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Show Jan. 25, 200|8 Men cruise for 10th straight win at LaTech Utah State jumped out to a 20BySAMBRYNER point lead at 26-6 with 9:30 left in the senior writer first half and looked to be on their way to an easy win. Louisiana Tech, Utah State men's basketball did determined not to let something Thursday —_—• Utah State get an easy night that they haven't win, switched to a fullhad the opportunity to court press defense do for 47 days: win on that gave the Aggies USU 71 the road. trouble. After playing at "We tried to force L A . TECH 61 home and winning some things and tried nine straight times, the to make some things that weren't Aggies won at Louisiana Tech, 71-61, there," USU head coach Stew Morrill to improve their conference record to said after the game in a radio inter5-0 and a 15-5 overall. Towc/zBase Schedules Men's Tennis SATURDAY JAN. 26 USU @ Utah view. Over the next six minutes Louisiana Tech, fueled by Aggie turnovers, went on a 22-3 run to pull to within 29-28 with three minutes left in the half. Over that time span, Utah State turned the ball over five times and gave up four 3-pointers to Louisiana Tech, including three by Tech guard Kyle Gibson. For the game the Aggies turned the ball over 24 times as compared to 10 by Louisiana Tech. "Lack of concentration, they made Gymnastics SUNDAY JAN. 27 USU @ Cal Slate Fullerton, 3 p.m. Men's Basketball SATURDAY JAN. 26 USU @ New Mexico State, 4 p.m. Vfcrren's Basketball SATURDAY JAN. 26 AGGIE GUARD JAYCEE CARROLL looks to pass [M See MEN, page 11 last week against Idaho. Carroll had 16 points as the Aggies won Thursday. PATRICK ODEN photo USU falls again to NMSU By JACKSON OLSEN staff writer AGGIE GUARD TAYLOR RICHARDS drives past mid-court during Thursday night's game in the Spectrum against New Mexico State. Richards scored four points in the loss. PATRICK ODEN photo Pebley said. "They came out and played well." USU (6-12, 2-4) was slow out oi the gates, quickly falling behind 5-0. However, they started to put it together, sparked by a flawless 15-foot jumper by Alice Coddington, the freshman out of Canberra, Australia. The northern Aggies never let the NewMags get more Utah State senior Jenny Gross scored a career-high 19 points in a 71-58 home court loss to the New Mexico State Aggies Thursday night in the Spectrum. Gross' effort wasn't enough to subdue the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mtmmmmmtm than four points NewMags (14ahead for the rest of 4, 4-1), who the first half. The came into the first 20 minutes of contest second NMSU 71 regulation featured in the Western five ties and eight USU 58 Athletic lead changes. USU Conference. jumped on top for New Mexico State won the batthe first time with just over six tle of the boards, tallied more minutes remaining in the first steals and out-shot the northern half after senior guard Taylor Aggies, 53-43 percent from the Richards hit a short jumper field. Against stats like that, from five feet out. As the USU was lucky just to make it NewMags answered at the other close. end of the court, so did Gross, And close it was. chipping in a couple of buckets Despite the 13-point deficit of her own to regain the elusive looming over their heads as lead. the final buzzer sounded, the "I had some great passes from Aggies of Utah State gave the my teammates," Gross said. NewMags a run for their money, "They passed it down low and I and the crowd something to was able to finish some shots." cheer about. At the other end of the court, "This was a very good team," NMSU was led early on by their Utah State head coach Raegan bruisers in the paint—seniors Sherrell Neal and Anikia Jawara. The NMSU offense executed their plays crisply, allowing for an overwhelming advantage in the paint. Neal beat the buzzer on an inbounds play and drained a short jumper to send the southern Aggies into the locker room with the lead. As the second half got underway, the USU looked like the same resilient team. More ties and lead changes followed. The Aggies took their first lead of the second half after just two minutes of play when junior guard Danyelle Snelgro drove and sunk a lay up. Gross put up two more points in the paint off a Snelgro assist with 15 minutes to play, giving USU a 43-42 lead. It would be USU's final lead of the game. New Mexico State answered with back to back layups by Neal, who finished the game with a team-high 18 points. From there the Aggies from the south never looked back. "The last 10 minutes, we couldn't score," Pebley said. "We had a slew of turnovers and missed some wide open shots. [M See WOMEN, page 11 K-Rob hoping for good things from combine By SAMMY HISLOP sports editor Last Saturday in Houston, former Aggie wide receiver/return specialist Kevin Robinson took advantage of his time in the spotlight. '-•[' In the East-West _ Shrine Classic game, the Fresno, Calif., native returned a punt 72 yards for a touchdown and hauled in a five-yard pass for another TD. He finished with four receptions for 28 yards. The next step for the Aggie star is the NFL combine, .' which takes place Feb. 20-2^6 jiy. Indianapolis. "&*£""' Robinson spoke with the Utah Statesman Wednesday afternoon. Utah Statesman: How did you prepare for the East-West Shrine game? Kevin Robinson: It's not something you can really prepare for. You just go out there with high expectations that you're going to play against good players and just have that competitive edge and just go in there like that. Otherwise, you can't prepare and understand what the players are going to be like and understand what the atmosphere will be. — — — . US: Was there any practice time beforehand? KR: We had pretty much four days of practice. We practiced and tried to learn the plays as fast as we could. It was more of a bonding session with new guys and just making new friends. I was just out there having a goodi time.iT?," US: Is it more difficult not' knowing the plays? U) KR: A little bit. It's just like Meeting a new person or meeting a new boss for the first time. You kind of hesitate a little bit, but after you talk to them for a while you have that chemistry and that bond, and everything is fine. US: Describe what happened USU vs. Louisiana Tech, 7 p.m. Hockey FRIDAY JAN. 25 USU vs. Montana. 8 p.m. SATURDAY JAN. 26 USU vs. Eastern Washington, 8 p.m. USU holding football tryouts BY USU ATHLETICS Utah State's football program will hold walk-on tryouts on Tuesday, Feb. 12 at noon. The tryouts will take place in the Stan Laub Indoor Center. Tryout candidates must be full-time students at USU and must also complete a tryout/ liability waiver. These forms, as well as more information are available from Stephanie Bear in the football office in the Harris Activity Center at"435fc; 797-1870 or stephanie.bear@ usu.edu. The waiver forms must be handed in prior to 5 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 11. Aggie soccer to run series of skills clinics BY USU ATHLETICS Utah State's soccer program will hold a series of skills clinics for male and female players ages 4-14 in the month of February. The four clinics will be held each Tuesday throughout the month, Feb.'5,12,19, 26. The clinics will run from 6-7 p.m. at the Stan Laub Training Center located at approximately 1100 East and 1400 North in Logan. The cost is $7 per player per clinic. Each player needs to come prepared with his or her own soccer ball, shin guards and indoor soccer or gym shoes (no cleats). For more information contact Heather Cairns at (435) 797-0900 or hcairns@cc.usu. edu. Those interested in attending can pay at the door. Aggie softball picked sixth in preseason poll BY USU ATHLETICS WEST'S KEVIN ROBINSON (6), OF UTAH STATE, runs back a punt 72 yards for a touchdown as he eludes tackle attempts from East's Gary Guyton, of Georgia Tech, and Curtis Gatewood, bottom, of Vanderbilt, during the first quarter of the East-West Shrine Classjc football game last Saturday. AP Photo witK your punt return KR: The special teams coach called a middle return. The guy kicked the ball really, really far and I just caught it and started going outside, made about'four people miss, cut back and just made myself to the end zone. It was one of those things that I didn't think I was going to make it. They had me pinned down and somehow I got out of it and somehow it worked out. There were two punt returners. I had two. The other was Dwight Lowery from San Jose State. Whoever had the hot hand stayed in. Whoever didn't came out. US: What happened with your touchdown catch? KR: The coach called it on the sideline. It was a play we'd been working on in practice. He decided to call it to get me in because I guess he liked me playing as a slot receiver. We executed it nicely and ended up scoring on them. y' -, US: How did it feel to have a - [MSee K-ROB, page 10 Utah State was picked sixth in the preseason Western Athletic Conference softball coaches' poll, released this week by the conference office. The Aggies returnfivestarters and 10 letterwinners from last season's squad that posted a 17-36 overall record and a 5-13 WAC mark, finishing in sixth-place. Utah State received 10 points on one fourth-place vote, two* fifth-place and three-sixth place votes in the balloting by the league's coaches, who could not vote on their own team. |