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Show StatesmanSports Paee 12 Come play Northern Utah's Best-Kept Secret. 18 Championship Holes Driving Range Practice Putting & Chipping Greens G O L F 550 East 100 North Smithfield, Utah 435-563-6825 C O U R S E Fall USU Student Special: 9 Holes of Golf, Sunday-Friday $10, must show current USU ID. KSM Music Your local music shop GUItHRS C 8HSSES DRUIDS C PERCUSSIOfl -HUIT1E COmPUbER RECORDIflG 'LIVE SOUflD C P.R. music BOOKS e VIDEOS PRIVfltE LESSORS www.ksmmusic.com 50 W 400 N (435)753-681 3 Friday, Aug. 31, 2007 USU runners looking for repeat of *06 successes By DAVID BAKER assistant sports editor Making a fitting sequel is tough to do. People expect the second to be as good as the first, especially when the first was a blockbuster. They may not be making movies, but Utah State cross country will attempt to produce a fitting sequel to a blockbuster 2006 season that saw the men's and women's teams capture Western Athletic Conference championships. But the team doesn't see those expectations, only goals. "I'm not sure that I have preset expectations, but our goal is we'd like to repeat as the conference champions," Head Coach Gregg Gensel said. "That's easy to say, but it may be hard to do... Everybody's trying to win, and we're trying this year to defend our titles. And we're not just going to say, 'Here, take the title. It's your turn.' They're going to have to earn it." The Aggies will have a few things on their side as they try to defend their WAC titles. Home-field advantage. The 2007 WAC Championships will be held in Cache Valley, right in the Aggies' backyard. Experience. Although Utah State lost some important cogs from last year — Vance and Jennifer Twitchell spring to mind — they also return four firstteam All-WAC selections, all Top-10finishersat the championships last fall. For the men, those include senior Ben Kessen and junior Seth Wold. Kessen was the fourth-place finisher at last year's WAC Championships, while Wold was fifth. "On the men's side, I think we're the team to beat, but we can't just go in there thinking we're going to win. We've got to run and we've got to run well." Gensel said. "... I would like to think that we have a better team than we had last year, and, as you know, we won the conference championship last year." Other important pieces for the Aggie men will be sophomore Jared Glenn and the return of sophomore Steve Strickland, who is coming off a two-year LDS Church mission, Gensel said. JARED GLENN (LEFT) AND HEATH WING (RIGHT) run near First Dam for practice Wednesday. The Aggie men's and women's teams open up the cross country season at 2 p.m. today at the American West Heritage Center. NOELLE BERLAGE photo For the women, seniors Stacie (Lifferth) Dorius and Amy Egan return from All-WAC seasons that saw Dorius finish fifth and Egan seventh at the WAC Championships. Junior Caroline Berry is another important holdover for the Aggie women, Gensel said. Gensel said to also watch for junior Alison Taylor and Kim Quinn — a freshman out of Bingham High School in South Jordan, Utah — to help out on the lady Aggies. The Utah State women may be up against some tough competition in their title defense. He said Idaho and Nevada should be tougher in '07. "The nice thing about our conference on the women's side, you can run your best race and be fourth," Gensel said. "But I like that competition, I like that competitiveness." Much of the talk about the Aggies' competition is just speculation at this point. Gensel said he wouldn't have a good idea about other WAC teams until they run their first race, which for most schools will happen this weekend. USU is no different. The Aggies open their season at 2 p.m. today at the American West Heritage Center. Four men's teams and five women's teams will test out the WAC Championship course, including WAC competition Idaho, and in-state schools Weber State University, the University of Utah and Utah Valley University. Gensel said he is looking to use this first race to feel his team out. "I just want to know where everybody is at and how they are doing," he said. "So, if we don't win the meet, I'm OK with that. It's the end of October and in November that's the most important meets for us." The meets Gensel is referencing are the WAC Championships Oct. 27 in Logan and the NCAA Mountain Regionals on Nov. 11 in Ogden, Utah. "Our goal when we got into the WAC was to be the team at our school who won thefirstWAC championship," Gensel said. "We did that with our (men's) cross country team two years ago, and then last year, our women's team was the first women's team to win a championship. I'm not going to win every championship, but I'm certainly going to go out on the field trying to do that." - da.bake@aggiemaiLusu.edu Rent One Movie at AMC Get One Free! Ed Needham Rent One DVD New Release at S2.99 & Keep Movies Get One FREE DVD New Release Movie! 5days! Rent one "Collectionlf s Movie (choose hm 20,000 m & DVDJ at 199, get one FREE! 25 W. 100 N. Logan 753-0333 AMC Imaging the Visual Experience Open Mon - Sat 12:00 - 8:00 PM We have a lot of competition. To meet our competitors, and hopefully beat them, we are giving away free movies with each rental. By keeping new release prices low at $2.99 and giving one new release movie free, we hope to meet Netflicks price. Keep the movies five days. Choose from hundreds of new release titles received at AMC over the last year. Or, rent movies from the "Collection" which has over 20,000 VHS and DVD titles at $1.99 each. T H R E E AGGIES A T T E M P T T O BLOCK a hit by a teammate in drills at practice on Wednesday in the Spectrum. Utah State volleyball opens against Texas A&M University today at the Holiday Inn Classic hosted by Montana State University. 7TLER LARSON photo GEICO. A15-miniitecall Ags net tauted recruiting class could save you 15% on car insurance. By G. CHRISTOPHER TERRY staff writer 1513 N. Hillfield RcL, Suite 3 (8O1) 752-O485 On the heels of a disappointing 13-19 year, women's volleyball Head Coach Grayson DuBose and Assistant Coach Shawn Olmstead went looking for new talent to help Utah State improve on its sixth-place showing in the Western Athletic Conference. "Olmstead is our recruiting coordinator and my assistant coach," DuBose said, "and that guy has done a wonderful job finding athletes that can help us compete in the WAC." What they unearthed is the second-ranked recruiting class in the WAC. Six high school players, one four-year transfer and two junior college transfers make up the class, and along with redshirt junior Melissa Osterloh, give DuBose 10 newcomers. DuBose called the infusion of talent "unique" in the history of USU volleyball, saying, "There have been some really nice athletes that played volleyball here. It was kind of nice to put six of them together in one class." DuBose said the greater depth of this year's team is already helping in practice situations. "The biggest thing they have allowed us to do is compete at a pretty high level in practice because we've been able to have depth at every position. When a kid gets injured, we can plug someone else in and we don't really lose a step," he said. One of the new freshman players is Chelsea Fowles, who will be competing with returning letter-winners Heather Hillier and Dani Schaap for playing time as a setter. In high school, Fowles was named first-team all-league as a junior and senior at San Benito in California. "I really hope to get all-freshman team if I have the chance," Fowles said. "There's a ton of position-specific things I need to work on, and I just hope to focus on those this season. There's a lot of things that I hear over and over during practice because I'm a setter, just helping out my hitters more and stuff like that." One of the hitters Fowles will be playing alongside is Amanda Nielson, probably USU's best returning player. "Amanda Nielson is probably the most prominent returning starter we have," DuBose said. Nielson was second-team AUDI See VBatt, page 15 |
