As 2021 comes to an end, it’s time to look forward to the year ahead in sports.
With the Winter Olympics in February, March Madness on the calendar and a landmark NWSL season to come, women’s sports fans are in store for an exciting year.
Here are the 20 athletes to know or get reacquainted with in 2022:
[Read more…] about CATARINA MACARIO, CHLOE KIM AND MORE: 20 FEMALE ATHLETES TO KNOW IN 2022BY: EMMA HRUBY | just women’s sports
Emma Raducanu has been named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2021 after a breakout year that saw her win the US Open.
At just 18 years old, Raducanu ended Britain’s 44-year title drought in women’s Grand Slam singles, while also becoming the first qualifier to win at the US Open. The youngest British player to win a Grand Slam, she also was the youngest women’s Grand Slam champion since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004.
Raducanu accepted the award from the BBC over video after testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship exhibition event. She’s set to compete in the Australian Open next month.
“It’s such an honour just to be among these nominees. Congrats to you and all your achievements,” Raducanu said in her awards speech. “I’m really happy with this, I’ve watched Sports Personality of the Year growing up and it’s an honour to be among those past winners. I’m happy for British tennis as well, and that we’ve managed to get this award… again!
“Thanks to all the fans and voters, this year has been insane. The energy this year playing at Wimbledon in front of my home crowd, that was something I’ve never felt before.”
In addition to her US Open win, Raducanu made a run to the fourth round at Wimbledon in July in what was her Grand Slam main draw debut.
Last week, three-time winner of the award Andy Murray said that Raducanu deserved to win the award, adding that he didn’t think “anyone would be too surprised if that is the outcome.”
Murray was the last tennis player to win the award in 2016.
Raducanu is the first female to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year since Zara Phillips (now Tindall) won it in 2006.
Liesl Whitener, Molly Fank First Team and Kayla Garcia Second Team were named CCIW All-Conference on Tuesday
APERVILLE, Ill. — Liesl Whitener, Molly Fank, and Kayla Garcia of Augustana Vikings women’s soccer were named to the CCIW’s all-conference teams on Tuesday, with Whitener and Fank earning First Team honors and Garcia earning Second Team.
Whitener led a balanced Vikings offensive attack in goals this season with four that included one game-winner. She was the team leader in assists with four and was the top points-getter with 12. The sophomore started all 16 games played this season and was second on the team in both shots and shots on goal. In league play, she ranked in the top ten in four different categories, including second in assists and seventh in shots.
Joining her on First Team, Fank played a pivotal role on the defense side that helped the team ranked third in goals allowed this season. The junior anchored a defense that posted five shutouts this season and held opponents to just 1.13 goals per contest. She had one goal on 11 shots this year.
Garcia joins her teammates on the All-CCIW selection list on Second Team after finishing second on the team with three goals during the regular season. The junior from Rock Island started all 16 games played this year and led the team in shots (47) and shots on goal (24). She ranked third in the conference in 2021 with two game-winning goals.
This year’s selections makes it three straight seasons the Vikings have placed three members on the all-conference list. No CCIW selections were made in 2020 due to COVID-19. Senior Anna Bross was also named a recipient of the CCIW’s RESPECT Award.
With the Hyundai World Archery Cup held on U.S. soil for the first time, it was appropriate the men’s title match was an All-American affair.
Jack Williams of California won a shootout over Brady Ellison of Arizona for the gold medal Thursday at Riverside Park, the last two standing from among the division’s eight best men in the world.
Their finale not only guaranteed gold for the U.S. but also marked the first time that the host nation has won the World Archery Cup.
Williams said he felt great about his performance, and winning the gold medal in an All-American final on U.S. soil made it that much sweeter.
“For something like that to happen for the first time, and for me to be that person, is amazing,” he said. “For an archery tournament, this was a really good crowd, and it was great to have all these people cheering for us.”
The two men weren’t the only ones making history for the United States while in Yankton. Last week, Casey Kaufhold of Pennsylvania claimed silver in the women’s recurve at the World Archery Championships, the highest finish in 33 years for a U.S. woman in a world championship. On Thursday, she returned for the World Cup finals and fell just short of another medal.
And she’s only 17 years old.
“It feels really good to win the silver medal, and it makes it even more special to win it in your home country,” she said. “It felt wonderful to have people here supporting me. I have my coach and a lot of teammates here, cheering me on. It was a great atmosphere, and I’m super happy to win.”
[Read more…] about Hyundia World Archery Cup: Williams Tops Ellison In All-American Final; Kaufhold Claims Women’s CrownCasey Kaufhold is a 17-year-old archer looking to make her Olympic debut. She won bronze in the women’s individual recurve event at the 2019 Pan American Games and took gold in the mixed team event paired with veteran Brady Ellison. She also won gold in the women’s team event.
As part of our preparation for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, NBC Olympics sent questionnaires to a wide range of athletes to learn more about their lives on and off the field of play.
Here’s some of what we found out about Casey Kaufhold:
Tell us about your family.
My parents, Robert and Carole Kaufhold, own Lancaster Archery Supply. My dad has an archery background and made two national field teams for the U.S. My [older] brother, Conner, is also involved in archery. He also likes to hunt and fish.
What’s a typical training day like?
I train during outdoor season about four to five hours each day, and for indoors I practice three to five hours a day. I sleep about eight hours, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
What’s your favorite workout?
I like doing cardio like running, swimming, or biking. I’ll go on runs with my coach and we will race each other on the way back.
What’s the most grueling workout you’ve ever done?
When I used to do gymnastics, we would have workout days during our camps and the hardest circuit we did was a five-minute dead hang on bars and then a two-minute wall handstand followed by 20 leg lifts from a dead hang again.
What’s your first memory of archery?
My earliest memory of me doing archery is when I used to do compound archery. I was on a 3D target course and I had to “sneak up” or move closer to the targets because my bow didn’t shoot the length of the full distance. I think that memory was when I was 5 years old. I liked archery because it was so different from any other sport I had ever tried. I wanted to dedicate my life to it when I placed top three in my first national senior outdoor event.
What’s your earliest memory of watching the Olympics?
The first memory of me watching the Olympics was when Simone Biles, a U.S. gymnast, went to her first Games is 2016. At the time I wanted to go to the Olympics for gymnastics. I definitely wanted to do something I loved in a setting that big.
Is there anything you wish you could change about your sport?
I wish that archery had the rushing feeling of performing like gymnastics or figure skating does. I miss the way performing for the crowd and how moving to the music felt in gymnastics. I wish a part of archery could give me that same feeling of exhilaration.
What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve overcome?
In order to participate in the 2020 Olympics, I had to begin competing at 70 meters at 14 years of age. I skipped over valuable competition years at 50 and 60 meters in order to achieve my goals.
What’s your music of choice while training?
My go-to song before a competition is “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen. I like a lot of older music. My top five songs on my playlist are “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” by Paul Anka, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass, “Careless Whisper” by George Michael, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye, and “My Girl” by The Temptations.
Follow Us On Social Media:
by: VPM Staff
Hi, my name is Emma Schieck, and I am a Paralympic gold medalist. That may seem like an abrupt introduction, but consider it my way of promising you that this long story has a happy ending.
My volleyball career began when I was 7 years old and first fell in love with the standing version of the sport. Volleyball was not always easy for me, mostly because of my physical disability. Due to complications at birth, I have from a Brachial Plexus Injury (BPI). My BPI affects my left arm and means that I cannot straighten or rotate my arm and it does not go behind my back. My limited strength and range of motion meant I had to work harder just to keep up with the other girls.
Nine years into my volleyball career I met Elliot Blake, the coordinator for USA Volleyball’s Developmental Sitting Volleyball Program and he introduced me to sitting volleyball. I was hesitant at first because of how difficult the sport is. My arm doesn’t reach the floor, so I struggled to move to the ball and that made everything else about the sport even more difficult. As hard as it was, I loved the challenge and began to get the hang of it. After a long standing volleyball career, I was shocked to find a sport that I loved even more.
Sitting volleyball was a faster and more condensed version of the sport I had spent years playing, and it wasn’t long until I was hooked. I would play at home with my able-bodied volleyball teammates, and they were also surprised at the difficulty of the sport but had fun trying it with me. My first training camp with the USA Women’s National Sitting Volleyball Team was in 2017, only six months after my introduction to sitting volleyball. It was incredible to be surrounded by other athletes with physical disabilities who were as passionate as myself. In January 2019, I learned that I had been named to the team and my next goal became making the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Roster.
That became a reality this summer. Earlier this month, I got back from a two-week adventure in Tokyo where I was competing alongside my team in the Paralympics. Since being home, many people have asked me about my time in Tokyo and often I can’t help but laugh and say it was the most indescribable experience I could ever imagine, but here is my best attempt at putting it into words.
For the entire first week and a half of July this year, I walked around with my phone attached to my hip. I knew that any day my head coach, Bill Hamiter, would be calling to let me know whether I had been named to the Tokyo Paralympic roster. Nervous does not even begin to describe how I was feeling. We have 17 national-team athletes, but only 12 are named to the roster for each event that we go to. Our group of 17 is incredibly strong and capable, so there was really no point in even trying to guess what our roster would look like.
[Read more…] about Paralympics Serving Specialist Emma Schieck Recounts USA’s Gold-Medal-Winning Trip to TokyoEmma Schieck reached the pinnacle of the sport she loves when she won a gold medal at the Tokyo Summer Paralympics as a member of the U.S. sitting volleyball team.
By Brandon Bieltz, University Communications.
When Emma Schieck first started playing volleyball at age 7, not everybody thought that it was for her. Because of permanent nerve damage that prevents her from fully straightening and rotating her left arm, a sport like soccer might be more her speed, they said.
But Schieck loved volleyball from the first time she picked up a ball at an elementary school “try it sports day.”
“I loved it. It was the best time,” says Schieck, now a junior at Carolina. “I had to leave volleyball to go to the cheerleading session, and I remember in the middle of the session getting up and leaving, going out the back so I could go back to the gym and play more volleyball.”
She wasn’t going to let a physical disability get in her way. The suggestion that she couldn’t play has fueled her drive. She has played 13 years of standing volleyball, and, most recently, picked up sitting volleyball, the adaptative version of the sport.
Schieck recently reached the pinnacle of the sport she loves when she won a gold medal at the Tokyo Summer Paralympics as a member of the U.S. sitting volleyball team. With Schieck acing the gold-medal point, the team defeated China 3-1 on Sept. 5 in Tokyo to earn gold.
[Read more…] about Carolina junior wins a gold medal at the ParalympicsBy Karen Price | TEAM usa
The world may not belong to archer Casey Kaufhold yet, but the keyword there is yet.
On Sunday, the 17-year-old who is coming off her first Olympic appearance won the silver medal at the World Archery Championships in Yankton, South Dakota. It’s the first women’s medal at the world championships for the U.S. in 33 years. She lost to Korea’s Jang Minhee 6-0 in the final.
“I literally thought of it as I have nothing to lose,” Kaufhold told USA Archery. “I’m 17 and I’ve only been shooting international tournaments for, like, three years so why hold back? I put everything out there, didn’t hold back pretty much and that was my main goal, to leave it all out there on the stage.”
On the men’s side, Brady Ellison didn’t get the opportunity to defend his world title after losing in the semifinal but held on in windy conditions later in the day to defeat Olympic champion Mete Gazoz of Turkey for the bronze medal 6-2.
Ellison, ranked No. 1 in the world, was looking to become the first man ever to repeat as recurve world champion but lost in an upset to Marcus D’Almeida of Brazil in a semifinal tiebreaker. Ellison competed at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 for the fourth time this summer but failed to medal for the first, finishing seventh overall.
Ellison, Jack Williams, and Matthew Nofel did win the recurve men’s team gold final against Olympic champions Korea earlier this weekend.
For Kaufhold, a teenager from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, appearing in her first world championship final, it was another big step in her rise in the sport.
Earlier this year she broke the under-21 world record in the 72-arrow, 70-meter qualification round the Olympic Trials, becoming the first in the junior age group to shoot higher than 680. She scored 682 out of 720 points, beating Korean An San’s record of 678 set in 2019. She made the Olympic team and finished 17th overall.
On Sunday, she scored a major upset in the semifinals, knocking off the Olympic gold medalist and the woman whose under-21 record she broke back in May, San, by a score of 6-2.
Unfortunately, Kaufhold struggled with consistency in the gold medal match and trailed Minhee 4-0 going into the third set. Both archers shot nines to start things off, but Kaufhold shot another nine on her second arrow and Minhee responded with a 10. A second 10 finished things off and Minhee claimed the world title.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Oxford preparing for its first season of girls flag football, open its season at home Tuesday night
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Girls flag football got underway in Alabama this week. Oxford plays its historic first games next Tuesday in a three-team date at Lamar Field.
All of the Lady Jackets’ games will be three-team affairs. They play at home twice this 12-game season – Tuesday and the final week of the regular season Oct. 28. A statewide, one-classification championship game will be played the Wednesday of the Super 7.
“It’s been fun,” Oxford coach Wes Brooks said of the run-up to the season opener. “You think about a girl her whole lifetime thinking what it’s like to play football and now they’re getting that opportunity.”
Nearly 60 schools around the state have declared to play the sport in this first year it’s being offered by the AHSAA. Oxford and Anniston are the only teams in Calhoun County on that list, but they will not be playing each other.
[Read more…] about These Girls Are Ready For Some Football
