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Show SPORTS Page 7 Monday, March 12, 2007 GYMNASTICS SCOREBOARD Women's Hoops Utah 49 BYU55 MWC Men's Final UNLV78 BYU 70 MWC Women's Final New Mexico 65 BYU 49 Women's Tennis Baseball Utah 23 SUU7 Utah 6 UTEP1 GATORS 1 9 7 . 0 5 0 UTES 196.725 Done and done Ute men, women fall in MWC Tournament Chris Bellamy Chronicle Sports Editor KIM PETERSON//7r<-£W,' Utah Chronult Chris Grant falls as he fails to keep up with UNLV's Corey Bailey in the Utes'first round loss to the Rebels on Thursday in Las Vegas. Cougar women get a leg up on Utes BYU takes season series with semifinal win over Utah Natalie Dicou The Daily Utah Chronicle LAS VEGAS—An NCAA tournament berth fell out of reach for the U women's basketball team when the Utes dropped their second-round game against BYU in the MWC Tournament in Las Vegas, Nev. on Friday. Utah will now set its sights on the women's NIT. The Utes' poor shooting put them in an early hole in the 55-49 loss as BYU jumped out to a 13point advantage by the 2:42 mark in the first half. Marie Warner brought some fire off the bench as she scored four consecutive points and Joh-Teena Filipe added a threepointer that narrowed the gap to eight. By halftime, the score was 30-22. Utah buried a pair of threes in the first five minutes of the half. With 15 minutes to go, the Utes tied the game at 34. The Cougars, who shot 50 percent from the field in the opening half, went cold. BYU scored just four points hi the first 10 minutes of the second half. The Utes took the opportunity to seize the lead. Heidi Carlsen made a jumper and Filipe drained LAS VEGAS—Two Ute seasons effectively came to an end in Sin City over the weekend while the locals were celebrating yet another triumph at the Thomas & Mack Center. Both the Utah men's and women's basketball teams met their ends in Las Vegas, Nev., with the women losing yet another close call to archrival BYU and the men, as expected, getting blown out of the water by tourney host UNLV. The Rebel men had more than enough celebrating to do in the subsequent days after defeating Utah, as they went on to earn an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament by rallying to defeat scorching-hot BYU, which had won 12 of its previous 13. Meanwhile, in the women's bracket, the Cougars came up just short as well, falling to the New Mexico Lobos in a surprisingly lopsided affair. As for the Ute basketball programs, the weekend—and the 2006-2007 s e a ~ son as a whole—marked a pair of turning points. For the men, Thursday's 8054 loss to the Rebels marked the final chapter in Ray Giacoletti's brief stint as U head coach. "It's not about me. The team's the most important thing," Giacoletti said. "There was no more added pressure one way or the other...it's new life. (In) conference tournaments all over the country, anything's possible, in three games, in three days. You got to take one at a time. It's kind of the gladiator approach: you lose, you're done." But it wasn't in the cards for the 1118 Utes, who suffered through (recordwise, at least) their worst season since 1972-1973. A lack of any semblance of a perimeter defense and their erratic tendencies on both sides of the ball doomed them against a UNLV team that pushed the ball and benefited from a raucous Utah Chrontcle KIM PETERSON/ home crowd. Joh-Teena Filipe shoots over BYU defender Lauren SeeMWC Page 10 Riley in the Utes' 55-49 semi-final loss at the MWC Tournament on Friday in Las Vegas. Red Rocks chomped by Gators Tony Pizza control of the meet, they were going to have to put together something special on their most daunting event of the season. The Utes did just The U swim team said it owed the Red Rocks that, a favor. So nine men from the swim team paid Kristina Baskett, who usually performs later the U gymnasts back by painting "Utah-Utes" in the lineup because of her big-score capabilion their chests, which helped create one of the ties, led the Utes off Friday night with a scorchmost raucous gymnastic crowds ever to grace ing routine that resulted in a 9.875. Freshman the Huntsman Center. Daria Bijak carried the momentum Baskett The U gymnastics team used the energy generated into her routine as she scored a 9.9, from the crowd to tie its best performance of which is practically unheard of for a gymnast the season against the No. 1 Florida Gators. The in the second spot. Sarah Shire then turned in Red Rocks' score was not enough, however, as a solid beam score of 9.825 before Nina Kim the Utes faded in the last rotation of the meet missed her difficult round-off layout mount and ultimately lost their first home meet of the and had to settle for a 9.375. season Friday night, 197.050-196.725. With the pressure on Nicolle Ford and AshIn a losing effort, the Utes still showed steady ley Postell to turn in flawless routines, the two signs of improvement. The progress the Red Ute leaders did not disappoint. Although her Rocks have made was no clearer than the per- routine did not have the typical sharpness fans formance the Utes turned in on beam. have become accustomed to, Ford still turned After trading early punches with the Gators in a 9.825, which set the table for Postell. through the first two rotations, the Utes found Utah's Ail-Around Ail-American turned in themselves trailing Florida by just .05 points at the meet's midway point. For the Utes to seize See U T E S Page 8 Chronicle Asst. Sports Editor Utes bust out for 23 runs vs. SUU, come home to face Zags Chris Bellamy Chronicle Sports Editor KIM PETERSON/ The Daily Utah Chronicle Marie Warner chases the ball down after a steal and puts up a jump shot in Utah's 55-49 loss to BYU in the MWC semifinals. her second three of the covered from its shooting game, giving Utah a 39-34 slump just in time as the edge. But the Utes scored Cougars scored 17 points just two points over the next six ininutes. BYU re- See WOMEN Page 10 Maybe it was just that they were a bit closer to home. Or maybe the week off really did do the trick. Either way, the Swingin' Utes ended their eight-game skid this weekend, taking two of three games from the Southern Utah Thunderbirds in Cedar City. The Utes had the previous weekend off and used it to try to work out the kinks that had put the team in a three-week funk. That paid off in spades in the series finale Sunday afternoon, as Dustin Hennis' team-record three home runs propelled the Utes to a domi- nant 23-7 victory over the T-Birds. That score may not seem out of the ordinary on the football field, but on the diamond, it was the U's best output of the season. "Hopefully, these three games and the two (this coming week) will get us back on track," said U head coach Bill Kinneberg. Hennis, a junior transfer from Phoenix College, has staked his claim to a regular spot in the Utes' rotating outfield this year, having started 12 of the team's 16 ballgames. But the power numbers hadn't exactly been a major part of his repertoire. In fact, coming into the weekend, he hadn't hit a single dinger and had just five RBI. That all changed Saturday, as he drove in seven runs to pace a Utah offense that had been struggling to put runners across the plate in recent weeks. "He really swung the bat well for us. He was really aggressive. He wasn't trying to hit home runs, he was just getting really good swings on the ball," Kinneberg said. "I think it's good that he got that out of his system—or into his system." Not coincidentally, Hennis also walked three times. Kinneberg said that while SeeBASEBALL Page8 |