UW Mar­tial Artist Wins Bronze Medal at Inter­na­tional Karate Tournament

Ben Froide­vaux (on right side of podium) at the 2010 Basel Open Karate Mas­ters Inter­na­tional Karate Tournament.(Courtesy)

Decem­ber 14, 2010 — Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Karate Club instruc­tor and Out­reach Tech­nol­ogy Ser­vices tech­ni­cian Ben Froide­vaux won a bronze medal at the recent 2010 Basel Open Karate Mas­ters Inter­na­tional Karate Tour­na­ment held on Decem­ber 11–12 in Frenk­endorf, Switzer­land just out­side of Basel.  There were over 560 com­peti­tors from 15 coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing at the tour­na­ment, includ­ing National team mem­bers from France, Ger­many, Italy, Den­mark, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lux­em­bourg, Rus­sia, Turk­menistan and Switzer­land.  Now train­ing with élite mem­bers of the Swiss National Karate Team, Froide­vaux (a fifth degree black belt orig­i­nally from Neucha­tel, Switzer­land) rep­re­sented his native coun­try in the Veteran’s Divi­sion (ages 40–50) in both Kata (forms) and Kumite (spar­ring).  Froide­vaux was awarded a bronze medal (3^rd place) for Kumite and also placed 4^th in Kata.

“It’s very inter­est­ing and edu­ca­tional to expe­ri­ence the dif­fer­ences of mar­tial arts com­pe­ti­tion in Europe and the USA”, says Froide­vaux (a 3-time State Games of Amer­ica National karate cham­pion) who also holds mul­ti­ple regional and Wyoming state titles in karate and fenc­ing.  “Like in the USA, the Euro­pean tour­na­ment orga­niz­ers and ref­er­ees are strict, with well-enforced rules for the safety of the par­tic­i­pants, which lim­its the num­bers of injuries that can hap­pen”, accord­ing to Froide­vaux.  “Although the karate styles are sim­i­lar to those in the USA, the choice of Katas in com­pe­ti­tion is stan­dard­ized and the level of dif­fi­culty and per­for­mance is very high, which makes for great spir­ited com­pe­ti­tion, inter­na­tional cama­raderie, and an enthu­si­as­tic fan-based atmos­phere of friendly rivalry much like that at a good foot­ball or bas­ket­ball game.”

Cow­girl ten­nis con­cludes reg­u­lar sea­son with two wins

Symona Symkova returns a vol­ley dur­ing the first match of the day. (Jeremy Stegall/LFP)

The Wyoming Cow­girl ten­nis team fin­ished its reg­u­lar sea­son strong with a pair of Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence wins over Col­orado State and Air Force last week.

… Con­tinue Reading

Wyoming shuts out North Dakota

Wyoming Senior, Sarah Sum­mer­field, earned her 65^th career sin­gles vic­tory and moved into first-place on the all-time UW women’s ten­nis wins list, as the Cow­girls returned home after being on the road for more than a month and earned a deci­sive 7–0 shut-out over the North Dakota Fight­ing Sioux, to con­clude non-conference play at the UW Ten­nis Courts, Fri­day afternoon.

Wyoming (10−5, 1–1 Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence) plays its final home matches against rivals BYU and Utah this week­end, while North Dakota (6−10) faces North­ern Col­orado in Greeley.

It was the first out­door home match of the sea­son, and the Cow­girls got off to a bit of a slow start with the windy con­di­tions, but they adjusted well and went onto sweep the dou­bles matches.

“I thought the con­di­tions were really dif­fi­cult. The wind was blow­ing and it was a lit­tle chilly,” UW coach Kati Gyu­lai said. “I thought we had a slower start, but we picked it up and we’re happy to win. We look for­ward to tomor­row.” … Con­tinue Reading

UW ten­nis opens MWC play with split

The Wyoming Cow­girls ten­nis team began Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence play in Fort Worth, Texas, with a win over New Mex­ico and a close loss to host TCU.

Wyoming (9−5, 1–1 MWC) shut-out the Lobos 7–0 for its first win over New Mex­ico in school his­tory.

“This was a good win for us and a great way to start con­fer­ence play,” UW head coach Kati Gyu­lai said in a news release.”

Simona Synkova and Kim Van Ginkel kicked things off for the Cow­girls with a con­vinc­ing 8–2 dou­bles vic­tory over Ash­ley Bon­ner and Anya Vil­lanueva of UNM. Alexan­dra Kovacs and Rebecca Berger won 8–4 over Michaela Oldani and Amy Ship­pard, while Carly Van Hollen and Sarah Sum­mer­field cruised to an 8–2 win against Elaine Bourdages and Laura Richard­son to give Wyoming a 1–0 lead.

The Cow­girls dom­i­nated the sin­gles events. Kovacs won the first match 6–2, 6–1 over Vil­lanueva, and Sum­mer­field beat Bon­ner 6–1, 6–1. Synkova defeated Kris­ten Eggle­ston 6–3, 6–2, Berger downed Richard­son 6–0, 6–2, Van Ginkel ousted Oldani 6–0, 6–0, and Sasa Nem­cova bested Manu­mea Durie 6–3, 7–5 to com­plete the shut-out.  … Con­tinue Reading

Cow­girls Tame Bears

The Wyoming Cow­girls ten­nis team got back on the win­ning track in a big way by sweep­ing the North­ern Col­orado Bears 7–0 at the UW Ten­nis Courts Sat­ur­day after­noon.

Wyoming (3−2) won all nine matches against North­ern Col­orado (1−5).

The Cow­girls snapped a two-match los­ing streak and got some much needed con­fi­dence from the win.

“We felt that we were to loose and to relaxed last week­end and not enough focus,” UW head coach Kati Gyu­lai said. “We wanted to bring up the focus and clean up our ser­vice game, which we did. We’re happy we got the win. It’s going to give us a lit­tle momen­tum and we look for­ward to going out to Texas and get­ting some wins there.”

Simona Synkova and Kim Van Ginkel got things started in dou­bles by beat­ing the sis­ter duo Tabitha and Tiffany Knop of UNC 8–3. Alexan­dra Kovacs and Rebecca Berger con­tin­ued the win­ning trend for the Cow­girls with an 8–3 vic­tory over Jen­nifer Whate­ley and Syd­ney Bell, while Sarah Sum­mer­field and Sasa Nem­cova won 8–1 over Luiza Cromp­ton and Han­nah LaFor­est of UNC.

Sum­mer­field upped her dual record to 4–1 with a 6–3, 6–2 straight set win over Tabitha Knop. Tiffany Knop would be the next Cow­girl vic­tim falling in straight sets to Kovacs 6–0, 6–2. Synkova won a tough match over Whate­ley 6–3, 4–6, 10–6 to keep the unbeaten streak on the day alive for Wyoming. The Cow­girls would coast from there with Berger, Van Ginkel, and Nem­cova earn­ing straight set vic­to­ries over Cromp­ton, Bell, and Jill Kap­pel 6–1, 6–1—6–4, 6–4—6–2, 6–2.

“We def­i­nitely needed this win to give us some con­fi­dence. It feels good after our loss (to Santa Bar­bara) last week­end. We’re all really excited about it,” Sum­mer­field said. “We need to keep work­ing on being aggres­sive, com­ing to the net, get­ting our serves in, and accu­racy. We’re just going to keep work­ing on that this week.”

Wyoming will now hit the road for nearly a month and a half start­ing with a trip to Las Cruces, N.M., to face the Aggies of New Mex­ico State on Fri­day at 1 p.m.

“On the road for us it’s not that big of a fac­tor,” Gyu­lai said. “We’re used to being on the road; we very sel­dom get to play at home unfor­tu­nately. We’re ready. The con­di­tions will be dif­fer­ent play­ing out­doors, but we’ll adjust. We’ll have to get the job done.”

Cow­girls clinch sec­ond with Bor­der War win over CSU

The Wyoming Cow­girls set numer­ous Pool records and won their second-straight dual defeat­ing the Bor­der War rival Col­orado State Rams 162–138 at the Cor­bett Pool in Laramie Thurs­day evening.

Wyoming (13−1, and 6–1 Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence) with the win clinched second-place in the MWC regular-season stand­ings for the first time in school his­tory in what has arguably been its best sea­son to date.  BYU won the regular-season cham­pi­onship.  The Cougars are the only team to beat the Cow­girls all sea­son.  Col­orado State (8−2, and 6–2 MWC) fin­ished third-place in the final con­fer­ence standings.

Cow­girl swim­mer Shelby Bull and diver Stephanie Ortiz both are com­ing off MWC Swim­mer and Diver of the week hon­ors and quickly picked up right where they left off against San Diego State by dom­i­nat­ing the Rams today.  … Con­tinue Reading

Cow­boys wrestlers dom­i­nate North­ern Colorado

The Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Cow­boy wrestling team came out strong in
their match up against the Uni­ver­sity of North­ern Col­orado Bears in the
Wyo Sports Com­plex Fri­day night. The Wyoming cow­boys dom­i­nated the UNC
Bears and at one point lead in team scor­ing by 30–0.