SectionsMissouri State handball wins national title
Brent Shipman
Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: News
Missouri State handball coach Tommy Burnett finally has his 10th championship.
Fighting off 45 other teams in a five-day tournament, the Bears secured first-place in both the men's and women's divisions to win their 10th National Collegiate Handball Championship in the last 16 years.
"Ten is a nice, round number," Burnett said. "We wanted it really bad."
Missouri State combined for a total 2,081 points, easily outpacing second-place Lake Forest, who finished with 1,833.
"We got a really good coach that's put in a lot of years," handball president and sophomore Eric Hillgren said. "He deserves a lot of credit.
"He's just a really great guy and puts his team in the right mood and in the right setting."
Burnett said that while the men's team took control early on, the women struggled out of the gate.
"We were worried about our girls early," he said. "We thought they should have won a couple matches they didn't win.
"The second day they came through like champs. We had seven critical matches and five of them went in our favor. That put us over the hump."
One of those key wins came from Angie Miller, upsetting a heavily favored player from the National University of Ireland, Galway.
"I was told I was going to get annihilated my second match because they were the 8th seed and I was 23rd," Miller said. "But I went in there no worries and actually pulled off the win to stay in that bracket."
With this being the last go-around for many on the team, washing the taste of last year's second-place finish out of their mouths was a nice way to go out.
"(Saturday) night we were going crazy when we knew we had it wrapped up," Miller said. "This is the biggest graduating class we've had, so to do it for them is amazing."
Fighting off 45 other teams in a five-day tournament, the Bears secured first-place in both the men's and women's divisions to win their 10th National Collegiate Handball Championship in the last 16 years.
"Ten is a nice, round number," Burnett said. "We wanted it really bad."
Missouri State combined for a total 2,081 points, easily outpacing second-place Lake Forest, who finished with 1,833.
"We got a really good coach that's put in a lot of years," handball president and sophomore Eric Hillgren said. "He deserves a lot of credit.
"He's just a really great guy and puts his team in the right mood and in the right setting."
Burnett said that while the men's team took control early on, the women struggled out of the gate.
"We were worried about our girls early," he said. "We thought they should have won a couple matches they didn't win.
"The second day they came through like champs. We had seven critical matches and five of them went in our favor. That put us over the hump."
One of those key wins came from Angie Miller, upsetting a heavily favored player from the National University of Ireland, Galway.
"I was told I was going to get annihilated my second match because they were the 8th seed and I was 23rd," Miller said. "But I went in there no worries and actually pulled off the win to stay in that bracket."
With this being the last go-around for many on the team, washing the taste of last year's second-place finish out of their mouths was a nice way to go out.
"(Saturday) night we were going crazy when we knew we had it wrapped up," Miller said. "This is the biggest graduating class we've had, so to do it for them is amazing."
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