A few from MU wrestling vs OSU

Here’s a few shots from a wrestling meet from a few weeks back. Missouri took a hard fought loss that was shown best during Devon Mellon’s match against Alan Gelogaev. Mellon took a shot to the nose early in the first round which caused a steady flow of blood. But Mellon kept at it even though he needed near constant attention to keep the blood in check.

Missouri athletic trainer Shane Bishop, right, tends to heavyweight Devin Mellon during a time out. Mellon suffered a bloody nose early in his match with Oklahoma State's Alan Gelogaev that caused frequent time outs to redress and clean up the bleeding.

Oklahoma State's Chris Perry holds his position as Missouri's Dorian Henderson attempts to escape. Henderson lost 7-2.

Independence Bowl

November and December easily saw the most travel I’ve ever done in a short period of time. Part of that came from driving down to Shreveport, La. to shoot the Missouri Tigers in the Independence Bowl for the Columbia Daily Tribune. I woke up at 5 a.m. and drove down from my parents’ house in Arkansas the day of the game. Something like a seven hour drive or so. The day after I drove back to Columbia. If I remember right I clocked about 940 miles in two days. Anyway…Photos!

Missouri linebacker Zaviar Gooden, right, snares the ball as it rolls off the back of North Carolina receiver Dwight Jones (83) for an interception during the Tigers’ 41-24 victory in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.

MU quarterback James Franklin (1) — who accounted for 142 of the Tigers’ 337 rushing yards in Monday’s 41-24 victory over North Carolina — works his way past Charles Brown during the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.

Be sure to check out the rest of the photos at ColumbiaTribune.com.

Football Portraits

A couple of weeks ago I was tasked with covering Missouri’s football media and fan day. This included some portraits of a few players for featured articles in the Tribune’s college and high school football preview insert, First and Ten. It’d been a while since I’d done a portrait, and the room I was assigned to use at the stadium was the visiting locker room, which didn’t really have air so to speak. So not only was I nervous, I was sweaty. But then again, everyone in that room was sweaty.

A few days before Parker, the photo editor, and I went down to the Trib’s studio and worked out some setups for the portraits. There is a basic look that we’ve gone with for the First and Ten and we wanted to stick to that while still visually alluding to the stories the photos would go with.

For quarterback James Franklin the premise was pretty simple. Franklin was raised in a relatively sheltered home and ended up becoming a pretty modest, well mannered, and nice guy because of it. So the light set up was pretty simple. Two speedlights set off to the side about even with his head. The rest was letting Franklin be the guy he was and getting that All-American smile out of him. Which wasn’t hard. The conversation when I gave him directions went like this:

Me: “Let’s see that smile you give all the ladies.” Franklin: “Nah, just the one.”

The second portrait of the day involved three of Missouri’s linebackers, which the sports department had nicknamed the God Squad. The gist of the story was these three guys have strong Christian beliefs that they believe help them to succeed not only off the field, but on it as well. This quote from the story pretty much sums it up:

“The fusion between faith and football is not unique in college or pro locker rooms, but there’s a particularly strong thread tying together the 2011 Missouri defense, a collection of mild-mannered, devout Christians who would like nothing more than to rip off your head.”

The concept for this shot wasn’t too much of a stretch. I wanted to do something with god light and Parker suggested grouping them for a single portrait. We were also trying to streamline things as much as possible since we weren’t sure who I would get access to first, so we didn’t want to make the portraits radically different. The result, in my opinion, kind of combines god light with a little bit of Bohemian Rhapsody.

There are a few things I would have done different, but overall I was pleased with the outcome.

Check out the stories on columbiatribune.com:

Strict upbringing shapes Missouri’s new quarterback

MU defense weaved together with strong thread of faith, ferocity

Softball Super Regional

Sorry for all the softball posts, but this is my last one for a while. Sunday, Missouri defeated Washington 6-3 to advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, Okla. (which I will not get the chance to go to). These are my favorite frames from the game. You can see more at ColumbiaTribune.com (Hint: Use the “Start Slide Show” button to avoid hitting the 10 click paywall, unless you’re awesome and already have a subscription.)

Catherine Lee and Rhea Taylor, left, embrace while the rest of their teammates celebrate their 6-3 win over Washington in the NCAA Super Regional on Sunday. Missouri will make their third straight appearance in the Women's College World Series.

Missouri's Rhea Taylor, left, and Catherine Lee mimic playing horns in the dugout between innings while Aretha Franklin's "Respect" plays over the loudspeakers.

Missouri's Nicole Hudson beats the tag at home from Washington's Shawna Wright to score in the first inning.

Softball

From left to right, Missouri's Lisa Simmons, Catherine Lee, and Megan Christopher carry Shana White, Rhea Taylor, and Abby Vock on their backs following Missouri's 8-0 shutout of DePaul on Sunday during the NCAA Regionals in Columbia, Mo.

I covered the last games of the 2011 NCAA Columbia Regional softball tournament on Sunday. Missouri needed to win two games against DePaul in order to advance to the Super Regional. DePaul had beaten Missouri in an early round the day before in 11 innings to put Missouri one loss from elimination.

But the Tigers came back on Sunday behind their ace pitcher Chelsea Thomas, who held the DePaul offense to just three runs in the first game and completely silenced them in a shutout in the second. Rhea Taylor took up the lead for Missouri’s offense by hitting a home run in both games and finishing out with a total of six RBIs.

Missouri will host Washington this weekend for the Super Regional.

See a full gallery of images on ColumbiaTribune.com.