For Tennis Teams, Double Winning Streaks
The No. 4 women’s tennis team was 16-1 overall in early April after recording its 10th shutout of the season—over Cal—and its 11th consecutive win since a February 9 loss to perennial foe Georgia at the National Team Indoor Championships. The doubles team of Lauren Kalvaria and Gabriela Lastra, both ’02, is ranked second; Erin Burdette, ’05, and Lauren Barnikow, ’04, are ranked 14th. The No. 5 men’s team (15-1) extended its winning streak to eight on March 30, dispatching Washington 6-1. Senior K.J. Hippensteel is ranked fourth nationally in singles play.
Baseball Gets Off to a Strong Start
With solo home runs from junior outfielder Jason Cooper, junior catcher Ryan Garko and senior infielder Chris O’Riordan, the Stanford baseball team defeated the Trojans 5-4 on March 24 to complete its first three-game sweep at usc since 1997. As the No. 2 Cardinal (22-6) headed into Pac-10 play, head coach Mark Marquess, ’69, was praising the team’s talented freshmen. “I believe they feel they can work their way into the starting lineup,” he said. “They will put a lot of pressure on the nine returning position players to keep their jobs.”
On the Farm, the ‘Most Complete Athlete’ Contest
The 2002 modern pentathlon world championships will be held at Stanford July 15-21. More than 250 athletes from at least 40 countries will shoot, fence, swim, ride and run to vie for the title of, in the words of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic games, “the complete athlete.” An Olympic event since 1912, the pentathlon was conceived as the course of action a military courier might follow in delivering a message through enemy territory. One notable participant: George Patton, the future American general, who finished fifth at the 1912 Olympic games in Stockholm.
After 30 Years, Men’s Gymnastics Coach Retires
Men’s gymnastics coach Sadao Hamada, who led the Cardinal to three NCAA championships (1992, ’93, ’95) and two Pac-10 titles (1990, ’92) in the 30 years he has coached at Stanford, will retire at the end of the school year. A three-time National Collegiate Coach of the Year and five-time Pac-10 Coach of the Year, Hamada trained nine individual NCAA champions and Olympians Steve Hug, ’74, and Jair Lynch, ’93. “He’s a very innovative coach who is willing to try something different but riskier in hopes of a greater payoff,” wrote walk-on Rico Andrade, ’01, in the Stanford Daily. “It might not always work, but when it works, it really works.” In Hamada’s final trip to the NCAAs in early April, junior Marshall Erwin placed first on the rings and sophomore Dan Gill won the vault competition. The Cardinal finished sixth
