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Show 6 Thursday, February 25, 2010 11111Plii--41e.t-An. SPORTS www.dailyutahchronicle.com Friday Softball Track & Field Swimming & Diving Baseball Gymnastics Men's Tennis 3 p.m & 5:30 p.m. Palm Springs, Calif All day Albuquerque, N.M. All day Oklahoma City, Okla. 6 p.m. CT Huntsville, Texas 7 p.m. Provo 5 p.m. Eccles Tennis Center Utah vs. Oregon & Fresno State 18° / 9 a.m. 23° / 3 p.m. MWC Championships Utah @ Sam Houston State Utah @ BYU Soft, bumpy groomers /Morning snow showers TODAY'S SKI REPORT Alta MWC Indoor Championships 18° / 9 a.m. 23° / 3 p.m. Brighton Canyons MEN'S BASKETBALL 23° / 9 a.m. 29° / 3 p.m. Boise State @ Utah conditions & weather from Deer Valley 23° 19 a.m. I 3 p.m. 29° Snowbird 18° / 9 a.m. 23° 3 p.m. utahskiweathercom Solitude 19° / 9 a.m. 24° 3 p.m. WOMEN'S BASKETBALL After troubling first half, Utah beats Falcons Bryan Chouinard ASST. SPORTS EDITOR The Runnin' Utes completed the season sweep of Air Force on Wednesday night in Colorado Springs, Colo., with a 54-43 win despite being tied at the half. The Falcons jumped out to an early 6-o score as they held the Utes scoreless for more than five minutes to open the game. But the Utes answered back with defense of their own, holding the Falcons scoreless for nearly five minutes and drawing even at 9-9 with less than to minutes remaining in the half. For the remainder of the half, the two teams battled back and forth before finishing the first half all knotted up at 19. The 19-point first half was the Utes' second-lowest scoring total in a first half this season—the only lower total for the Utes came against Illinois, where despite scoring only 16 points in the opening half, the Utes topped the Illini 60-58. But whatever head coach Jim Boylen told his team apparently worked, as the Utes came out for the second half Game Utah StatS AFA 50.0% 50.0% 68.4% 30 9 12 15 Fieldgoal % 3-point % Free-throw % Rebounds Assists Turnovers Personal Fouls 41.9% 11.8% 41.7% 17 7 7 22 and jumped out to a six-point lead with 13 minutes 42 seconds remaining in the second half. "Going small to start the second half was a good adjustment," Boylen said. "I thought we did a better job of figuring out their zone in the second half." The Falcons showed their resiliency, battling back and shortening the deficit to one with a layup from freshman guard Todd Fletcher. With 11:45 remaining, the Falcons found See MEN Page 7 JULIAN GOMEZ/The Daily Utah Chronicle Ute Kalee Whipple guards Air Force's Raimee Beck during Wednesday's game. Utah beat Air Force, 73-48. Utes crush Air Force Kelsey Price STAFF WRITER The Utah women's basketball team held off a struggling Air Force on Wednesday to extend its winning streak to four games. After allowing Air Force the lead twice in the first 15 minutes, the Utes stole the lead 28-27 with 4 minutes 46 seconds remaining in the first half. Utah sprinted away from its opponent after that, controlling the lead the entire second half and winning the game 73-48. "No game is easy," said Utah guard Janita Badon. "We definitely started off rough." A thick skin Freshman Hill protects the goal with optimism, thankfulness to be alive See WOMEN Page 7 SWIMMING & DIVING Team works on basics for championships Jake Bullinger Greg Peters STAFF WRITER STAFF WRITER Because of Andy Hill's performance between the posts, the Skatin' Utes are thankful to have him. Because of a potentially lifethreatening skin disease, Hill is thankful to even be playing hockey. Last summer, the freshman goalie was diagnosed with toxic epidermal necrolysis, known as TEN, after a reaction to the antibiotic Bactrim. Hill was prescribed the antibiotic to help treat acne. After taking Bactrim for about three weeks, he noticed a rash but dismissed it as sunburn.• The Mountain West Conference swimming and diving championships are under way, and the Utah swimmers head into this weekend's tournament energized and ready. Emphasizing tournament performance over dual meets, head coach Greg Winslow has nothing but confidence in his swimmers this weekend. "This is the one focus we have all year long, and in our sport, dual meets don't mean as much," Winslow said. "We plan on going into the conference meet with all we have and swimming as fast as we can." Evidently, swimming as fast as they can is all Winslow wants his team members to worry about this weekend. There's no complicated strategy, other athletes or records—strictly fundamentals. Winslow made his point clear this past week as he cut practice time from the usual 20 hours a week, in half, and encouraged his athletes to go back to the basics in practice working on turns and breakouts. In the 2009 MWC Championships, the Utes had their fair share of ups and downs. The women took fourth place with 469 points. Ahead of the women were Wyoming, UNLV and BYU. The men went in similar fashion with a sixth-place finish, along with a couple of special individual performances. John Baque finished fourth in the 200 breast with a time oft minute 59.2o seconds, setting a new Utah school record along with a career best. Other seniors who will join Baque in the comeback this year include David Pursley, Will Leonhart and Todd Bradley. Despite having such a young team, Winslow is confident in the leadership that his seniors have presented all year and is looking forward to their finale in postseason competition. "I am really excited for our seniors this year," Winslow said. See HILL Page 8 • Skatin'Utes goalie Andy Hill was diagnosed last summer with toxic epidermal necrolys,a potentially life-threatening skin disease. Hill has played in four games this season and has a 92 percent block-shot rate. SOFTBALL Softball hopes good weather will help practices Utes to put defensive work in action during weekend California play Corbin Godfrey STAFF WRITER Even though Air Force drew first blood with a layup from Raimee Beck, the Utes dominated most of the first half, leading for 15 of the first 20 minutes. Utah held the Falcons to a mere 46.4 percent for shooting, and the Utes hit shot and proud of the way the Utes have in large part can be attributed to age (.570, hits (eight), RBIs (six), toplayed in the early season. the lack of outdoor practices Utah tal bases (13) and stolen bases (two) "Of course, we have plenty of has been able to have because of in the five games last weekend. The Utah softball team will begin things to work through, but I feel the weather. Ashley Smuda and Kara Foster its third straight weekend of play- like this was a step in the right di"We're averaging close to seven are mentioned in seven different ing five games in three days when rection," Hogue said. "I'm proud of runs a game," Hogue said. "Those categories in the Utah career reit takes on Oregon and Fresno State the confidence the team is bringing types of numbers are going to get cord books. Aside from being the today in the Cathedral City Classic to the game." you a lot of wins. Hopefully, we'll U's all-time leader with 56 career in Palm Springs, Calif. Utah's offense has played well get some weather in Salt Lake City home runs, Foster is listed in batAfter a perfect 5-0 weekend to to start the season, averaging 6.6 that cooperates with us so we can ting average (.334, which is .07 shy open the season, the Utes hit their runs per game and having scored get some practices outside, then we of No. 5) runs (117, 13 shy of No. 5), first bump in the road last weekend first in all to games this season, can get more comfortable on the doubles (31, nine shy of No. 5) and when they went 2-3 in the Louis- outscoring their opponents 22-6 dirt. If our hitters continue to put RBIs (139, 15 shy of No. 3). Smuda ville Slugger Desert Classic, drop- in the first inning. up numbers like that and our de- could enter the top five in appearping games to California, Hawaii But as of last weekend, the Utes fense begins to figure some things ances (86, 22 shy of No. 5), wins (37, and Northwestern. Although Utah have been plagued by poor de- out, we will put up a lot of wins." 16 shy of No. 5) and strikeouts (325, came up short in the games, head fensive play. Last weekend alone, Junior right fielder Jasey Jensen See SOFTBALL Page 7 coach Amy Hogue is both excited Utah committed 15 errors, which posted team highs in batting aver- See SWIMMING Page 7 |
