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Show Focus gives meaning to ladies play SUSCs womens basketball coach Clay Anderson thinks he may have found a solution to his squads problems. SUSCs 9 season has been a disappointment for the young coach. His team is coming off an 82-7- 5 loss at New Mexico State Monday night, but Anderson said he found a motivator for his team. During the week, and before the game, we talked about one word, he said. Focus. We were focusing on our mistakes instead of the positive side of basketball, which is how to correct those mistakes. His teams first-haperformance run in Monday featured a which the Lady Birds committed 21 turnovers and the NMSU lead went 6 from to 46-3But in the second half, the talk lf 21-1- about focus paid off. SUSC shot 49 percent from the field in the period, outscoring the home team 45-3Lexa Larsen led all scorers with 22 points and added eight rebounds and seven assists to her totals. SUSC crawled back from a 0 deficit early in the half to cut it to 0 with 8:34 to play when Stacey 50-3- 62-6- 72-7- Clay Anderson believes focus is the key to his teams future success with seven games to play. Tracksters to compete at ISU SUSC beats UV Mika Whiddon set two gymnastic records last night as SUSC outdualed Vermont to a 179.0-178.- 6 win. Whiddon (Mt. Laurel, N.J.) scored a record 36.5 points to finish first in the setting a new bars record with a 9.45. Individual awards went to Lisa Selby, third on bars (9.3); Jodi McKay, firsts on vault (9.3) and floor exercise (9.3); Susie Specht, first on beam (9.2); Whiddon, first on bars (9.45), second on vault (9.2) and second on floor (9.25); Cris Becker, thirds on vault (9.05) and beam (8.9); and Jenny Ekms, second on beam (9.1) and third on floor (9.2). French converted a layup. She had 16 points in the contest. The Lady Birds were down 0 at the 4:20 mark after Kim Langford hit a reverse layup, but Anderson said missed layups down the stretch killed their hopes of a win. SUSC faces Portland State on the road Saturday afternoon and returns home Feb. 17 to host Montana State. Coach Brent Hardcastle has to be pleased with his teams performance against Vermont. Continued improvement are the words that SUSC Track Coach Joe Lopour keeps repeating as his indoor mens and womens teams prepare to compete Friday and Saturday at the Mountain States Invitational at Pocatello, Idaho. Times and distances have gotten better for most of the thinclads through the first two indoor meets of the season. We arent sure whether the week away from competition will help or hurt us, said Lopour. We need continued improvement, and often, that comes quickest and best through competition. Well have to hope that we havent backslid during our week off. The last SUSC competition was two weeks ago at a meet hosted by BYU. Of the 19 best SUSC womens performances of the young season, 15 came in the most recent meet. The improvement is also evident on the mens squad: 22 of the 36 best scores were turned in at the BYU meet. Mens and womens teams from Utah and Idaho are expected at Pocatello. The competition will again be stiff, with some of the intermountain areas best athletes competing, said Lopour. Revenge should be factor in two upcoming hoop rematches Home court revenge could be either desireable or distasteful for the SUSC mens basketball team, depending on which side of which arena the Thunderbirds are sitting in their next two games. Tonight, SUSC will be seated on the visitors side at Chicago State at 7:30 p.m., CST (6:30 MST) for the opening tipoff. The Birds wont be interested in such things as revenge. Circumstances will be different Monday night at 7:30 p.m., since the opponent will be U.S. International; the Birds will be sitting on the home side of the Centrum arena, and revenge will be a hot topic. In earlier first round meetings with the two upcoming in Cedar City, but USIU foes, SUSC beat CSU triumphed in San Diego 109-9That means CSU would love to get even tonight in Chicago, and it means that SUSC would like to even the score with USIU Monday at the Centrum. Almost every game remaining on our schedule is a game that we can win, but it is also a game that will not be easy to win, says Head Coach Neil Roberts. That means its the time of year that team character begins to show. I think we can get above the .500 mark 83-7- 1 with this bunch of players. From the first of the season, this group has shown a lot of character. SUSC will start sophomore DaVor Marcelic in a forward slot. William Allen, junior, and sophomore Richard Barton will also start up front. Senior Kelvin Lee and junior Peter Johnson will open as the guards. We are getting outstanding play right now from Barton, Allen and Johnson, says Roberts. The entire team has played very good basketball the last half of each of our last two games. With only 10 healthy players on the squad, we are getting a lot of team involvement and spirit. Allen leads scoring and rebounding, averaging 17.2 and 8.6, respectively. Barton is second on the team in both categories with an average of 14.8 points and 6.4 rebounds. Lee averages 13.0 points and leads the Birds in assists with 4.5 a game. We know they will be tougher the second time around, Roberts says of the CSU Cougar club. Our players and their players are familiar with each other now, and we know they play well on their home court. On the positive side, however, we do match up very well with them. record The Cougars started the week with a with a Monday game at Tennessee State. James Parker leads the CSU attack with a 17.4 point average. He also hauls down 7.5 boards. Guards Gerald Collins, Ernie Fullilove have Rod Parker and recently-eligibl- e respective scoring averages of 14.3, 9.8 and 9.5 points. USIU could be the most entertaining team of the year to play in the Centrum, says Roberts. They have one of the nations top scorers in Kevin Bradshaw, and they are one of the countrys highest scoring teams. USIU loves to score, and they dont seem to worry too much about the other team scoring. Bradshaw currently averages an even 31.0 points. Demetrius Laffitte dumps in 18.1 points and grabs 9.9 boards. Point guard Steve Smith averages 14.9 points. We were particularly impressed with Smith down there. He did an excellent job against us, Roberts says. Bradshaw is a great shooter, and they look for him a lot. Its difficult to hold down a player like that. After the USIU contest, SUSC will travel to Ohio for a pair of games with Wright State (Feb. 15), and 3-- Akron (Feb. 17). |