Horned Frog Sports Roundup: Jan 18, 2023

With the football season coming to a close, Frogs fans can turn their attention to the other successful sports programs starting their seasons this winter and spring. The Horned Frog Sports Roundup will be taking a weekly look at what is happening in the world of TCU sports that has produced multiple national championships recently from Women’s Rifle and Men’s Tennis.

Women’s Tennis

The Frogs opened up their season in Fort Worth on Monday, January 9th in the Fort Worth Invitational tournament. Freshman Yu-Chin Tsai had an excellent day, securing two victories over Texas Tech in her two matches. Tsai won her singles match in a very close three sets with scores of 3-6, 7-6, 1-0 (10-8) over Texas Tech’s Arena Oreshchenkova. She won her doubles match with teammate Helena Narmont over Oreshchenkova and Camryn Steep of Texas Tech in a 6-0 sweep.

Narmont and Tsai continued their doubles dominance on day two with a win over the 32nd-ranked doubles pair from SMU in Johnson and Nylander 6-3. Destinee Martins and Margaret Polk had a solid tournament as well with a doubles victory over Razet and Pecheco from Tarleton State 6-1. Polk won her singles match against Boisson from Tarleton State 7-5, 7-6. Martins, a transfer from Tyler Junior College, secured two singles wins over SMU’s Nylander and Tarleton State’s Makantasi. The Frogs’ next match is a duel match against UTSA in Fort Worth this Friday at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center.

Swimming and Diving

TCU swimming and diving has been in full swing for some time now and had a very successful fall campaign as they sent 3 divers to compete at Winter Nationals in West Virginia. Max Burman, Anna Kwong, and David Ekdahl all competed in West Virginia with Burman and Ekdahl competing in the 1-meter dive and Kwong competing in both the 1 and 3-meter competitions. Burman and Ekdahl also competed in the synchronized 3-meter dive where they finished 4th overall in the finals.

In the 1-meter dive, both Frogs qualified for the Finals and had very good showings with Ekdahl finishing 13th and Burman coming in behind him at 14th overall. The Frogs also started off the New Year hot with victories in 11 events in a meet with Hawaii, Air Force, and Tulane in Honolulu. They followed up with a men’s team victory against Hawaii in the UCLA invitational and a narrow women’s team defeat while securing victories in 9 events overall. The next meet for the Frogs will close the regular season with Senior Day on January 27th and 28th.

Indoor Track

The Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track teams opened their season this past Friday in Fayetteville at the Arkansas Invitational. Jaren Holmes stole the show for the Frogs in the triple jump with a 16.14-meter performance to win the event. That 16.14-meter mark is the longest triple jump in D1 this season and the 5th longest in TCU Indoor Track history. Patrick Sylla had a solid day in the long jump, coming in second overall with a jump of 7.35 meters.

Simbarashe Maketa and Ethan Brown performed very well in the 200m and 400m respectively. Maketa finished 3rd overall with a time of 21.63 and Brown came in 4th overall with a time of 47.93. Ryan Martin had a very good race placing 4th overall in the 1,000m with the third-best time in TCU history of 2:26.22. Iyana Gray had a very good debut with the Frogs as she had two top 10 times in TCU history as she placed 4th and 5th in the 60m and 200m respectively. The Frogs’ next meet is this weekend in Lubbock at the Red Raider Open.

Men’s Tennis

The TCU Men’s Tennis team is off to another hot start as they have picked up two victories in two meets over Abilene Christian and SMU by scores of 6-1 and 5-0 respectively. The Frogs were able to secure the victory over ACU despite being down two players in Jake Fearnely and Tomas Jirousek due to injury. Sander Jong and Lui Maxted took the top doubles pairing spot due to the injury to Fearnely and were leading 5-3 when the other two doubles matches turned to way of the Frogs. Luc Fomba and Luke Swan won their match by a score of 6-4 and Pedro Vives and Sebastian Gorzny won their match 6-1. The only loss for the Frogs against ACU was by Luke Swan making his debut at TCU in a 10 point pro set as the Frogs swept the rest of the singles matches.

The Frogs also had a dominant performance in securing their 14th straight victory over the Mustangs, not losing a single match up in the process. The Jong and Maxted pair as well as the Fomba and Fearnley pair both won their doubles matches to clinch the doubles point for the Frogs. The singles matches were no different as the Frogs swept the matchups there as well. Jong, Fomba, Maxted, and Vives all won in straight sets and in the two unfinished matches, Jirousek and Gorzny had both taken the first set before TCU clinched the win. Coach Roditi has the Frogs primed to contend for a national championship again in 2023. Their next match is this Sunday on the road at Tulsa.

Rifle

The Rifle team has been absolutely dominant this season as they are currently ranked number 1 in the nation and have yet to lose a meet this season. They have started off strong in the spring season as well with a sweep of number 11 ranked Ohio State in Fort Worth. The first day was an excellent showing from the Frogs as they put up the 4th best score in TCU history of 4750. They had 8 of the top 10 scores in smallbore and dominated air rifle as well with the top 7 scores in the event and 10 of the top 11 scores as well. Julie Johannessen led the way for the Frogs with a personal best 597 score in smallbore which was the top smallbore score for both teams.

The momentum carried over to the next day as the Frogs completed the sweep over the Buckeyes by a total score of 4,741 to 4,680. The Frogs had 9 of the top 10 shooters overall with Johannessen leading the way again with scores of 592 in smallbore and 598 in air rifle. The 598 score was the top score in the air rifle event while Katie Zaun led all shooters in the smallbore, putting up a score of 593 for the Frogs. The Frogs will hit the road for Nebraska for their next meet this Saturday the 21st.