7.14.11 In Related News

The highlight of recent Marquette related athletics news came yesterday, when men's lacrosse coach Joe Amplo announced his first recruiting class.  25 student athletes, composed of 13 freshmen, 6 sophomores and 6 juniors from 10 states and 2 Canadian provinces, will begin attending Marquette this fall and will all be redshirting for the 2012 "season" before Marquette begins play as a D1 independent in the spring of 2013.  Two things that jumped out at me immediately: 5 players have transferred from Hofstra, where Coach Amplo was most recently an assistant coach, and a player from 2011 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship Final Four team Denver is transferring to Marquette. 

Just to show you how fired up the NCAA is about Marquette's entry to men's lacrosse, the MU press release about the recruiting class is currently the top story on the NCAA's lacrosse page.

In other athletics news:

The Big East will move to an 18 game schedule for women's basketball in 2012-13 with the addition of TCU to the conference.  They will use the same schedule setup as the men, with 2 mirror opponents.

Valley Fields is hosting the 2011 U.S. Soccer Development Academy Finals Week this week.  This is the fourth annual event for U.S. Soccer, and the first time that the event is not being held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA.  The Under 17/18 match will be televised live from Valley Fields on ESPNU on Friday at noon Central time.

In a related note, U.S. Soccer noticed a unique furry visitor to Valley Fields and wrote about it on their site.

Men's soccer goalkeeper David Check was named Opus Student Athlete of the Week for this week for posting a shutout to push Milwaukee Bavarian SC to a 5-0 win and its first National Premier Soccer League Midwest Division Championship.  This puts the team in the NPSL finals later this month.

Track & Field added 14 student athletes to the team for this coming school year, 10 of which will also participate on the cross country team.

Last, but not least, UW-Milwaukee returns to the Bradley Center for their yearly beating at the hands of the men's basketball team on December 22.