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The Missouri State handball team had the opportunity to host the national collegiate tournament last year, but declined. The Bears wanted everything to be perfect, and it was.
Just a couple months after renaming the Plaster Stadium courts on campus to the “Dr. Thomas H. Burnett Handball Courts” the Bears honored their coach with a pair national titles; 13th combined team, 14th women’s title, a year after winning the combined title at Arizona State.
“That’s the whole key,” said Burnett. “They’re not going to come into our house and push us around as the old football coaches say.”
Burnett started the handball program, a club sport, in the mid-1980s. He doesn’t get paid for coaching the team, but he’s been there every step of the way, and on Saturday night he was honored as the 2017 coach of the year.
“This is a special group,” said Burnett. “We’ve had some real special teams over the years, so we wanted to do it. The university refinished the floor and everything cleaned up. We’ve had a lot of compliments.”
MSU was led individually by Sam Esser, who earned All-American honors, falling in a tiebreak in the men’s open final. Esser teamed with Max Langmack to win the men’s open doubles championship, beating the team from Lake Forest College 21-8, 21-5.
The women’s team was led by Taylor Rumping and Christina Pecaut, who finished runner-up in the women’s open doubles division.
Other MSU finalists were Meghan Mudd, who won the women’s A1 division and Ross Coyler, who finished second in the men’s A1 division.
The tournament, which guarantees three matches for each entry, ran from Wednesday through Sunday featuring 240 players from 30 colleges and even a team from Ireland.
“It’s been productive for the university. It’s been productive for the city and those businesses that surround the university.
