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Show The Signpost May 1, 1992 Women's soccer, still kickin' on everybody Swedish tennis player excels at WSU Erik Somas, a converted tennis player from many soccer injuries By ERIC NALDER Sports writer of The Signpost The Weber State women's soccer team chalked up three easy victories on a road trip to Flagstaff, Ariz., last weekend. The University of Arizona was host to Weber State, Utah State, New Mexico, New Mexico State, and Northern Arizona for a two day tournament. After car pooling for 11 hours on Friday the Lady Wildcats had to quickly rest up in preparation for a double header starting first thing Saturday morning. They faced off with ASU for their first game of the day. It proved to be an easy victory for WSU despite coach Sia Doolkhani's fear of ASUbeing the strongest team in the tournament. WSU cruised to victory by a score of 4-0 against ASU but there wasn't time to celebrate because one hour later they were back on the field for their second game, it was against New Mexico State. Doolkhani said that two games in one day is too much but the tour-. nament organizers took fatigue into consideration when they cut the duration of each half of play from the usual 45 minutes to only 35 minutes. However, Weber's girls weren't phased by fatigue as they rolled to their second straight win and shut out of the day by smashing NMS 7-0. Sunday morning the team met head on with New Mexico and the results were sim ilar. WSU won convincingly by the score of 5-2 and one of the competition's goals came from a penalty kick. "Both teams from Utah dominated the tournament," Doolkhani said. Utah State and Weber won all three of their games. Doolkhani said a tournament champion couldn't be determined due to the lack of time involved. More than three games in two days just isn't practical, he said. However, he did say Weber had the highest goal total of all the teams involved. T. C. Cervoing, who is still a senior at Roy High School, led Weber's scorers with a tournament total of six goals. Other scorers included Nicole Robinson with two goals, Dee Dee Baptist, Tracie Pearson and Steph Seper each scoring one goal. Shelley Giles, a defensive standout, also played an important role in Weber's success in Arizona, Doolkhani said. He added that the defensive unit as a whole can be commended for having allowed only three goals this season.Two of them have come from free penalty kicks. Doolkhani said his players were going into the tournament with a lot of momentum. Before the tournament in Arizona, Weber beat Utah State and the University of Utah in a big way. By DAREN SAUNDERS Sports writer of The Signpost If you like tennis, you've probably heard of Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, and Stefan Edberg, all players from Sweden. But have you heard of another Swedish tennis player named Erik Somas? You should have by now if you've been following the men's tennis team lately. Erik is from Stockholm, Sweden, and has been playing tennis since he was about 7-years-old. His family all played tennis, and this enticed him into getting started. "I used to play a lot of soccer, but I hurt myself all the time," said Somas. "I had to give it up. I was too weak." Too weak for soccer maybe, but not for tennis. Somas came to the United States two years ago, and is currently in his sophomore year. He was acquainted with Niklas Vanderschoot in Sweden, who used to play here at Weber State on the men's tennis team. Vanderschoot helped him get a scholarship to Weber, and now he's here. Somas said that there are many Swedish players in the states playing now. Currently, on the men's tennis team here at Weber, seven out of eight players are foreigners. V ; ) I ft,' ' r ' X ! x V . r-ar i' FOOTBALL (continued from page 8) with two others who are being considered as replacements when needed and for quarterbacks for future seasons. "Clearly Jamie has great passing ability, but we are not changing our offense system to accommodate that," said Ericson. 'The basic offense that we have been using is very exciting, it is aggressive and attacks. The coaches have decided to use plays that show the skills of our best players, which means both passing and running." Ericson said the lack of chang-: ingtheoffense to highlight Martins abilities was selected because of the fact that every opponents defense will be expecting and preparing for a passing game by applying more pressure to Martin and the offen- : sive line, ". . . but also our running game is very underestimated, so that is why we have decided to balance our offensive system." Arslanian is also very pleased with the defensive players this spring, and consider them the best performing squad of all the years he has seen. WSU Defensive Line Coach Robb Akey said, "Although many Erik Somas 'Tennis is big in Sweden," Somas said. "Soccer and ice hockey are probably still the biggest sports, but tennis is right up there with them." Even though things are going pretty well for Somas right now, he of the defensive players are young; most are juniors, they have received a lot of game experience from last year. Many of them have been working hard in the off season, and ; are showing their progress during : the practices." Arslanian admits that while key offensive and defensive players were lost due to graduating seniors, he is confident in the talent of the younger players. Akey, who also serves as the realizes it would be very difficult to become a professional. "I don't think I will become a professional," he said. "I think it might be possible, but not number one," he said with a laugh. He already has some memorable moments playing for the Wildcats' tennis team. His most memorable was last year when he won a very close, heated match against a player from the University ofNevada-Reno. With that victory, he aided the men netter's of Weber State in gaining the conference championship. "That match will be one I will never forget," he said. Presently, Somas is concentrating on his education, and views education as something very important. He is a Marketing major, and hopes to attend graduate school. For the future, he's not quite sure just where he will be. "Anything can happen," he said. "I could meet the right woman and end up staying in the States." The men's tennis team will defend their title next week at the Big Sky Team Championship. This will be held in Moscow, Idaho, from April 30 to May 3. recruiting coordinator, is very pleased with this years recruits. "Of the 27 new players, three are college transfers and are able to work out with the team now," said Akey. "This gives them more time to get acquainted with our system." "We were fortunate to sin most of the high school players that we were interested in, Akey said. Ad(erdnp(g qU Ujl JiVV l . il.fJ Shu A 7 1 ' i I i 1 IKS u. C1992 Tribune MMn SwMCM. Inc. T All Rlanu Rirvd m CD 5 o m 3D CO eg 8 , And now the antelope has disappeared. This is getting really weird." |