A tightly-contested matchup this past Sun­day at Press­ley Sta­dium in Gainsville, Florida between the Kansas Jay­hawks and Mar­shall Thun­der­ing Herd turned in favor of KU start­ing in the fourth inning, with the Jay­hawks com­pil­ing a total of six runs in the fourth and the fifth innings and win­ning 7–3 in the early game of Day Three of the 2010 Lip­ton Invi­ta­tional. 

Kansas jumped out early in the sec­ond when Alex Jones knocked a hit toward sec­ond base and allowed short­stop Mariah Mont­gomery to score from third, but gave the Jay­hawks the lead just long enough for Mar­shall to return the favor in the bot­tom of the sec­ond with two runs of its own.  The Thun­der­ing Herd then man­aged to extend their lead by an addi­tional run in the bot­tom of the third, with short­stop Alianna Telles brought home on a dou­ble to left cen­ter by Cait­lyn Jack­son.  Kansas responded quickly in the fourth, how­ever, with Mont­gomery and third base­man Marissa Ingle both reach­ing home plate on the hit­ting of Ingle and Jones, a pat­tern repeated in the top of the sixth, with Ingle strik­ing a home run to left field and dri­ving in three of four runs for the inning.  That left Ingle going a per­fect 3–3 from the plate for the game, while the Jay­hawks col­lected a season-high 14 hits. 

Senior pitcher Sarah Vertelka ended up as KU’s closer, reliev­ing Jones (a fresh­man) on the mound start­ing in the third inning, and hold­ing Mar­shall to just three hits and one run over the final five innings of play.  Vertelka moves to 2–2 on the year.  Mean­while, fresh­man third base­man Jazmine Valle ended up the top hit­ter on the day for Mar­shall, going two-for-three from the plate with one RBI, with Katie Mur­phree earn­ing her first loss of the year as a thrower after com­ing in to relieve Jack­son in the fourth.

Blake Bell, QB, Bishop Car­roll High (Kansas)

Bell explains that when it came time to com­mit to a pro­gram, the Uni­ver­sity of Okla­homa just seemed the proper fit for him. 

He notes, for instance, that when he went on his offi­cial visit to Nor­man, he felt an instant con­nec­tion with the coach­ing staff – offen­sive coor­di­na­tor and tight ends coach, Kevin Wil­son, and quar­ter­backs coach, Josh Heupel, in par­tic­u­lar.  Then there was the fact that the uni­ver­sity was located just about two and a half hours from home, where Bell draws sup­port from what he calls “a big fam­ily” – far enough to “get away,” as he calls it, but not such that he won’t be able to count on a large cheer­ing sec­tion at each home game that the Soon­ers play.  Of course, the tra­di­tion of excel­lence at the quar­ter­back posi­tion at Okla­homa also played a role too; Bell leaves lit­tle doubt, after all, that he has long been enam­ored with names like Jason White and Sam Brad­ford – and how learn­ing from some­one like Heupel is a true honor. 

Bell fig­ures his abil­ity to move around in and out of the pocket, and to make things hap­pen when pass pro­tec­tion breaks down will serve his great­est asset in that process.  He knows he needs to work on his throw­ing mechan­ics – espe­cially on his long ball.  But that is some­thing he plans to work on through­out the spring, espe­cially when he takes sched­uled trips to Nor­man to watch the Soon­ers dur­ing off-season prac­tice. 

What he pos­sesses out­side of such par­tic­u­lars can’t be taught; and it’s some­thing that leads him to believe he’ll be able to bring some­thing spe­cial to a pro­gram that just recently received what he believes is a huge boost head­ing into spring with a Sun Bowl win over the Stan­ford Car­di­nal.  

OU, Bell admits, had “some stum­bles” this sea­son, with injuries play­ing a key part.  The wide receiver corps for the Soon­ers was young as well – a sit­u­a­tion he notes both he and the coach­ing staff have been try­ing to rec­tify by bring­ing in, along with Bell, young tal­ent with an abil­ity to make an imme­di­ate impact on offense like Kenny Stills (La Costa Canyon High, Cal­i­for­nia) and Joseph Pow­ell (Sky­line High, Texas). (He noted with a hint of dis­ap­point­ment that fel­low Under Armour com­peti­tor Dar­ius White announced at today’s game he would be headed to Texas.) But the Soon­ers can take plenty of pos­i­tive away from the win over Stan­ford, with a strong post-season per­for­mance set­ting the tone for what he – and the Soon­ers – hope will be a race for a national cham­pi­onship start­ing in 2010. 

Of course, to do that, he real­izes he’ll have to face some stiff com­pe­ti­tion in the Big 12, a con­fer­ence com­prised of top-tier pro­grams and that has as of late been the home to some of the best quar­ter­back tal­ent in the coun­try.  But it is a chal­lenge Bell clearly looks for­ward to – and espe­cially when it comes to fight­ing for brag­ging rights in the state of Okla­homa each and every year when it comes to play­ing rival Okla­homa State in the annual Bed­lam Game.

Through the lens…

Photo Journal – photographs by Jason Roberts

Photo Journal – photographs by Anthony Morris

From the mouths…

Audio – USF head coach Jim Leavitt

Audio – USF quarterback B.J. Daniels

Out of the pen…

In-game observiations from FSU vs. USF -by Katie Carlson

Post-game interview with George Selvie -by Katie Carlson

The view from the press box was blind­ing, as Florida State fans were sup­port­ing Bobby Bowden’s Semi­noles in their “white out” for USF. USF fans filled out their allot­ted sec­tions, clearly stand­ing out in their green shirts. This was the 11th largest crowd to ever assem­ble at Doak Camp­bell Stadium.

With a lit­tle over 5 min­utes left in the first, Nate Allen recov­ered a fum­ble caused by Jon Lejiste on the FSU 25. Eric Schwartz misses a field goal from the 20. Last week, while play­ing Charleston South­ern Jim Leav­itt elected to replace Del­bert Alvarado after miss­ing a field goal with Schwartz. It will be inter­est­ing to see whose num­ber he calls should another kick­ing sit­u­a­tion arise.

FSU picked them­selves up and put together a strong drive which brought them to a goa line sit­u­a­tion. USF’s defense held, includ­ing stop­ping a 4th and goal on the USF 1.

BJ Daniels throws a strike to a wide open Theo Wil­son, a 77 yard pass sets up a first and goal for USF. Daniels next pass was com­plete to Ben Bus­bee for a touch­down. Schwartz was sent in for the  PAT. USF strikes first and leads 7–0.

BJ Daniels appears com­fort­able run­ning this offense, which is cer­tainly a sigh of relief for Bulls fans con­cerned about the loss of leg­endary Matt Grothe.

Sab­bath Joseph forces a fum­ble from Tawain East­er­ling, FSU was again kept from reach­ing the end­zone. BJ Daniels didn’t waste a moment, find­ing a wide open Ster­ling Grif­fin for a 73 yard touch­down pass. USF now lead­ing 14–0.

Schwartz botches another field goal attempt to end the half.

At half time, this is cer­tainly not the game most were expect­ing. USF’s defense looks to be frus­trat­ing Chris­t­ian Pon­der, con­stantly flush­ing him out of the pocket, and stuff­ing him on any runs up the mid­dle. BJ Daniels, how­ever, looks like a field gen­eral mak­ing all the right calls, includ­ing a stun­ning 29 yard run straight up the mid­dle. Were it not for two missed field goals, FSU would be in a much worse posi­tion. Cer­tainly a 2 touch­down deficit is by no means insur­mount­able for the Noles.

BJ Daniels made his first mis­take, try­ing to evade a sack he threw an inter­cep­tion. FSU was unable to cap­i­tal­ize, giv­ing the ball right back.

Craig Mar­shall picks up an FSU fum­ble, their 3rd of the game. USF is unable to make any­thing hap­pen. FSU returned a 50+ yard punt for 63 yards, a touch­down sav­ing show string tackle made by the punter Alvarado.

Ty Jones puts the Noles on the board by punch­ing the ball 3 yards into the end­zone. Near the begin­ing of the fourth, FSU cuts the lead in half 14–7.

As USF begins another promis­ing drive, the rain has started to come down hard. A slip­pery field and wet ball will cer­tainly have an impact on how this game is played out…as a mat­ter of fact, Colby Erskin can’t hang on to a sure first down pass and USF is forced to punt it away.

Fol­low­ing another Daniels inter­cep­tion, Jason Pierre Paul forces a fum­ble from Chris­t­ian Pon­der, USF takes over at the FSU 13 with a lit­tle less than six min­utes on the game clock. The play is reviewed– but offi­cials con­firm the call on the field.

Third time is a charm as Eric Schwartz finally nails a field goal, this one from 37 yards out. USF up 17–7.

FSU’s last effort to remain in the game was dashed as Pon­der was sacked 8 yards by USF’s Craig Mar­shall. After the turn over on downs, USF’s sec­tion began rain­ing down cheers of “over rated”  and “USF” as the “white out” dis­si­pated and dejected fans left Doak Campbell.

BJ Daniels ran the clock out and jubi­lantly cel­e­brated with team mates. USF fans remained packed in their sec­tions as the final score dis­played 17–7.

Here PRISM Press founder, Jason Roberts, pro­vides a few shots from the game:

  

  

Florida weather looked men­ac­ing as ever with just 45 min­utes remain­ing before the kick­off of the 2009 col­lege foot­ball sea­son for the Uni­ver­sity of South Florida Bulls, but even a short down­pour couldn’t keep an ever-increasing stu­dent fan base from crowd­ing into the stands behind the North end­zone, with bod­ies adorned in green and gold body paint and voices car­ry­ing loudly through­out the expanses of Ray­mond James Sta­dium in antic­i­pa­tion of USF’s first game of the year against the Wof­ford Terriers.

PRISM Press Group founder and lead con­trib­u­tor Jason Roberts was one of two indi­vid­u­als down on the field dur­ing pre-game fes­tiv­i­ties in order to cap­ture images high­light­ing the build­ing antic­i­pa­tion sur­round­ing the promise of a new foot­ball sea­son, and here offers an exten­sive photo jour­nal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of one of the Big East conference’s most promi­nent pro­grams, in all its glory and grandeur.

As always, please note that all pho­tographs remain the sole prop­erty of Jason Roberts and may not be repro­duced with­out Jason’s explicit per­mis­sion. Such requests, along with ques­tions or com­ments regard­ing this piece, may be for­warded to Jason directly at jason@prismpressgroup.org.