Top K-State Moments from 2022
Jan 03, 2023 | Sports Extra, Athletics
By: D. Scott Fritchen
From a football Big 12 Championship to Ayoka Lee's historic performance to the hiring of new men's basketball head coach Jerome Tang, Kansas State athletics achieved excellence, multiple milestones and historic marks in 2022. A Men's High Jump Champion? Thank you, TJ Shankar. A historic fall season for men's golf? K-State can check that box, too. A first-ever appearance in a Big 12 Tournament? Yes, women's soccer achieved that thrilling feat.
From team to individual accolades, the Wildcats were brilliant in various arenas of competition in 2022.
Here are the top 10 athletic highlights from the year:
1. Football captures Big 12 Conference Championship with overtime victory
In one of the most memorable and important victories in the history of K-State football, the Wildcats outlasted No. 3 TCU, 31-28, in overtime to capture the 2022 Big 12 Championship title on December 3 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The victory gave the Wildcats their third Big 12 title in history, including their first since 2012, and sent them to the Sugar Bowl to face SEC powerhouse No. 5 Alabama. With the win over TCU, K-State rose to No. 9 in the final College Football Playoff Top 25. K-State put the clamps on TCU's offense with a fourth-down stop at the goal line in overtime. Then senior Ty Zentner kicked a 31-yard field goal to lift K-State to its first victory in a Big 12 title game since the Wildcats beat No. 1 Oklahoma, 35-7, in 2003. The win marked K-State's third victory over a top-10 opponent in 2022 — a school record.
2. Ayoka Lee sets NCAA women's Division I record with 61 points
On January 23, All-America candidate Ayoka Lee smashed No. 14 Oklahoma behind a NCAA women's Division I record-setting 61 points in a 94-65 victory — a performance that will go into lore alongside the most notable performances in the history of women's basketball and resulted in her K-State jersey and game basketball being put on display at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The 6-foot-6 junior center from Byron, Minnesota, shot 23-of-30 from the floor and went 15-for-17 from the foul line in 35 minutes. She topped Brittney Griner's Big 12 Conference record of 50 points on a layup with 9:01 left in the fourth quarter. She scored the most points by a Division I player in a single game of the 2021-22 season on a turnaround layup that gave her 53 points with 6:49 left to play. She went to the bench for good to a standing ovation at Bramlage Coliseum with 2:37 left in the game. She captured multiple national weekly honors following her historic feat.
3. Jerome Tang hired as men's basketball head coach and off to historic start
Beginning his introductory news conference on March 24 by proclaiming, "It's a great day to be a Wildcat!" new men's basketball head coach Jerome Tang instantly wowed K-State dignitaries and fans at the Shamrock Zone as he stood upon stage as the 25th head coach in men's basketball history. Tang served the previous 19 seasons as assistant and associate head coach at powerhouse Baylor, which won the 2021 national championship. "I didn't come to rebuild. I came to elevate," said Tang, who inherited a program that had experienced a few up-and-down seasons. Upon hiring a new staff and bringing on 13 new players with only Markquis Nowell and Ishmael Massoud returning to the roster, Tang is off to the best start by a first-year K-State head coach in history with a 12-1 record, capped by the Wildcats' 82-76 win over No. 24 West Virginia on Saturday in his first-ever Big 12 Conference contest as K-State head coach.
4. TJ Shankar returns high jump national title to Manhattan
A ball of emotion on June 10 at Hayward Track in Eugene, Oregon, TJ Shankar, in his final collegiate event, went out on top in capturing the 2022 Men's High Jump Championship title after a dramatic sudden death jump off against Georgia senior Darius Carbin. Shankar cleared a season-best 2.27 meters (7 feet, 5.25 inches) and Carbin fell short, instantly making Shankar the top collegiate high jumper in America and adding a poetic touch to one of the legendary careers in K-State track and field history, as Shankar also won the 2018 national title as a freshman. An eight-time All-American in indoor and outdoor track and field, Shankar won two NCAA Outdoor Championships and five Big 12 Conference Championships in the high jump.
5. Deuce Vaughn becomes second player in K-State football history to earn Consensus All-American in two seasons
Junior running back Deuce Vaughn became the second player in K-State history to be named a two-time Consensus All-American, as the NCAA on December 15 announced the list of players who received one of the top honors bestowed upon FBS football players. Vaughn joined cornerback Chris Canty (1995 and 1996) as the only two-time Consensus All-Americans in school history. In 2021, Vaughn became the 11th player in K-State history to be named Consensus All-American and the first since Tyler Lockett in 2014. Vaughn, a native of Round Rock, Texas, earned First Team All-America honors from the American Football Coaches Association, Associated Press, and Sporting News as an all-purpose player. To be in consideration for Consensus All-America, a player must be named First Team All-American on at least two of the five selected All-America teams — American Football Coaches Association, Associated Press, Football Writers Association of America, Sporting News, and Walter Camp Foundation.
6. Men's golf enjoys a historic fall season
The men's golf team officially made history on October 10. That's when the Wildcats captured the Oregon State Invitational, giving the Wildcats a school-record three consecutive team titles. The Wildcats began the fall season by winning the Wildcat Invitational on September 12, then won the Old Town Collegiate on September 26. It marked the first time since 1983 that K-State men's golf won back-to-back team titles. The victory in the Oregon State Invitational, which gave them three-straight wins, set them apart from any team in school history. K-State ascended to a No. 17 national ranking. The three wins also marked the most ever in a fall season and already ranks as the third-most wins in a single season — with an entire spring season still to go. All five scoring lineup golfers finished in the top-20 in three straight tournaments, also a first in school history.
7. Women's volleyball welcomes new Morgan Family Arena and new head coach Jason Mansfield
The women's volleyball program under first-year head coach Jason Mansfield will have a new home for the 2023 season with the construction of the $24 million Morgan Family Arena. The two-level, air-conditioned volleyball arena will feature a 3,100 seating capacity, two practice courts with retractable seating, two video boards, restrooms and concessions on both levels, team meeting rooms, a locker room, a team theater and lounge, coaching staff offices, a conference room and a staff locker room. Mansfield was hired on December 27 after stints as an assistant coach at Stanford and Washington, where he was a part of seven NCAA Final Fours and one national championship. Mansfield spent the past five seasons at Washington.
8. Women's basketball pulls off historic win against No. 4 Iowa
This game was supposed to feature Player-of-the-Year candidates in Ayoka Lee and Iowa's Caitlin Clark. With Lee unavailable following offseason surgery, K-State defeated No. 4 Iowa, 84-83, on November 17, marking the biggest regular-season non-conference victory in Manhattan in 39 years. K-State last beat a top-5 opponent when it toppled No. 5 Texas A&M, 71-67, on March 2, 2011 in Manhattan. The Wildcats beat No. 4 Iowa State, 69-63, on January 2, 2002 in Ames, Iowa. However, No. 4 Iowa marked the highest-ranked opponent K-State had beaten in the history of Bramlage Coliseum and the highest-ranked foe the Wildcats had defeated in Manhattan since a 58-50 win over No. 2 Old Dominion on December 4, 1982 in Ahearn Field House.
9. Dylan Phillips becomes new all-time home run king
At 4:12 p.m. on April 2, Dylan Phillips, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, hit a shot that sailed 402 feet over the right-center field wall at Tointon Family Stadium, marking the 38th home run of his career. No player to wear a K-State jersey had ever hit more. The blast carried a velocity of 99 miles per hour and came in the bottom of the first inning. An Oklahoma State sophomore right-hander named Victor Mederos, who had previously thrown heat, switched to a changeup. Whack. Phillips, a 6-foot, 220-pound fourth-year junior and preseason Third Team All-America pick by Collegiate Baseball, had hit six home runs in 25 games prior to his home run. He belted 10 home runs in 2019, five in 2020 and 16 in 2021, the most home runs in a single season. Phillips hit career home run No. 38 on the second pitch he saw on April 3. And it was historic.
10. Women's soccer participates in first Big 12 championship
It was a mountainous climb for the women's soccer program, which began from the ground up in 2016, qualified for the 2020 Big 12 Soccer Championship that was cancelled due to COVID, and came within one game of reaching the tournament in 2021. The Wildcats reached a milestone on October 30 when for the first time in the program's seven-year history they made their first appearance in the Big 12 Soccer Championship. During the season, the Wildcats tied the school record with six wins and collected eight points in the league standings to secure eighth place in the Big 12 standings. The Wildcats also tied the school record with three road wins and captured two victories over NCAA RPI top-100 opponents in Yale and Oklahoma.
From a football Big 12 Championship to Ayoka Lee's historic performance to the hiring of new men's basketball head coach Jerome Tang, Kansas State athletics achieved excellence, multiple milestones and historic marks in 2022. A Men's High Jump Champion? Thank you, TJ Shankar. A historic fall season for men's golf? K-State can check that box, too. A first-ever appearance in a Big 12 Tournament? Yes, women's soccer achieved that thrilling feat.
From team to individual accolades, the Wildcats were brilliant in various arenas of competition in 2022.
Here are the top 10 athletic highlights from the year:
1. Football captures Big 12 Conference Championship with overtime victory
In one of the most memorable and important victories in the history of K-State football, the Wildcats outlasted No. 3 TCU, 31-28, in overtime to capture the 2022 Big 12 Championship title on December 3 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The victory gave the Wildcats their third Big 12 title in history, including their first since 2012, and sent them to the Sugar Bowl to face SEC powerhouse No. 5 Alabama. With the win over TCU, K-State rose to No. 9 in the final College Football Playoff Top 25. K-State put the clamps on TCU's offense with a fourth-down stop at the goal line in overtime. Then senior Ty Zentner kicked a 31-yard field goal to lift K-State to its first victory in a Big 12 title game since the Wildcats beat No. 1 Oklahoma, 35-7, in 2003. The win marked K-State's third victory over a top-10 opponent in 2022 — a school record.
2. Ayoka Lee sets NCAA women's Division I record with 61 points
On January 23, All-America candidate Ayoka Lee smashed No. 14 Oklahoma behind a NCAA women's Division I record-setting 61 points in a 94-65 victory — a performance that will go into lore alongside the most notable performances in the history of women's basketball and resulted in her K-State jersey and game basketball being put on display at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The 6-foot-6 junior center from Byron, Minnesota, shot 23-of-30 from the floor and went 15-for-17 from the foul line in 35 minutes. She topped Brittney Griner's Big 12 Conference record of 50 points on a layup with 9:01 left in the fourth quarter. She scored the most points by a Division I player in a single game of the 2021-22 season on a turnaround layup that gave her 53 points with 6:49 left to play. She went to the bench for good to a standing ovation at Bramlage Coliseum with 2:37 left in the game. She captured multiple national weekly honors following her historic feat.
3. Jerome Tang hired as men's basketball head coach and off to historic start
Beginning his introductory news conference on March 24 by proclaiming, "It's a great day to be a Wildcat!" new men's basketball head coach Jerome Tang instantly wowed K-State dignitaries and fans at the Shamrock Zone as he stood upon stage as the 25th head coach in men's basketball history. Tang served the previous 19 seasons as assistant and associate head coach at powerhouse Baylor, which won the 2021 national championship. "I didn't come to rebuild. I came to elevate," said Tang, who inherited a program that had experienced a few up-and-down seasons. Upon hiring a new staff and bringing on 13 new players with only Markquis Nowell and Ishmael Massoud returning to the roster, Tang is off to the best start by a first-year K-State head coach in history with a 12-1 record, capped by the Wildcats' 82-76 win over No. 24 West Virginia on Saturday in his first-ever Big 12 Conference contest as K-State head coach.
4. TJ Shankar returns high jump national title to Manhattan
A ball of emotion on June 10 at Hayward Track in Eugene, Oregon, TJ Shankar, in his final collegiate event, went out on top in capturing the 2022 Men's High Jump Championship title after a dramatic sudden death jump off against Georgia senior Darius Carbin. Shankar cleared a season-best 2.27 meters (7 feet, 5.25 inches) and Carbin fell short, instantly making Shankar the top collegiate high jumper in America and adding a poetic touch to one of the legendary careers in K-State track and field history, as Shankar also won the 2018 national title as a freshman. An eight-time All-American in indoor and outdoor track and field, Shankar won two NCAA Outdoor Championships and five Big 12 Conference Championships in the high jump.
5. Deuce Vaughn becomes second player in K-State football history to earn Consensus All-American in two seasons
Junior running back Deuce Vaughn became the second player in K-State history to be named a two-time Consensus All-American, as the NCAA on December 15 announced the list of players who received one of the top honors bestowed upon FBS football players. Vaughn joined cornerback Chris Canty (1995 and 1996) as the only two-time Consensus All-Americans in school history. In 2021, Vaughn became the 11th player in K-State history to be named Consensus All-American and the first since Tyler Lockett in 2014. Vaughn, a native of Round Rock, Texas, earned First Team All-America honors from the American Football Coaches Association, Associated Press, and Sporting News as an all-purpose player. To be in consideration for Consensus All-America, a player must be named First Team All-American on at least two of the five selected All-America teams — American Football Coaches Association, Associated Press, Football Writers Association of America, Sporting News, and Walter Camp Foundation.
6. Men's golf enjoys a historic fall season
The men's golf team officially made history on October 10. That's when the Wildcats captured the Oregon State Invitational, giving the Wildcats a school-record three consecutive team titles. The Wildcats began the fall season by winning the Wildcat Invitational on September 12, then won the Old Town Collegiate on September 26. It marked the first time since 1983 that K-State men's golf won back-to-back team titles. The victory in the Oregon State Invitational, which gave them three-straight wins, set them apart from any team in school history. K-State ascended to a No. 17 national ranking. The three wins also marked the most ever in a fall season and already ranks as the third-most wins in a single season — with an entire spring season still to go. All five scoring lineup golfers finished in the top-20 in three straight tournaments, also a first in school history.
7. Women's volleyball welcomes new Morgan Family Arena and new head coach Jason Mansfield
The women's volleyball program under first-year head coach Jason Mansfield will have a new home for the 2023 season with the construction of the $24 million Morgan Family Arena. The two-level, air-conditioned volleyball arena will feature a 3,100 seating capacity, two practice courts with retractable seating, two video boards, restrooms and concessions on both levels, team meeting rooms, a locker room, a team theater and lounge, coaching staff offices, a conference room and a staff locker room. Mansfield was hired on December 27 after stints as an assistant coach at Stanford and Washington, where he was a part of seven NCAA Final Fours and one national championship. Mansfield spent the past five seasons at Washington.
8. Women's basketball pulls off historic win against No. 4 Iowa
This game was supposed to feature Player-of-the-Year candidates in Ayoka Lee and Iowa's Caitlin Clark. With Lee unavailable following offseason surgery, K-State defeated No. 4 Iowa, 84-83, on November 17, marking the biggest regular-season non-conference victory in Manhattan in 39 years. K-State last beat a top-5 opponent when it toppled No. 5 Texas A&M, 71-67, on March 2, 2011 in Manhattan. The Wildcats beat No. 4 Iowa State, 69-63, on January 2, 2002 in Ames, Iowa. However, No. 4 Iowa marked the highest-ranked opponent K-State had beaten in the history of Bramlage Coliseum and the highest-ranked foe the Wildcats had defeated in Manhattan since a 58-50 win over No. 2 Old Dominion on December 4, 1982 in Ahearn Field House.
9. Dylan Phillips becomes new all-time home run king
At 4:12 p.m. on April 2, Dylan Phillips, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, hit a shot that sailed 402 feet over the right-center field wall at Tointon Family Stadium, marking the 38th home run of his career. No player to wear a K-State jersey had ever hit more. The blast carried a velocity of 99 miles per hour and came in the bottom of the first inning. An Oklahoma State sophomore right-hander named Victor Mederos, who had previously thrown heat, switched to a changeup. Whack. Phillips, a 6-foot, 220-pound fourth-year junior and preseason Third Team All-America pick by Collegiate Baseball, had hit six home runs in 25 games prior to his home run. He belted 10 home runs in 2019, five in 2020 and 16 in 2021, the most home runs in a single season. Phillips hit career home run No. 38 on the second pitch he saw on April 3. And it was historic.
10. Women's soccer participates in first Big 12 championship
It was a mountainous climb for the women's soccer program, which began from the ground up in 2016, qualified for the 2020 Big 12 Soccer Championship that was cancelled due to COVID, and came within one game of reaching the tournament in 2021. The Wildcats reached a milestone on October 30 when for the first time in the program's seven-year history they made their first appearance in the Big 12 Soccer Championship. During the season, the Wildcats tied the school record with six wins and collected eight points in the league standings to secure eighth place in the Big 12 standings. The Wildcats also tied the school record with three road wins and captured two victories over NCAA RPI top-100 opponents in Yale and Oklahoma.
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