SportsJune 23, 2016
Change in ADs, baseball team's run highlight Southeast Missouri State's top stories of the year
Southeast Missouri State athletics recently wrapped up another year of competition. Like many other years, it ended with a Redhawks track & field athlete competing at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, but this year Southeast's baseball team was also still competing in June in an NCAA Regional...
Southeast Missouri State athletics recently wrapped up another year of competition. Like many other years, it ended with a Redhawks track & field athlete competing at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, but this year Southeast's baseball team was also still competing in June in an NCAA Regional.
In the past year, Southeast athletic director Mark Alnutt resigned and his interim replacement Brady Barke earned the full-time position. Some Redhawks facilities have since been revamped and plans were made for more in the near future.
It was a breakthrough year for the three-time defending Ohio Valley Conference championship Southeast baseball team, which won its first OVC tournament title and secured its first regional berth since 2002 and set records along the way, as well as the women's basketball program, which had its most success in several years under first-year coach Rekha Patterson and made it to the OVC tournament.
It was a rocky start for other coaches and programs like men's basketball, which won only five games in Rick Ray's first year at the helm and had its roster almost completely retooled after dismissals and transfers, and women's tennis, which won just one match under first-year coach Mary Beth Gunn.
The gymnastics team had some successful individuals make it to the postseason and the spotlight was on football player Paul McRoberts during his record-setting senior season that culminated in a professional career. The track and field team maintained its championship standards with the men winning the outdoor title and the soccer team came up short, falling in overtime in the OVC tournament championship.
Here are the top 10 stories of the 2015-16 athletic season at Southeast:
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1. On July 6, 2015, Mark Alnutt suddenly resigned as Southeast Missouri State's athletic director to become the deputy director of athletics at the University of Memphis.
Brady Barke, who had formerly worked in the athletics department and was the senior associate to the Southeast president, was immediately tabbed as his replacement in the interim. Fast forward to June 7 and Barke's interim tag had been dropped.
"I'm going to work as hard as I can. That's the only way I know how," Barke said during his introductory press conference. "I won't have all the answers. I'm going to have to figure some things out as I go, but hey, that's the way it works."
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2. The Southeast baseball team became the first to win three consecutive OVC regular-season titles outright and also won the OVC tournament title, advancing to an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2002. The Redhawks won a school record 39 games under fourth-year coach Steve Bieser, who was named the OVC Coach of the Year for the second time.
SEMO went 0-2 at the Starkville Regional, falling to host Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech.
Left-handed pitcher Joey Lucchesi broke multiple records during his senior campaign, setting the school's career (242) and single-season (149) records for strikeouts as well as the OVC's single-season strikeout record. He became the first player to repeat as OVC Pitcher of the Year, was Southeast's first first-team Louisville Slugger All-American and his fourth-round selection by the San Diego Padres in the MLB Draft made him the program's highest draft pick ever.
Southeast sophomore second baseman Trevor Ezell broke the school's single-season record for runs scored with 70 and also was named to the Starkville Regional All-Tournament team.
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3. Rick Ray's first season was Southeast's men's basketball's worst season since 2008-09. The Redhawks lost their first 10 games of the season and finished 5-24 and 2-14 in the OVC. They failed to make the eight-team OVC tournament for the first time in five years.
Losing was upstaged by roster upheaval, including the mid-season departures of sophomores Marcus Wallace, Ladarius Coleman and JT Jones, who were all returners. Wallace played significant minutes prior to the announcement that they were no longer on the team in the late evening of Dec. 12.
Five others departed during the offseason. It was announced on March 7 that freshman Tony Anderson had left school with plans to hire an agent and declare for the NBA Draft. A month later the dismissal of freshman guard Eric McGill and the transfers of freshmen Robby Dosier and Jaylin Stewart were announced. Walk-on freshman Kyle Gullet is also no longer on the roster.
Before the season even started Southeast lost two players and a coach. Junior transfer Clyde Santee did not meet NCAA transfer qualifications and junior transfer Xavion Dillon chose to return home due to personal reasons in October. Then the firing of assistant coach Jamie Rosser, the only coach left over from Dickey Nutt's staff, was announced in early November.
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4. The Redhawks women's basketball team was revitalized by first-time head coach Rekha Patterson.
Southeast finished the season 15-15 after six consecutive losing seasons and advanced to the OVC tournament for the first time since 2009 despite losing leading scorer Olivia Hackmann to an injury just prior to the start of conference play.
Erin Bollmann and Connor King were the team's only two seniors to leave after Hackmann was granted a medical redshirt. Freshmen Corneisha Henderson, Katia Polk and Imani Johnson and sophomore Deja Jones also departed from the program.
"I felt like they gave me their best, and that's all I can ever ask," Patterson said following her team's OVC tournament loss. "I'm proud of what we did this year and what we've accomplished, and I'm so happy that these seniors are able to go out leaving a legacy."
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5. From the start of the Southeast football season to the months after, all eyes were on wide receiver Paul McRoberts.
McRoberts once again led the Redhawks' offense and was a first-team all-OVC selection for the second consecutive year, accounting for 940 receiving yards and nine touchdowns.
He left Southeast as the career receiving touchdowns leader with 29 in his four years and also ranks third in receiving yards with 2,435.
McRoberts went undrafted during the NFL Draft, but the St. Louis native signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Rams immediately after it had concluded.
The football team suffered another loss, this one unexpected, when running back DeMichael Jackson was dismissed from the team shortly after spring practice started in March. A preseason All-OVC and All-American selection in 2015, his senior year was derailed by an ACL tear, but redshirted and was set to return for a fifth and final season in 2016. Jackson had rushed for 1,996 yards and nine touchdowns in 31 games in just over three seasons on the field, leading the team in rushing in both 2013 and 2014.
His indiscretion was undisclosed and was announced as a "violation of departmental policies and procedures," according to a press release.
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6. Multiple athletic facilities were upgraded this year and there are plans in place for more in the near future.
Renovations to the Show Me Center included retractable seating and installation of a large video scoreboard. The Southeast Softball Complex had updates made to its backstop -- including branded padding -- and new speakers among other minor improvements.
The most noticeable enhancement came to the athletics weight room, which is housed in the Student Recreation Center-Southeast and was renamed the Holcomb Success Center after a major gift from Dr. John and Judy Holcomb. Artificial turf was laid down in the weight room and more lifting platforms, weights and other Redhawk-branded equipment were added, which allows the space to be utilized more effectively and by my teams at a any given time. Plans are in motion to upgrade the academic center that is located above the weight room.
An agreement between the university and the City of Cape Girardeau was approved in April for a $1.84 million project at Capaha Field. The Redhawks baseball team will play its games on artificial turf next season. There will also be a new outfield fence, improved dugout protection and either a repaired or replaced scoreboard.
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7. SEMO thrower Kevin Farley ended his career as a first-team All-American. Farley, who finished seventh at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in the shot put in 2013, capped his senior season off with an eighth-place finish in the discus on June 10.
"When he came here he was determined he was going to be as good as he is and hasn't let anything get in his way of it," Southeast coach Eric Crumpecker said. "He's worked hard all these years. He's a student of his events. He's always looking at film of himself throwing and trying to dissect what he's doing wrong or right. He has a passion for the sport, and that's the first thing if you're going to be any good at this level you have to have a passion for what you're doing. He does, and then he applies it and works hard at it."
Farley broke his own school shot put and hammer throw records this season and was a big part of the Redhawks winning the OVC Outdoor Track & Field Championship.
Crumpecker was named the OVC Men's Outdoor Track and Coach of the Year for the second time in his career. It's his third overall coach of the year honor.
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8. Southeast gymnastics coach Kristi Ewasko's goal has been to have her entire team qualify for the NCAA Regionals, and while the Redhawks didn't accomplish that feat there were three individuals that advanced to the Tuscaloosa Regional.
Alexis Brawner, Lauren Israel and McKinzie Jones each exceeded Ewasko's expectations on an individual level. Brawner, a sophomore, and Israel, a junior who decided it would be her final year, qualified in the all-around while Jones, a walk-on freshman, advanced in the floor exercise.
Brawner took seventh in the all-around while Israel was 12th. Jones was 14th in the floor competition.
The gymnastics team was also one of three Southeast programs, along with women's cross country and volleyball, to earn an NCAA Public Recognition Award for scoring in the top 10 percent of the sport.
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9. The Southeast soccer team was unable to defend its OVC regular-season title this season and made it into the conference tournament as the sixth and final seed, but Southeast advanced to the tournament championship game after battling through overtime beat No. 3 Jacksonville State in penalty kicks and then defeated No. 2 Tennessee Tech.
The Redhawks played top-seeded Murray State, which went through the regular season conference schedule undefeated, and pushed the game to overtime before the Racers netted the game-winner with less than a minute left in the overtime period.
Southeast returns the majority of its starting lineup from a team that went 9-6-7.
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10. Mary Beth Gunn was hired as the women's tennis coach last November after Leah Killen resigned the previous month after two years at the helm, becoming the Redhawks' fourth tennis coach in five seasons.
Southeast, which won just two matches in 2015, went 1-19 and 0-10 in the OVC this season. The Redhawks last made it to the OVC tournament in 2007.
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