Best Miami Sports Moments
Michelle Burwell
Issue date: 12/1/08 Section: Best of '08
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The team lost their second game in overtime to Boston University, who went on to win the tournament.
Senior forward Brian Kaufman says the team felt a little extra pressure throughout the season since they spent ten weeks as the No. 1 ranked team.
"You knew going in to every game that there was a target on your back," he says.
The team's goals for this year are to be at their best at the end of the season and to make it to the "Frozen Four" in the national tournament.
 The Women's basketball team celebrates their victory |
More impressively, the team became the first women's basketball team in Miami history to earn an invitation to the NCAA National Tournament.
Senior point guard, Ashley Hawkins, said the team felt a sense of responsibility to win the game, especially for their seniors.
"We had played every team in the MAC and the games we lost were games that we knew we should have won," says Hawkins. "So we went into the MAC Tournament confident because we knew what we were capable of doing."
Guard Courtney Reed says, "The feeling of being the first team ever in Miami history [to win the MAC Championship] is an astonishing memory and feeling."
Though they lost to the University of Louisville in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, they will forever be remembered as the team that made Miami University history.
3.) Miami University junior, Karen Frazier, competes in the 2008 swimming Olympic Trials in the 100 meter breaststroke.
Frazier says she had set a goal of making it to the Olympic Trials when she was in high school and first realized that it was an attainable goal.
Even though she says she didn't swim her best race at the trials, it was still a dream come true.
 Miami's home swimming pool |
"I was super, super nervous," says Frazier. "It didn't hit me until the last second that I was swimming for a spot in the Olympics. I loved every second of it, though."
4.) Ryan McHugh competes at the 2008 swimming Olympic trials.
Though McHugh didn't qualify for the U.S. Olympic team, the former Miami varisty swimmer felt he had achieved his goals.
"It was truly a great experience," McHugh says. "I wanted to use it as a meet to end my career on."
And quite a career it was.
According to a Miami news release, only two athletes have ever swum a faster second half of the 100 meter freestyle than McHugh did at the trials: Caesar Cielo, the 2007 and 2008 NCAA Champion in the 50 freestyle, and Michael Phelps, 8-time gold medal winner at the 2008 Olympics.
McHugh swam for Miami for four years, earning much collegiate and national recognition along the way. Last year, as a senior at Miami, McHugh had the fastest RedHawk times in the 50, 100 and 200 yard freestyle.
5.) Dan Huling makes national news.
Huling graduated from Miami University in 2006 with plans of heading out into the real world. Though Huling spent four years on the Miami University track and field team, he never thought he could make a career out of the sport.
But, just two weeks after graduation, Huling finished third in the 3,000 meter steeplechase at the U.S. National Championships. Overnight he went from being an ordinary college graduate to holding the No. 3 steeplechase position in the United States.
"That's when I realized that I could actually make a career out of this," Huling says.
He went on to compete in the 2008 Olympic Trials this summer.
 Dan Huling leads the pack in the Olympic Trials |
Though Huling placed fifth in the meet and only the top three positions make the U.S. Olympic steeplechase team, he wasn't completely discouraged.
He believes the 2012 Olympic games could still be in his future.
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