Friday, January 24, 1986/The Battalion/Page 13
By KEN SURY
Assistant Sports Editor
I While most Aggies were home en
joying mom’s cooking, watching tele
vision and gaining weight during the
.holidays, the Texas A&M swim
teams were training hard for this
spring’s meets.
A&M Coach Mel Nash said when
his teams came back Jan. 2 for what’s
termed “Christmas training,” he put
his swimmers through the heaviest
workouts any team has received in
his seven years at A&M.
Those workouts consisted of two-
a-day workouts Monday through
Saturday, Nash said, which
amounted to 8-10 miles of swim
ming each day. He added that al
though swimming is less stressful on
the body than running, those 10
miles of swimming equal a 30-mile
effort by a runner.
But now that classes have re
sumed, he said, the number of work
outs has decreased from 12 a week
to nine, but the training will be as in
tense as the presemester workouts.
The Aggies swam in the All-
American meet in Austin Jan. 10-1 1,
which featured swimmers from
SMU, Texas, Georgia, Kansas,
Southern Illinois and several high
school swimmers. But Nash said the
team did not go to the meet hoping
to win, since to successfully compete
the swimmers would have to be
somewhat rested before the meet.
“Our swimmers were just exhaus
ted,” Nash said. “We hoped to just
hold our own against high schoolers.
Some of the times on our swims were
just horrible.
“But there were some bright
spots, and we did better than ex
pected. But team points weren’t
used, so we don’t know where we
stood. It was a nice cross-section of
competition.”
All that preparation will begin to
:ome into play today as the women’s
team travels to Houston for a 4 p.m.
xmtest with the Cougars. The team
s still thin on depth, and Nash ex
acts only five to six women to swim
or this spring’s meets, including the
southwest Conference Champion-
ihips in Austin Feb. 27-March 1.
“ The girls we have are top com
petitors,” Nash said. “They will
probably score more points per per
son than the other SWT! teams, but
as a team we can’t win a meet. They
should do well at Nationals (the
NCAA Championships). For our
meets, we’ll just be looking for
(good) individual swims.”
While the women’s team has a lack
of depth, the men’s team has an
abundance of it.
“Our men’s team is the strongest
team we’ve ever had,” Nash said.
“They’re progressing well, and we’re
almost three-(men) deep in distance
and strokes. Only Texas has better
overall depth (in the SWC), so we
have a lot of balance.”
That depth and balance probably
will be tested when UT visits here
Feb. 15 for a dual meet with A&M.
The only other dual meet scheduled
for the spring is a Feb. 8 matchup
here with Rice. That meet originally
was scheduled for Saturday, but the
date was changed due to a conflict
with The Aggieland Open Swim
Meet being held this weekend.
After those meets, the men have
one month to prepare for the SWC
Championships held in Austin
March 15. Nash said the top two
men’s teams in the conference al
ready are locked up.
“Texas will definitely win and
SMU will come in second,” Nash
said. “We beat SMU in the SWC Re
lays last semester, but the relays are
our strength. I think the most inter
esting competition will be for third-
place between us and Arkansas.
“Both of us have added people
this semester to help us. Arkansas
now has a top recruit in Mike Nufel,
one of the top two sprinters in the
country. We have Mike Kozlina
from my hometown of Pittsburgh.
He looked very strong in the All-
American meet.”
Kozlina was a High School All-
American in the 100-yard butterfly
and the 100-yard backstroke with
times of 49.3 and 51.4 seconds.
The NCAA Championships for
the women will be held March 20-22
in Fayetteville, Ark., and April 3-5 in
Indianapolis, Ind. for the men.
A&M swimmers
train rigorously
for spring action
Lady Aas
hope to end skid
Photo by DEAN SAITO
A&M’s Evelyn Sanders (23) eyes the basket as she Lady Aggies’ 80-75 loss Wednesday. A&M hosts
drives past Houston’s Sonya Watkins during the Rice Saturday at 5:15 p.m. in G. Rollie White.
By DOUG HALL
Sports Writer
The third week in January was
not a good one for Texas A&M
Women’s Basketball Coach Lynn
Hickey and her Lady Aggies.
Prior to that week, the Lady
Ags owned a 9-5 overall record
and started Southwest Confer
ence play with three straight vic
tories.
However, three straight losses
to Texas, Texas Tech and Hous
ton have left Hickey and her team
desperately searching for a SWC
win.
Rice, which brings its 4-11 re
cord to College Station Saturday
evening for a 5:15 tipoff, would
appear to be just the opponent
A&M needs to play in order to
halt its losing skid.
But Hickey knows games in the
SWC are never as easy as they ap
pear.
“Rice doesn’t have a good re
cord (0-6 in the SWC),” Hickey
said, “but they’re always tough to
beat. They have a very scrappy
team.
“It won’t be a runaway. They
have one of the best centers in the
conference in Holly Jones (who is
the second-leading scorer in the
SWC, averaging 18.6 points a
game) and a very good guard in
DeDe Brantley.”
Standing 9-8 overall, with only
two conference opponents left in
the first round of play — Rice on
Saturday and Arkansas Jan. 28 —
tdickey said the Lady Ags are still
not performing up to their capa
bility.
“We are still searching for the
chemistry and the one lineup that
will work,” Hickey said. “Right
now, the biggest thing we are
lacking is leadership on the floor.
That comes from the lack of ex
perience.”
Hickey said although she has
been pleased with her offense,
which has scored at least 75
points in all but one of its SWC
games, she is disappointed with
the team’s overall defensive per
formance.
“Our offense is good,” she said,
“but the defensive pressure was
maybe good for 10 minutes last
night (in Wednesday’s 80-75 loss
to UH). After that, they were hav
ing no problems getting through
our pressure.
“For us to win, we have to run
with the ball, get the steals and
apply defensive pressure. One
night, we are going td get both
(offense and defense) together.”
Hickey, who last year guided
A&M to its first .500 record (14-
14) since the ’79-80 season, said
she will probably go to a pressure
defense for the whole game
against Rice.
“Last week was the toughest
and most difficult of our schedu
le,” Hickey said. “We were really
hoping Houston would be one of
the upsets that would help us fin
ish in the top three (in the SWC).
“Now, we have to protect our
home court advantage and maybe
upset Arkansas at Arkansas. That
will be tough.”
The SWC’s top six teams will
face each other March 5-9 in Dal
las’ Moody Coliseum for the con
ference tourney.
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