Soccer
It’s been milestone after milestone in Colleen Corbin’s first season in Manhattan leading the Wildcats. The first-year head coach directed her squad to the best start in school history, the most consecutive
wins, and now has set new program benchmarks for overall wins in a season and home wins in a season after her squad knocked off Cincinnati 2-0 last night at Buser Family Park to move to 7-4-3 on the season, and 2-3-2 in Big 12 play. The Wildcats were paced by seniors Jayce Woodward and Andra Mohler, as Woodward knocked in the first goal of the evening, while Mohler knocked in the second goal off an assist from Woodward.
Of course the wins are the headlines, but buried in the K-State notes are two more program records set last night:
With its two shutout halves on Thursday, K-State set the school record for shutout halves in a season with 21. The previous school record for shutout halves in a season was 20 in the 2021 season.
With its two goals, the Wildcats have set the school record for games with multiple goals scored at seven.
So yeah, these Cats are setting records at record pace this season — and there are still at least four more matches left on the slate. K-State currently sits at 10th in the Big 12 standings, and while only the top eight teams advance to the championship, the Cats still have an opportunity to move themselves into position to make the postseason. But it’s not going to be easy — #24 West Virginia, the #5 team in the Big 12, is in town this weekend. If the Cats can pull off the upset on Sunday afternoon, things could get very interesting.
Basketball
Earlier this week, just a couple weeks from the start of the season, the Big 12 finally released the full men’s basketball schedule with game times and TV information. And goodness…it’s a mess. The Wildcats will have games on all four major sports broadcast units across 10 different platforms, including: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN+, SEC Network; FOX, FS1; CBS, CBSSN; and Peacock. That’s ABC/ESPN, Fox, CBS, and NBC — at least there’s not a game on something annoying like FloSports. And they’ve helped get the students checked out early by putting the KU game in Manhattan on Jan. 24th. At least the return trip to Lawrence is on Senior Day, so we can ignore that loss pretty quickly. (Sorry for being so pessimistic)
And while we’ve had the schedule, we did just get the drop of the broadcast schedule for women’s basketball. While nearly every home game will be on ESPN+ (as well as nearly road Big 12 game), the Cats were selected for five spots on “TV”, with three on FS1 and two on ESPN2. Notably, both games against Iowa State were selected for TV, while only the KU game in Lawrence will be broadcast.
But it could be a rough season for the MittieCats, as the very young team is already “testing [Mittie’s] patience”, forcing him to deal with a roster that lacks the senior leadership that defined it much of the past several seasons. The talent is there, but it could be a while before it shows up on the court.
Other Notes
While it took to nearly the start of the season to get basketball schedules, we get several months to digest the baseball schedule as the full slate got released on Wednesday. The Cats have a solid home lineup this season, including the annual visits from Wichita State and Nebraska (assuming weather cooperates), as well as Big 12 series against Arizona State, TCU, Oklahoma State, and KU.
And while the headline is a bit misleading, with his first full recruiting class K-State TFXC director Travis Geopfert and his staff have landed a pretty impressive haul. Notably, the Cats picked up four transfers from KU, a trio from Iowa, and a pair from Arkansas. They also recruited the state of Kansas heavily, and came away with 12 high school athletes from the Sunflower State, nearly all with state championships and several with state records to their name. Many have long complained about some of the state’s best track, field, and cross country athletes leaving the state, but Geopfert seems to want to buck that trend, and made a big splash this go around.
