Academy sports recap: Falcons snap 47-game losing streak

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SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) --  Karl Bolt's 11th inning walk-off home run snapped the Air Force Academy's 47-game Mountain West Conference losing streak April 30 at home.

The Falcons defeated Brigham Young University 8-7 in a game called by umpires April 29 because of darkness. The game was tied 7-7 after nine innings.

Bolt, who was hitless in four previous at bats, drilled a 2-0 slider from BYU reliever Justin Su’a over the fence in left-center for his 10th long-ball of the year. This was the Falcons first conference win since defeating BYU 17-11 on May 17, 2003. The academy lost to BYU 17-2 in game one of the double header April 29.

In game three of the series, BYU broke open a 7-7 tie game with nine runs in the seventh to win 17-9 on April 30.

In other academy sports news, Nick Welch and Antoine Hood received top honors at the men's basketball banquet April 28 in Colorado Springs. Welch and Hood shared the Bob Spear Award, given to the student-athlete with outstanding achievement in academics, athletics and military performance.

Second-seeded BYU made sure No. 6 seed Air Force didn’t post another upset at the MWC Men’s Tennis Championships on April 29 in San Diego. The Cougars defeated the Falcons 4-0 in the semifinals after Air Force beat third-seeded University of New Mexico on April 28. The Falcons end their season with an 18-10 record.

The women’s distance medley relay team shattered the academy record by nearly 30 seconds, April 29 at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa. The quartet of Kelly Robinson, Jami Hodge, Cindy Dawson and Kristin Trichler finished at 11 minutes 26.41 seconds, topping the previous record of 11:53.57 set in 2003. The team finished fourth overall. Dana Pounds took the top spot in the javelin with a throw of 181 feet, two inches, beating the runner-up by nearly seven feet; Makisi Haleck matched his career-best pole vault height of 17 feet, 6.5 inches to finish third.

Despite mounting a late rally to force overtime, the Falcon lacrosse team was unable to complete the upset, falling 10-9 at 15th-ranked University of Denver on April 30. The Falcons end their season 4-8 overall and 1-4 in league play.

Led by sophomore Tyler Goulding’s 3-under-par performance, the Air Force golf team fired a team-best round of 293 on April 30 to wrap up the 2005 Mountain West Conference Championship. The Falcons finished the tournament in eighth place with a three-round total of 907, finishing just three strokes behind seventh-place University of Utah. Following the championship tournament, Goulding was one of 11 players named to the WMC 2005 men’s golf all-conference team. He becomes just the second Falcon in school history to earn all-MWC honors.