 6th the Ohio Roller Girls held a  Roller Derby scrimmage session at the south east side warehouse that serves as their home. It was a warehouse full of ordinary people working extraordinarily hard to become the undisputed mistresses of a difficult contact sport. Ohio Roller Girls is Columbus's grassroots, up by their skates-straps, entry into the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA).    Founded as a league in 2005, the Ohio Roller Girls eventually moved to a two-team organization focused on inter-league play against the All-Star charter teams fielded by leagues in other cities. In this respect they have represented Columbus well, becoming a regional powerhouse, perennial championship contender and division I stalwart where they are ranked against such tiny unknown cities as New York, London and Los Angles. The hometown heroines begin this season ranked 22nd in the world after finishing 8th in last season's championship tournament.    Along with a night of hard scrimmaging went a night of hard training, with drills on blocking tactics taking up almost an hour before the jams begin.

If there’s anyone who can sympathize with what the Kenyon College mens basketball team went through in a 78-60 season-opening loss to Ohio Wesleyan University on Nov. 20, it is Robby Rinehart, a post for the Battling Bishops.    Every time the Lords seemed to have a clear path to the basket, they found themselves running into the palm of Bishops senior post Reuel Rogers. The 6-foot-7 post blocked a school-record nine shots, breaking his old Ohio Wesleyan record of eight set in a 67-64 win over Denison last year.   “There are times (in practice) when you think you’re going to get off a shot. He’s so long and so quick. He can be far away from you and (suddenly) be right there,” says Rinehart whose team improved to 17-4 overall after defeating Kenyon 68-65 on Feb. 8. “I’ve gone against him in practice for three years now, so I’m kind of used to it.”   “(The Kenyon game) was early in the season and they didn’t know what to expect from me,” Rogers adds. “They tried to drive it down the lane and I was able to disrupt it.”  Kenyon found out what other teams are quickly discovering – Reuel Rogers is a devastating shot blocker.

Unlike most of her classmates at Thomas Worthington High School, senior Julia Valentine wasn’t exactly overjoyed when she found out school was canceled Jan. 28 and 29. Sure, she loved the chance to stay home from school but as a swimmer, she knows there’s a hefty price tag for each time the Cardinals can’t practice. “Usually we’ll get that text (saying the morning practices have been canceled) at 4 or 4:30 a.m.,” says Valentine, whose team plays host to a sectional meet on Feb. 8. “It’s kind of nice to sleep in but at the same time, we know if we’re not staying in the water, it is eventually going to affect our performance at the sectional, district and state meets.” The arctic blast that rolled through Columbus last week threw a gigantic snowball into athletic teams’ planned events. By January, several area high schools have used all five days of the state allotted school cancellations. The time off this year is nearly equal to the total days missed from the past two years. Even college teams aren’t immune to the winter weather. The Capital University women's basketball team postponed their game at Baldwin Wallace on Jan. 25.

Sometimes it’s not easy for a great athlete to make the transition from the playing field to coaching ranks. Magic Johnson (5-11 in his brief stint with the Los Angeles Lakers), Elgin Baylor (86-135 with the New Orleans Jazz), Isiah Thomas (56-108 in two seasons with the Knicks) and Wayne Gretzky (143-161-24 with the Phoenix Coyotes) are among the graveyard of great players who struggled to transfer their skills to the coaching field. John Smith believes his sister Katie has the right stuff to become a great coach. The legendary point guard/small forward will be making her debut as an assistant coach for the New York Liberty in the WNBA this spring. “Katie’s always been a student of the game,” says John, a football coach at Bexley High School. “She has always understood not just what she’s supposed to be doing but what everyone is supposed to be doing around her. She’s almost been a coach her entire life.” Katie, the all-time leading scorer in women’s professional basketball with 7,885 career points in 17 years of playing in the ABL and WNBA leagues, seems to be stepping right off the court and onto the bench with the Liberty.

Greg Murray wasn’t overly excited when he first heard Columbus was going to get a National Hockey League team. Now the public address announcer for the Columbus Blue Jackets can’t imagine his life without the team. The deep-throated baritone celebrated his 500th game behind the microphone in a 5-2 loss to the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Jan. 25. “It’s a little embarrassing to say, but (the decision to build an NHL franchise here in Columbus) really didn’t register on my radar,” Murray says with a chuckle. “I had no background in hockey whatsoever. “A friend of mine is really into hockey. I’d go over to his house and he’d have a hockey game on. You know how a Labrador sort of cocks his head to one side and looks at you? That’s kind of the reaction I had to hockey. I was like ‘I just don’t get it, dude.’” Murray more than gets it now. His 500th game as an announcer was part of a historic week for the team. Columbus: *had its 500th game at Nationwide on Jan. 21 with a 5-3 win over Los Angeles; *celebrated its 1,000th game as a franchise on Jan.

In the Robert Louis Stevenson novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde,” a good-natured physician transforms into the evil Mr. Hyde after taking a potion. All it used to take for Jamie Caton to make a transformation from a soft-spoken coed to a fierce, “win at all costs” competitor was to slip on a basketball uniform. The 5-foot-10 forward for the Capital University women’s basketball team fouled out 10 times in the last two seasons while the rest of her teammates fouled 11 times combined. “I try to be a really nice person off the floor so people are shocked to see how intensely I play when they come to a few games,” says Caton, who leads the Crusaders in points (12.7 points a game) and in games fouled out (three) in the first 16 games of the season. “Coach (Dixie Jeffers) has said I’m the nasty girl on the court and the nice girl off the court. “Sometimes that nasty girl comes out and it gets me into trouble. In basketball you only get five fouls. I’ve had many games when I’ve used all five.” Caton used her intensity and aggressiveness to her advantage in a 74-72 win over Marietta on Jan. 22.