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Show Great Summer Jobs in California for the largest family-owned pest control company in the US. 100% commissions up-front. Gas & cell phones paid. Check out FOR THE www.clarksummerjobs.com UTAH CONSERVATION CORPS! www.usu.eduiucc UtahStateUniversity or call now 877-899-1205 : CLARK :• ...PEST CONTROL Nor Page 10 StateSMallSPOrtS Wednesday, Feb. ► 7, 2010 Ags come up empty in Sin City By KAYLA CLARK staff writer After a strong showing last week at home, the women's tennis team lost both head-to-head matches this weekend in Las Vegas, Nev. Friday's match to UNLV ended in a harsh 7-0 defeat for the Aggies. Not one singles point was claimed, losing in all six positions. No. 1 Aggie's singles player, junior Hailey Swenson, lost to the Rebel's Kristina Nedeltcheva, who is nationally ranked No. 50, 6-1, 6-4. Swenson now has a 3-1 singles record and a combined 6-2 singles and doubles record thus far this season. UNLV's Jana Albers, ranked No. 44, defeated USU's freshman Jaclyn West 6-3, 6-2 at the No. 2 singles spot, and classmate Kristina Voytsekhovich lost to the Rebel's Nives Pavlovic 60, 6-3 in the No. 3 slot. Sophomore Monica Abella lost to the Rebel's Adrienn Hidvegi (6-3, 6-0), junior Taylor Perry fell to Anna Maskaliun (6-1, 6-1) and senior Britney Watts to Alisa Razina (6-3, 6-0) at the fourth, fifth and sixth positions, respectively. USU endured losses at all three doubles positions, giving the Rebels the final point for the match. West and Swenson's three-match winning streak was put to a halt by UNLV's Nedeltcheva and Albers, 8-6, handing Sewnson and West their first loss of the young season and bringing their record to 3-1. Abella and Voytsekhovich lost their match 8-1, as did Perry and Watts in the second and third doubles positions, respectively. Saturday's match looked a little more promising for the Ags, but the team was unable to finish, bringing in a close 4-3 loss against UC Riverside. USU had wins at the No. 1, 2 and 4 spots in the singles competition — Swenson defeating UCR's Nadia Sakhakorn, 6-1, 6-3 at the No. 1 spot, bumping up her singles record to 4-1 and a USU record 8-2 overall record for the season. West defeated UCR's Donna McCullough 6-3, 6-1 for the second point. The final point for USU was brought in by Abella, who battled Angelique Corpuz in a 3 match game, 6-4, 0-6, 6-4. Voytsekhovich, Perry and Watts lost in their respective positions. USU dropped the doubles point, losing in the No. 2 and 3 spots. Swenson and West defeated Roxanne Plata and Angelique Corpuz at the No. 1 position, 8-2. They now hold an impressive 4-1 doubles record on the season. Abella and freshman Kristina Voytsekhovich cut it close but failed to overcome UCR's McCullough and Sakhakorn, losing 9-7. Watts and Perry fell to the Highlander's Natalie McKay and Taylor Raney, 8-6, in the No. 3 doubles slot. After last week's win over in-state rival Weber State on Wednesday and both losses in Sin City this weekend, the Aggies now stand 2-3 on the season. Utah State will host its next three matches of the season starting with North Dakota on Friday, Feb. 19 at noon. It will then face Montana Feb. 27 and Montana State on March 4. 4. kayla.clark@aggiemaiLusu.edu — Gymnasts can't keep up with ranked opponents By DAN FAWSON staff writer When it is time to look for that job, that career-type job, check with The UTAH Statesman Job Finder first. Just go to www.A-Bay-USU.com and look for the job finder widget, right thre on the right. Start clicking and start the search. Good luck! I 21•• IERREER For a list of employers attending and tips for success visit: usu.eduic are er/careerf air Wednesday, March 3rd 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Taggart Student Center, 2nd Floor thatiStateUn iversity CARWISSYKIS Sponeered by Career !Services 435-M74777 APARTMENTS 454 N 400 E email: forestgatemanagers@live.com (435) 752-1516 $2350-$2650 Summer $550* School Year Onsite Laundromat Close to USU & Bus Stop Fully Furnished Private Bedrooms • $50 off if you sign up with 2 or more friends! • $100 off off rent if you sign up by March 1st! • • • • *Price includes utilities, cable, and high speed internet. Following a rather unfortunate theme that has plagued the team for the majority of the 2010 season, the last two meets for the Utah State women's gymnastics team were less about winning and more about persevering. The team's progress has been hindered by a rash of injuries from the beginning of the season. The Aggies traveled to Salt Lake City last Friday night to square off against their toughest opponent of the season, No. 4 Utah. The depleted Aggies struggled to find enough gymnasts to compete in each event and, ultimately, fell to their in-state counterparts, 196.225-178.250. The final score, a season low for USU, was slightly misleading. A total of five individual scores is used to tally a team's total event score, but the short-handed Aggies were only able to have four girls compete on floor exercise, thus forfeiting up to nine points. The Aggies posted a seasonhigh 48.475 on bars, scored 46.200 on vault, 37.250 on floor and 46.325 on beam. The Utes, meanwhile, posted meet-highs in each event, with scores of 49.125 on vault, 48.975 on bars, 48.875 on beam and 49.250 on floor. Lost in the gloom of another disappointing loss was another strong performance from senior co-captain Heather Heinrich. Heinrich's 38.775 was good for fourth in the all-around competition and was her third consecutive season-high score. Amid the injuries, USU head coach Jeff Richards believes his senior leader is peaking at the right time. "This is perfect," Richards said. "This is when we had planned it — about mid-season really coming on strong." Richards has continually praised Heinrich's work ethic and said her recent attention to cleaning up her form has really paid off. Another USU highlight came from a rather unexpected Aggie, or at least, unexpected to everyone but Richards. Sophomore Rebecca Holliday posted a USU season-high 9.8 on bars, an event she hadn't competed in all season prior to Friday's meet. "It was kind of expected," Richards said, "but we were a little unsure because she hasn't competed at all." Richards said Holliday may be one of the few Aggies who, in a round-about way, may have benefited from an injury. "I mean, it's never good to get an injury," Richards said, "but she was really able to work on bars. She has truly put in the time and just had tons of practice on that I See GYM, page 14 Section F A different point of view hree quarters of the Western Athletic Conference season is in the books and a 10-2 record for Utah State in league play, a third straight WAC championship is right there for the Aggies' taking. Although USU's remaining WAC schedule has three home games and just one road game, conveniently against the conference's worst team, this final stretch has the most uncertainty surrounding it than any other stretch this season. First up is Louisiana Tech, a team who not only beat the Aggies earlier this season, but beat them soundly. The Bulldogs of late seemed to have come back down to earth from appearing like a possibly dominant team throughout much of this season, evidenced by a recent six-point win over Hawaii in Ruston. Hawaii was without two of its top-four scorers in that game. both of whom played against the Aggies in Logan earlier this year, when Utah State handed Hawaii a 44-point loss. The duo of Kyle Gibson and Magnum Rolle for La. Tech is arguably the best insideoutside duo in the league this year, but the question of late-season fatigue is lingering and it almost appears as though the Bulldogs are running out of gas. Regardless, the Aggies will need to play as well as they have been during this 10-game winning streak to essentially knock the Bulldogs out of the conference title race. It shouldn't hurt that a game of this magnitude is on ESPN2, which usually means USU students will be in full-force barring any kind of anomaly like what we saw against Idaho two weeks ago when turnout was sparse by Spectrum standards. Saturday's game against Wichita State, also on ESPN2, will be the final stamp on non-conference play for USU this season as the Aggies have climbed their way back into consideration for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in March. While it bears no impact on the WAC race, it still could become incredibly relevant in a few weeks from now. For the Aggies, winning at Hawaii has typically been difficult, but Hawaii has been getting progressively worse. Since USU entered the WAC in 2005 things have never looked worse for the Rainbow Warriors. A shorthanded version of the Hawaii team that Utah State beat by 44 points for the Aggies' first WAC win will be the competition on the islands, and if USU can't dispatch Hawaii on T the islands, then it certainly is deserving of taking itself out of WAC championship contention. It seems safe to assume, though, that the Hawaii game should be an easy one for USU. The final home stretch against Fresno State and New Mexico State is the make or break of this WAC season. Fresno State will be looking for revenge after getting embarrassed in its own arena by the Aggies earlier this year, and it also has the claim of being the last WAC team team win a game in the Spectrum. While that may seem like ancient history, it's a game that USU needs to take seriously with the Bulldogs back to full strength again after the injury to their super-sophomore Paul George. If both New Mexico State and Utah State manage to battle through their schedules until March 6 without another loss, the senior-night game in Logan will be a battle for the topseed in the WAC tournament. New Mexico State is another team that is tough to judge at this point in the season because of their late additions of players who were academically ineligible for the first half of the season. They are a team that plays a very unorganized style of basketball, which consists of a lot of 3pointers being taken. If they get hot and those 3-pointers start falling, much like they did for the red Aggies in last year's WAC Tournament semifinal game against Utah State, it can be a difficult task to overcome. A Utah State student body in full force making ear-splitting amounts of noise at opposing teams is the ultimate x-factor for Utah State, and if I had to guess, it'd take something very unexpected to prevent that student body from rushing the Spectrum court once again this year to celebrate and cut down some nets for another outright conference championship. Matt Sonnenberg is a junior majoring in print journalism. Matt is an avid fan of Aggie athletics and can be found on the front row of every home football and basketball game. He can also be reached at matt.sonn@ aggiemail. usu. edu. |