With the 2007-08 school year quickly coming to a close, it is time to look back at what an amazing year DU athletics had.
Just like every season there are the question marks that surround every team and the high expectations that come with representing DU and this season teams lived up to those expectations and more.
This year the 17 Division I teams captured six conference titles, one NCAA team championship and two individual NCAA titles as well as 10 teams making NCAA appearances. Also honors were awarded to eight Denver coaches who won coach of the year awards.
Capturing conference titles were men’s lacrosse, men and women’s golf, women’s tennis, women’s soccer and hockey. The skiing team continued its domination winning its 19th NCAA title in program history. Junior John Buchar won the men’s slalom and giant slalom to become just the second skier in DU history to win both events at the NCAA championships.
Last season junior Adam Cole went to the podium for both events. This season Cole broke his leg in the first competition of the season and was unable to compete for the rest of the year.
For some sports, this season brought disappointment. After a 20-11 record in 2006-07 the women’s basketball team had high expectations, but struggled early and often this season on its way to a 11-19 record. The future looks bright, though, for the program with 13-year Head Coach Pam Tanner recently stepping down the team is now in the hands of young and promising Erik Johnson.
Disappointment also set in for the women’s lacrosse team, which, for the second consecutive season, lost to Stanford in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship game by one goal and again missed out on a possible NCAA tournament bid.
Women’s gymnastics had an amazing season by seeing the most consistency of high scores in program history and gaining a No. 12 ranking for most of the season. But when the stage was the NCAA, the Pioneers disappointed with a 12th place finish at the championships.
On the other hand, the women’s volleyball team finished with the best record in Division I Pioneer history at 22-12 and won its third SBC West Division title. DU’s season came to an abrupt end in the semi-finals of the SBC tournament that Denver hosted. Western Kentucky defeated the Pioneers 3-1 to end their season.
The tennis program had another record-setting year as the women’s team captured the first SBC title in program history and the men’s team achieved a ranking as high as No. 37. The men made their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance this season and lost to Oklahoma State in the first round, while the women defeated Long Beach State in the first round before losing to UCLA.
The men’s golf team captured its first-ever SBC title this season and advanced to its sixth consecutive NCAA regional while the women won the record-setting fifth consecutive conference title. The women will play this weekend in their second consecutive NCAA championship tournament.
Another team that made a NCAA tournament appearance was the women’s soccer team, which lost 5-0 to Portland in the first round a season after the men had made school history and advanced to the second round for the first time after defeating Kentucky.
The 2007-08 season for DU athletics re-wrote many record books and brought home lots of hardware and to say the least was quite a success.
“I am very pleased with the progress of our athletic programs. I really feel that we have incredible momentum across the division… We are moving in the right direction,” said athletic director Peg Bradley-Doppes.
It is direction that should force the building of new cabinets to store much more hardware that the Pioneers will bring home in the future.
