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Show Wednesday, January 22, 1992 Lady 'Cats defeat Boise and Idaho . By SCOTT D. SUMMERS Sports editor of The Signpost Taking the ball the length of the court for a layup at the buzzer, the Weber State women's basketball team upset Boise State 77-75 Thursday night in the Dee Events Center. The Lady Wildcats handed Boise State their first Big Sky loss of the season while improving their own record to 3-2 in the Big Sky Conference, 8-8 overall. "We picked Boise State to battle Montana for the Big Sky title, so this was a big win for us and a big confidence builder," Weber State Coach Carla Taylor. With just 14 seconds left in the game, Boise State took the inbound pass, worked the ball inside and tied the game 75-75. Weber called timeout with just 5 seconds left and designed a play to get Jenifer Wood the ball via senior Cindy Holcomb for the layup. Holcomb got the ball at mid-court, fired the ball to Wood on the break and watched Woodshake-and-bake past two defenders for the game-winning layup. There was nothing going through my mind," Wood said. "I just wanted to make the basket so we wouldn't have to go into overtime."Wood had a tremendous game from the bench, scoring 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and pulling down eight rebounds. The Lady Wildcats also had great play from senior Jill Sperry, who led all scorers with 21 points, hitting 7 of 8 free throws and adding five assists, and from Holcomb who had 19 points and 15 rebounds. "Jill Sperry is playing the best defense I've seen her play all year," Taylor said. "She played unbelievably on defense which gave her Ordyna appointed interim athletic director at Weber Special to The Signpost Richard F. Ordyna, assistant athletic director at Weber State University, was appointed today to serve as interim athletiec director while the university conducts a natonal search for a new athletic director. Ordyna will temporarily replace Richard F. Han-nan, who resigned Jan. 4 to become athletic director at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Hannan will leave Weber State Feb. 3. Ordyna (pronounced or-DEE-nah) has served as assistant athletic director at Weber State since 1976. In 1989 he acted as athletic director for five months while 1 JODI FERRE DRIBBLES past half court avoiding the Idaho State defender during Saturdays thrashing of confidence on the offensive end." The Lady 'Cats contained 6-4 sophomore Lidiya Varbanova to just three points in the first half, but had trouble with her in the second half when the Lady Broncos set traps to control WSU's triple teaming of BSU's center. Varbanova leads the Broncos in scoring with 21.2 points per game and in rebounding with 8.8 rebounds per game, and is the second leading scorer in the Big Sky. Varbanova and 6-foot-3 Tory Torrolova are fromer Olympians from Bulgaria and were picked up by BSU two years ago at Seattle. The two Bulgarian athletes made it public that they wanted to stay and Boise State made no hesitations about latching on to them. Leading 42-35 at halftime, the Lady 'Cats built , their lead by as much as 13 points at 56-43 before BSU began whittling away at Weber State's lead. Boise didn't reach WSU until five seconds to go, which was just enough time for Wood to go to the hoop. n Making a sweep of a two-game homestand, Weber State fin the university conducted a search that led to Hannan's appointment as successor to Mike Price. f ' " ' , ..II . I ...... , . . i i The Signpost ished off the University of Idaho 77-65 in a Big Sky women's basketball game at the Dee Events Center Saturday night. . The win improved Weber State's Big Sky record to 4-2. "It was a good home win," said Weber State Coach Carla Taylor. "We needed to win both games this week to stay in the running for the Big Sky tournament." WSU beat the Vandals, who came into Saturday night's game 3-0 and 1 0-6 overall, by closing down the middle and constantly changing its style of play. The Lady Wildcats focused on shutting down Idaho's Kelly Mo-eller, sho scored 32 points in Idaho's victory over rival Idaho State on Thursday. Moeller finished the game with just 8 points on 2-of-9 shooting. "We changed up on them a lot defensively and offensively," Taylor said. "Once they figured out what we were doing, we changed our strategy." "We knew they were going to come in and take away our inside "I think Rich Ordyna is the logical choice fot this interim assignment," said E. Jeffery Living ston, chief administrator of athletics. "He's been involved in every aspect of our athletic program and will provide continuity as well as continued success." Ordyna said he hasn't decided whether he'll be a candidate for the permanent post of athletic director. He did not apply for the position when Price resigned three years ago. "I need time to evaluate the situation," Ordyna said. "Meanwhile, I plan to provide pro-active leadership for the athletic department." Ordyna, 49, was bom and raised in Indiana. He graduated from Purdue University, earned a masters degree at (See ORDYNA page 10) SbojIs u game, which they did," said Idaho Coach Laurie Turner. "We still had a lot of easy shots and missed them." Idaho shot just 28 percent in the first half and finished the game at 36 percent. The Vandals had shot 53 percent against Idaho State just two nights earlier. Weber State shot 53 percent, up from its 38 percent season average. WSU senior Cindy Holcomb had another outstanding game, bettering her scoring average of 16.5 points per game by scoring 25 points to top all scorers. Holcomb did damage inside with her patented jump-hook and converted 9-of-12 free throws. Idaho's Krista Smith couldn't have played a better game. She hit 7-of-7 from the free-throw line, pulled down a game-high 16 rebounds and scored 19 points. The Lady Wildcats started the game out sluggish and allowed a number of easy baskets underneath. But a great assist from Jodi Ferre to Jill Sperry started a 15- Weber sweeps first road trip in By SCOTT D. SUMMERS Sports editor of The Signpost The Wildcats did something this weekend that hasn't been done in two seasons: they swept a two-game road trip. The men's basketball team beat Boise State 89-83, then turned around and beat the University of Idaho 80-76 in the Kibbie Dome of Moscow, Id. "We're quite pleased with the wins, it's been quite a while since we've swept a road trip like that," Weber Coach Ron Abegglen said. "We played extremely hard and smart too." The Wildcats are now 4-2 in the Big Sky and 9-8 overall. The 'Cats were led by Anthony Steward and Al Hamilton who both threw in 22 points to lead all. scores. Steward was 7- 9 J V 1? BRIAN SCHIELETHE SIGNPOST the U of I. point scoring binge that put WSU ahead 26-12 with 7:16 left in the first half. WSU played the first half in player streaks. Holcomb had a streak of 6 points, Wood had a streak of 6 points, and J.J. Drennen also cameoff the bench for a 6-point streak. The Lady 'Cats led 43-27 at halftime. . "We had a lot off offensive rebounds; we just weren't converting them," Turner said. "We've got to be more consistent." Weber State led by as many as 16 points, 52-36, before the Vandals put on a tough run towards theend. Idaho began casting up 3-pointers and climbed to within 7 points at 69-62 before the Lady 'Cats hit six free throws, allone-and-ones, to put the game on ice. "Our players responded to their run in the second half by covering the perimeter and closing it up on the inside," Taylor said. two years of-10 from the field and 5-of-7 from three-point land. Hamilton shot 8-of-13 and pulled down 10 boards. WSU's Anthony McGowan also had a tremendous game with 18 points from 5-of-6 shooting from the field and went8-for-9 from the line. Despite Weber's offensive efforts, Abegglen was most proud of his team's defensive play. "Our defense has been more tenacious, we've been holding people down," Abegglen said. WSU shot 63 percent from the field at Boise and held the Broncos to just 52.6 percent. But the big defensive victory came at Idaho were the Wildcats suppressed the Van- (See ROAD TRIP page 10) Richard Ordyna |