Men's Track & Field Moving Closer to the Top 10

For the first time, as far as I know in Delaware State sports history, the DSU men's track & field are ranked #13 in the mid-Atlantic Region of the NCAA Divison I Outdoor Track & Field. I must say I am pretty impress because Delaware State has been working hard everyday 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year including Leap Year.

This year besides Lesile Murray, Ryan Carter, Tyquan Brown, and Tariq Devore have helped the Hornets bring records this year and these are underclassmen. If this keeps up after this weekend's MEAC Championship, the Hornets might moved up to the top 10 before the they compete in the NCAA Championships.

Even if they don't make the top 10, they will be recognize throughout the nation as the best track and field team ever. Hampton, UMES, and Norfolk beware DSU is coming to make statement in the years to come.

March Madness Sports Wrap-Up

March has come and gone, however there were plenty of madness for Delaware State Sports Athletics. So without further or due lets recap the March Madness of DSU.

Men's and lady hornets basketball
It was one and done for the men's and lady hornets basketball as they both lost their respective games during the 1st round. One the women's side Brittany Washington had a double-double (12 points, 16 rebounds) but it wasn't enough as the lady hornets miss their last 13 shots, committed seven turnovers in a 52-44 lost to UMES.

On the men's side the free fall continued when the Hornet men lost to the same team that eliminated them from the MEAC last year, South Carolina State. During the Hornets 64-59 lost to the Bulldogs, Jay Threatt scored 20 points, to go along with four assists and five steals in a losing effort. Once again the Hornets were getting out rebounded by SC State 34-23, finished the season losing eight straight games. Both the men and lady hornets finished with the same record of 9-21 with a lot of rebuilding to do for the new season coming up in November.
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Lady Hornets Softball
Coach Fred Savage and the lady hornets softball team are on a roll finishing the month of March with a record of 13-8 batting .324 and averaging over six runs a game. They have been making a lot of hit and attempting to steal bases to try and score runs. Lets see if the lady hornets can keep up the momentum in the month of April as they prepared for the MEAC Tournament in May.
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Hornets Baseball
This was a baseball team that has some trouble fitting the right notes with a 10-9 record in March, the reasons pitching and defense. There were two home games that the Hornets blew the lead and lost: a winless Hartford team and University of Delaware. The Hornets need to calm down on errors and the pitchers need to have better command on their pitches so they can get the outs they need to win games.
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DSU Student wins her Boxing Debut
Congratulations to Melinda "The Gem" Levasseur for winning her Delaware boxing debut back on March 19. Levasseur is a accounting sophomore major made a TKO in the 1st round on Tisha Himes of York, PA. Melinda was going to play soccer here at Delaware State, but instead she chose boxing as her passion. No wonder her boxing record is 8-1 so far, and she's just getting started.

 

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Lady Hornets Bowling
The Lady Hornets bowling team were unable to defend their MEAC Title by losing to Morgan State in the semi-finals of the MEAC Bowling tournament. No worries though the lady hornets will be back better than ever.
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Equestrian
The lady hornets equestrian team are heading to the 2011 Varsity Equestrian National Championship later this month after competing against three tough school: Georgia, TCU, and South Dakota.
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Lady Hornets Tennis
The lady hornets tennis team are making impress start for the month of March and looking to do more in April as they prepared for the MEAC Tournament in May.
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Now that we are in the home stretch of April, Lets see if the DSU Spring Sports teams can continue to be on winning track as we head into the final month of the regular season.

Spring Football Practice Begins

Today maybe April Fools Day as we make safe jokes and pranks, but today the "new" Delaware State Hornets football team will begin spring practice as they prepared for their red/white spring game on April 16.

New hornet head Kermit Blount told dsuhornets.com that their coaching staff will introduce some new play systems to share with his players and everyone has a clean slate heading into spring camp.

I guarantee you that everyone on that football team will be fighting for their jobs because Coach Blount believes that this team will not only impress, but to make every minute count.

Here are the keys for the Hornets spring camp:
The Hornets will have four veteran wide recivers: Justin Wilson, Travis Tarplay, Donnell Dixon, and Darrius Jackson. Will they impress their coaching staff will good drills and make good catches with their speed?

Most of their defense will return including linebacker Brandon Harvey, Matt Spicer, and others but the defensive line will have a big gap to fill to replace Andre Caroll as leader of the defense. Can the defense improve better than last year?

The two headed monster: The Hornets might play with two running backs with Jaashawn Jones and James Rosseau, but who wants the job more to carry the load?

Quarterback Expectations?: Last season everyone expect Anthony Glaud to carry the Hornets to a winning season. Instead Glaud had a very tough season to begin the season but finished on a positive note. Now its up to Nick Elko to help the hornets offensive struggles. Are we going to expect good expectations or another struggling season for DSU quarterbacks.

Special Teams: Who will be the Hornets new kicker? Will it be be same kicker as last year or will it be someone else that can make extra points, field goals, and good kickoffs? Also can the Hornets special teams get good coverage and good kickoff returns?

Lets see how the two week spring camp will turnout. Also they will have summer camp before the real deal begins September 3 versus Virginia Military Institute (VMI).

Coming Soon To Delaware State Sports...

Doing the past few days I was looking for jobs to apply at Delaware State University and I saw two coaching positions for women's sports: Golf and Lacrosse.

So I refresh the page twice to make sure and looked at both job descriptions and my eyes did not deceived me at all. So coming soon to DSU Sports, lady hornets golf and lacrosse.

The question that puzzled me a bit was why would DSU have golf and lacrosse come to Dover? That answer was simple because the Delaware State Athletic Department tried to get rid of equestrian due budget concerns. We already know what happened next: the Equestrian team took DSU to court won the case, forced DSU to pay up for their mistakes on Title IX, keep equestrian, and find more female sports in order to meet the Title IX criteria.

Now with golf and lacrosse coming to Delaware State, can you imagine how many students will attend at DSU? Think about it lacrosse has been popular here in Delaware especially in the Delmarva region next to football and basketball. Now where will hornets golf will practice and compete at? Well, there is the Cavalier Country Club  in Newark, Delaware for the hornets  to play at.

I don't know when Hornets golf and lacrosse will start but I'm pretty sure there will more female athletics than ever before at Delaware State University. Hornet fans get ready golf and lacrosse is coming to DSU, it will be a fun experience and great way to expand hornet sports for females everywhere.

Hornet Football Schedule Release

Forget spring and summer, I'm so ready for the start of the Delaware State Hornets football season. This week I went to dsuhornets.com and found the 2011 Hornets football schedule and I'm saying to myself that its going another challenging season.

Think about it, new coach, new plays, new season, new attitude. The only question is will be the results be the same as it was the last three seasons?

It will be a tough season for new head coach Kermitt Blount as his new look Hornets begin the season on September 3rd on the road versus WMI (Virginia Military Institute), followed by a home opener versus Shaw University on September 10. Then the Hornets will be on a three game road trip starting with their in-state rival University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware on September 17, followed their MEAC opener versus MEAC co-champions South Carolina State (September 24) and Florida A&M (October 1).

The Hornets will return home on October 8 when they take on Norfolk State, then its back on the road to the Dawg Pond versus North Carolina A&T on October 15. After their bye week, the Hornets be back home starting with their Homecoming game versus Morgan State on October 29 (remember the fumble of 2007), and North Carolina Central on November 5.

Normally DSU plays their rival Hampton in either September or October, instead they play November 12 at Hampton followed by the final game of the season at home versus Howard.

The Hornets will not play co-champion Bethune-Cookman this season but they will meet again next season. Before I jumped the gun, I want to see how the new look Hornets will fare starting with their spring game on April 16 at Alumni Stadium followed by their summer training camp in August.
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2011 Delaware State Hornets Football Schedule

September 3 @ Virginia Military Institution (VMI)
September 10 Shaw University
September 17 @ University of Delaware (Route 1 Rivalry)
September 24 @ South Carolina State
October 1 @ Florida A&M
October 8 Norfolk State University
October 15 @ North Carolina A&T
October 22 Bye
October 29 Morgan State University (Homecoming)
November 5 North Carolina Central
November 12 @ Hampton
November 19 Howard

Note: All games will be played on Saturday, Home teams are bold. Times will be announced at a later date. Schedule is subject to change.

Hornets Throwing a Lucky 7

After a very long road trip to begin the season, the Delaware State lady hornets softball are very glad to be home and get some wins.

So what did lady hornets do: Keep on hitting and keep on winning. Through March 23rd DSU has won seven in a row and rolling the dice by making every hit, steal every base, and score every run they can to win the game.

During the seven game winning streak DSU  has batted .420, outscoring oppoents 62-8 and throwing a no hitter.

Also six lady hornets are batting .320  and above during the streak. The reason behind those win is that the lady hornets won their own Capital City Classic Tournament last weekend and earning a huge over their in-state rivial University of Delaware back on Tuesday. With their MEAC conference games fast approaching, the lady hornets can not afford to make mental errors and just continue to play more smart in running the bases and leaving runners on base.

Even though their pitching is just under a 4.00 ERA the hornets has found ways to get out of situations and finished strong to get the wins they need. The Lady Hornets long home stead continues with the John Savage Tournament and I'm looking to see how the lady hornets will fare espically with Morgan State coming to town along with three other school participating in the tournament as well.

A Season Full of Growing Pains

Its was very tough season for the Delaware State men's and women's basketball team during the 2010-2011 season as both teams finished 9-21 overall and 5-11 in the conference. For head coaches Ed Davis and Greg Jackson it was a tough season for both of them, coaching a young squad with inexperience and little or no senior leadership.

On the women's side, the lady hornets only had two seniors to try and helped a young DSU squad that are trying to learn the tricks of the trade of winning games. Instead cold shooting and turnovers was the lady hornets Achilles heal all season long as DSU shot only 33% from the field, averaging over 20 turnovers a game, and scoring 53 points a game.

DSU were no match versus West Virginia, Syracuse, Maryland, Seton Hall, Hampton, Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M and other teams. Something tells me that the lady hornets have a lot of work to do on their shot selection and handling the basketball. Not to mention attitude because their body language were saying we are not ready to battle these tough teams and win games.

As for the Hornet men this was a season where games that would've been won, instead it turnout to be painful loses. DSU would've beat LaSalle, Delaware, Bethune-Cookman (twice), Coppin State (twice), Hampton (twice), Howard, North Carolina A&T (twice), UMES (on the road), Florida A&M (on the road), Tennessee State, and South Carolina State (MEAC Tournament).

With those wins DSU could have at least 14, 15, or 16 wins, instead only nine wins during the regular season and finished the season losing eight in a row and 12 of their last 13.

All season long the Hornet men were undersized having a very small lineup and only one big man. That spells bad news because  getting out rebounded by opponents 35-23 a game and letting teams to shoot almost 50% from the field.

The Hornets will have most of their players back but DSU needs more big men to help these guards so they can rebound and get block shots on defense. Also the Hornets need stop falling behind and tried to rally to get back in the game. Also the Hornets needs to maintain a big lead at all times.

Can both the men and lady hornets get back on track next season and try to compete for the MEAC title? Only time will tell.