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Hefferman: Kopach always off and running for Saluki baseball | Sports Column | Todd Hefferman | thesouthern.com Tonight A few clouds overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 62F Mika Zibanejad Jersey. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Updated: April 25, 2017 @ 3:52 am SIU's Connor Kopach slides into second base in the fourth inning, but is forced out as Austin Peay's Max Remy was able to keep his foot on the bag and hold onto the ball after making a difficult catch at Itchy Jones Stadium Tuesday. Todd Hefferman Todd Hefferman has covered SIU athletics since 2008. A University of Iowa grad, he is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and a Heisman Trophy voter. Whenever Todd Hefferman posts new content, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox with a link. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. SIU's Connor Kopach slides into second base in the fourth inning, but is forced out as Austin Peay's Max Remy was able to keep his foot on the bag and hold onto the ball after making a difficult catch at Itchy Jones Stadium Tuesday. Ty King was one of the few pitchers from Tennessee Tech to even glance at the runner at second base Sunday, but there was a good reason for that.SIU's Connor Kopach never seems to be happy with first base. The junior second baseman set a Northwoods League record with 50 stolen bases last summer, and was looking for No. 26 this season in the fourth inning with a big lead off second base. Kopach, a 6-foot, 175-pound speedster out of Westmont, was about a third of the way toward third before sliding in ahead of Trevor Putzig's tag.It wasn't all out of instinct. "It's based on the pitcher's leg kick, and the pitch I think he's gonna throw here because it's a lot harder to get to third base," said Kopach, whose 26 stolen bases on 30 attempts this spring are more than he had his previous three seasons Rick Nash Jersey, combined. "It's a shorter throw. Just trying to figure out a lot of stuff, and just try to get the best jump possible."Kopach stole four bases in SIU's 13-8 win over the Golden Eagles, who were ranked 26th in the country by Collegiate Baseball. His four bags tied for the most stolen bases in one game this season in the NCAA, and were the most by a Saluki since 1992. Kopach's 26 steals on 30 attempts rank third in the NCAA. SIU's leadoff hitter went 3 for 4 Sunday to set the table for the Salukis (21-20), who finished off a three-game sweep with an unusual amount of offense. SIU scored 29 runs off 37 hits in the series after getting just 12 runs in its previous five games.Saluki first baseman Greg Lambert, who drove in seven runs Sunday, one off the school record, said it all started at the top."If he hits a single, it's basically a triple," Lambert said. "He gets on base and steals some bases, it helps some guys in the middle of the lineup, me, Ryan (Smith), Logan (Blackfan), Jake (Hand) relax at the plate. It makes it a lot easier to hit him in."With seven stolen bases this weekend, SIU earned its 70th swipe in 93 tries, the most since 1995. With three more steals, Kopach will enter the Salukis' top 10 all-time for one year and tie Jim Dwyer's 29 bags in 1971.  With 16 games left on the schedule, barring rainouts, Kopach could make a run at Bert Newman's record of 42 set in 1976.• MVC to host NCAA men's basketball regionals: The Missouri Valley Conference was awarded an NCAA men's basketball tournament regional in Kansas City in 2019 and a first/second-round site in St. Louis in 2020 by the association last week.The Valley will host a regional semifinal and final at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2019 and first and second-round games at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis in 2020. It will be the league's second time hosting at the Sprint Center, which had first and second-round games in 2013, and the fourth NCAA Tournament event at the Scottrade Center. The Valley hosted a men's regional there in 1998, second and third-round games there in 2014 and first and second-round games in 2016. I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site consitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.Drake was also awarded a first/second-round site in the 2019 tournament at Wells Fargo Center in Des Moines.The Valley has also hosted two women's basketball Final Fours at the Scottrade Center https://www.shopfornyrangers.com/59-pavel-buchnevich-jersey, in 2001 and 2009, and the men's Final Four at the Edward Jones Dome in 2005. Between 1998-2010, the Valley hosted nine NCAA men's or women's tournament events in St. Louis.• The NFL draft begins Thursday night in Philadelphia, live on ESPN beginning at 7, and runs through Saturday. Former Salukis Chase Allen, Josh Straughan and Deondre Barnett have received the most noise from NFL teams off this year's team.Former Saluki linebacker Jayson DiManche, who was out of the NFL in 2016, is back in with the San Francisco 49ers. He signed a free agent deal earlier this month. He played in 29 games between 2013-15 with Cincinnati and Cleveland after signing with the Bengals as an undrafted free agent.Tight end MyCole Pruitt is still with the Bears after joining them late last season. Pruitt played in all 16 games for Minnesota in 2015 as a rookie, starting three games, but only got into two last season before signing with Chicago https://www.shopfornyrangers.com/37-jimmy-vesey-jersey. Pruitt played in two games with the Bears, catching one pass for six yards.Former SIU defensive end Ken Boatright is fighting for a roster spot with the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League. Former Saluki safety Anthony Thompson, a Montreal native, played in all 18 games for the Lions last season after getting drafted in the second round. He had eight tackles on defense and six on special teams. TODD HEFFERMAN covers SIU athletics for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at todd.hefferman@thesouthern https://www.shopfornyrangers.com/46-marc-staal-jersey.com, 618-351-5087, or on Twitter at @THefferman. Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,racist or sexually-oriented language.PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.Don t Threaten. Threats of harming anotherperson will not be tolerated.Be Truthful. Don t knowingly lie about anyoneor anything.Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ismthat is degrading to another person.Be Proactive. Use the Report link oneach comment to let us know of abusive posts.Share with Us. We d love to hear eyewitnessaccounts, the history behind an article.

O'Brien excited about Texans' QBs, mum on Tony Romo - NFL.com Bill O'Brien won't take the bait and pine for Tony Romo to join the Houston Texans. Speaking with NFL Network's Judy Battista, in an interview that will air Monday on Up To The Minute Live at 5 p.m. ET, from the Annual League Meeting in Phoenix Joel Ward Jersey, O'Brien again declined to talk about the possibility of adding Romo, and instead praised the two quarterbacks on his roster https://www.shopforwsh.com/50-ryan-stanton-jersey. Well first of all https://www.shopforwsh.com/22-dennis-maruk-jersey, Tony is under contract so he's a Dallas Cowboy, O'Brien said. We feel like, right now, we have two quarterbacks that'll be there on April 17, the beginning of our offseason program Tim Gleason Jersey. It'll be Tom Savage and Brandon Weeden. We are really looking forward to working with those guys https://www.shopforwsh.com/17-chris-conner-jersey. Both those guys can throw the football. Tom is a guy who played two or three games for us last year, played well, did some good things for our football team. Still a young player, so we're real excited to work with him. We're excited to be working with Brandon. Two years ago, he helped us win a couple games as our starting quarterback, so that's where it is right now. Now, every day in this league is a fluid situation. Every day, whether it's the draft or free agency or someone gets released or whatever that is. But today, as we sit here right now, we're excited and we will be excited about who we have in that room, and of course, over the next few weeks, maybe we add to that room, maybe we don't... While the Cowboys and Texans have an intrastate starring competition regarding Romo, it's reasonable if O'Brien's praise of Savage and Weeden reminds you of his famous Hard Knocks declaration in 2015 that both those kids can play when stumping for Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer. O'Brien doubled down on his belief that Savage can be a starting quarterback if the Texans don't add a veteran quarterback. (The unspoken Romo speculation is the grease in which all quarterback discussions marinate this offseason.) Absolutely, O'Brien responded about Savage's ability to start. He came into some tough games, the Jacksonville game last year that we had to win. We were down in the game, he helped us come back. He helped us beat Cincinnati on Christmas Eve, which was a big game that we had to win to clinch the South. We knew we had to win because of what happened earlier in the day in our division. And he helped us win that game. He got injured, and that's been kind of one of the things that's happened to him. He's been injured over the last three years of his career. But if you look at the history of the league, there's a number of guys who have played that were injured early in their career. Tom is a smart guy, he can throw the ball really well, he knows our system and he's a guy that we're real excited about working with. Savage certainly was an upgrade on Brock Osweiler last season. The 26-year-old has the arm to open up a previously restricted offense and understands O'Brien's system. While we are skeptical of Savage's ability to lead a playoff-ready team deep into the postseason, O'Brien believes the former fourth-round pick has the talent and confidence, if he can stay healthy. I believe he can, the coach said. Now look, I think the thing about the injury question, that's a tough question for any coach to answer. Ultimately he knows what he needs to do to stay healthy. He's a smart guy. He's actually worked very hard to change his body in the years that he's been with us. He's gotten stronger and in better shape, more flexible. But you know, when he plays the game maybe he needs to do things a little bit smarter with the experience that he has now, to stay healthy for 16 games. If or when the Cowboys release Romo and the Texans dive into the fray, this entire post becomes mostly irrelevant. Yet, with Romo's injury history, we could still see O'Brien's faith in Savage put to the test in important games in 2017. Draft facts Ohio State could have 3 members of its secondary selected in the first round of the 2017 draft. That s only happened one other time in NFL history. View 2017 NFL Enterprises LLC. NFL and the NFL shield design are registered trademarks of the National Football League.The team names, logos and uniform designs are registered trademarks of the teams indicated. All other NFL-related trademarks are trademarks of the National Football League. NFL footage NFL Productions LLC. 2017 NFL Enterprises LLC. NFL and the NFL shield design are registered trademarks of the National Football League.The team names, logos and uniform designs are registered trademarks of the teams indicated. All other NFL-related trademarks are trademarks of the National Football League. NFL footage NFL Productions LLC. PRIVACY POLICY | Terms & Conditions NFL News CONTENT