Jacksonville, Florida seemed like a nice place to be compared to a foot of snow on the ground in Ohio, but then it rained.
In a tense matchup on Thursday night, the Miami RedHawks defeated the top-seeded Western Michigan Broncos in volleyball. After the game, head coach Carolyn Condit praised her team, but she knew they would have to maintain their energy for the next match. “Tomorrow will be a dog fight,” Condit said. Indeed it was.
In “The Andy Griffith Show,” there’s a town called Mayberry, N.C., which is the main setting of the show. Mayberry is a sleepy town, with just 5,000 people, one traffic light and not much else. The inspiration for Mayberry came from a town in North Carolina called Mount Airy. For volleyball head coach Carolyn Condit, however, the town may as well have been based on another sleepy town called Oxford, Ohio.
Sophomore guard Peyton Scott put on a show in Saturday's loss to Ball State, scoring a career-high 39 points, which matches a Millett Hall record set in 2013. She has four consecutive games scoring at least 30 points and also set a school record with 15 field goals. This Wednesday, they play the Toledo Rockets, who have lost four of their last five games.
With St. Cloud State leading Miami 1-0 about 10 minutes into the third period on Friday, the real action started, as the RedHawks quickly scored two goals en route to a 3-2 win over the 6th ranked Huskies.
On Friday, the RedHawks led by as many as five points in the second half before losing to the Akron Zips, 83-76. This Tuesday, the RedHawks will travel to take on the only team ahead of Akron in the standings, the Toledo Rockets. The Rockets are 16-6 this season, with an 11-3 MAC record. After coming close to beating a top-tier MAC team last Friday, the ’Hawks will get another shot this Tuesday.
After a hard-fought game Saturday afternoon, Miami head coach DeUnna Hendrix didn’t hold back how much the loss hurt for her players. “I wish the result was different,” Hendrix said. “My heart literally hurts for them.” Despite a strong effort from her team, the RedHawks lost a close game to the Ball State Cardinals, 79-77.
The Zips had the ball, up 76-74 with a minute and a half remaining. For 29 seconds, the RedHawks did their job. A good defensive effort from senior forward Dalonte Brown made senior guard Loren Cristian Jackson pick up his dribble with just four seconds left on the shot clock. With an 11-inch height difference between the two, Jackson pivoted and pirouetted into a contested three-pointer with Brown all over him.
Relentless. That is the only way to describe tonight’s effort from the Miami women’s basketball team. Although the RedHawks did not finish with a win, the result doesn’t show how hard the team fought this game.
Coach Jack Owens and the Miami men's basketball team have the chance to end their two-game losing streak against the Akron Zips Friday at Millett Hall. The contest, which was originally scheduled for Saturday, was moved to Friday night so it could air on ESPNU.
A 2-15 overall record and 1-12 in MAC play has Miami seated last in the Mid-American Conference before its next game against Central Michigan on Wednesday. In their last matchup on Dec. 15, the RedHawks lost on the road, 69-51. This time at Millett Hall, Miami hopes to bounce back into the win column against the 11-6 Chippewas.
The Miami RedHawks traveled to Minnesota this weekend looking for retribution again against a Duluth team that beat them twice in Oxford last week. They didn’t get it. The RedHawks lost 8-1 Friday night and 3-1 Saturday to a Duluth team that boasts eight National Hockey League (NHL) draft picks and is currently ranked fifth in the country. The team will look to bounce back next weekend against fourth-ranked St. Cloud State at home in Oxford before finishing the season with a home-and-home series against Western Michigan.
After a 3-1 start, the Miami women’s volleyball team fell to .500 after losing both contests at Bowling Green this weekend. The team will play its next series at home against Toledo on Thursday, Feb. 11 and Friday, Feb. 12. The games will be at 4 p.m. and 1 p.m, respectively, on ESPN+.
With six rostered players on the two squads playing in this year’s Super Bowl, the Mid-American Conference (MAC) returns the same number of players as in last year’s game. I looked at the recent history of MAC alumni playing in the biggest game in American sports. The only MAC schools to have any connection to Super Bowl-appearing head coaches, whether alumni or coaching experience, are Miami (alma mater of Sean McVay and former home of Sean Payton as an offensive coordinator) and Western Michigan – and Western Michigan’s only claim is briefly having John Harbaugh, a Miami grad, as a running back and outside linebackers coach.
As the final buzzer sounded on a 73-64 Miami win over Western Michigan Wednesday at Millett Hall, sophomore guard Peyton Scott let out a triumphant roar. The sophomore guard finished with 37 points, a new career high, and helped the RedHawks snap a 13-game losing streak.
Women's basketball will play Western Michigan at home on Wednesday, Feb. 3. The RedHawks are looking to snap their 13 game losing streak, as the team's last victory was on Dec. 8.
Miami Volleyball has now won four straight regular season conference titles in the MAC, appearing in the NCAA tournament twice over that span. Simply put, winning is all this team knows. “I’ve had a lot of really fine teams, several strings of four (MAC titles) in a row,” she said. “It’s hard to do that. It’s hard to do five in a row. But I know these kids will strive for it.”
The Miami RedHawks fell in both games to the sixth-ranked University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs last weekend. Despite the Duluth having 8 NHL draft picks on the team, Miami managed to hold their own against the sixth-ranked Bulldogs. The RedHawks will travel to Duluth to play the Bulldogs again this weekend on Friday, Feb. 5 and Saturday, Feb. 6.
The Miami men's basketball team will get to play a nationally televised game in Millett Hall this season when the Akron Zips come to town on Friday, Feb. 12. The game is at 7 p.m. on ESPNU.
It wasn't pretty, but the RedHawks got the job done Saturday, holding on to beat the Western Michigan Broncos. Miami plays at Kent State on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m.