Friday, May 9, 1986/The Battalion/Page 9
lEi
Sports
,ggie women get
CAA tennis bid
A&M, SHSU to square off again
• tnes-
ote
JC
By Ken Sury
Spprts Editor
^■he Southwest Conference
:hai ipion Texas A&M women’s
ennis team will have to take two
lets of finals next week as it re-
:ei\led its bid Thursday to corn-
jete in the NCAA Women’s Ten-
lis Championships on May 15-18.
^■he NCAA selection commit-
ee gave the Aggies the No. 15 bid
Forkhe 16-team tournament to be
neld at the University of Texas’
ae\t Pennick-Allison Tennis Cen-
:er. fexas received the No. 16 bid.
Br the sixteen teams, six are
^i\«n automatic bids by being the
t()|i team in their respective
N’(1\A region. The remaining 10
teams receive at-large bids from
thelNCAA selection committee.
j^Brinity, ranked third in the na
tion by the latest Head Intercolle-
giat< Tennis Standings (H.I.T.S.)
LMearned the automatic bid for
this region. A&M is currently
ranked 18th and Texas 16th, but
tlieje rankings do not include the
SWT Tournament.
&M first-year Coach Bobby
Kltjinecke, who shared SWC
Coach-of-the-Year honors with
iTf.r’s Roland Ingram, said he’s
glad to have the NCAA berth, but
reaji/.es his team faces a difficult
Held.
..ibem “We've got some good players,”
t mucfi K.\||necke said, “and we play good
'ckintc: tennis. But it'll he tough:
ittan[W:A|l\ uv \hm^v can happen. Before
;reenoi;Wye played Northwestern (an
;r layer i Aggie 6-‘l win during spring break
over the then-No. 6 team) nobody
irtheS thoiight we could win that.”
ncluded rf.
‘^■he team competition merely
expert' kicks off the women’s champion-
say therCships. The 64-player singles and
lackareai’the 32-team doubles competition
opper tax will be held May 20-23. The selec-
tUonex|*Hi<Bis will be announced May 18.
ishthestW^Kleinecke said he doesn’t ex-
ueverci^'pect ;m Aggie to he named for the
{h. , 1
he said wf’ 11 ; u
ini layer. Ad
clean. Von
lin came
by several
itoration
a ge low on 1
ieve t®r
on the
singles draw, but thinks two dou
bles teams, the No. 1 tandem of
Vanne Akagi and Gaye Lynne
Gensler and the No. 2 duo of Kim
Labuschagne and Karen Marshall
have a good chance of being
selected.
Both tandems earned bids in
the Rolex Intercollegiate Tennis
Coaches Association (I.T.C.A.)
Indoor Nationals in February,
which was only a 16-team field.
In the I.T.C.A. Nationals, Aka
gi and Gensler lost in the consola
tion finals to Harvard’s Cathy Vig-
na and Erika Smith, while Labus
chagne and Marshall lost their
first-round match to Houston’s
Kathy Fox worth and Stina
Almgren.
But both duos had strong SWC
seasons. Labuschagne and Mar
shall were undefeated in their
eight conference matches and
Won two SWC tourney matches
before losing to SMU’s Headier
Hairston and Jennif er Santrock in
the No. 2 doubles final.
Akagi and Gensler were 5-1 in
the conference (Gensler missed
two matches with an injury), but
lost their first-round match to
SMU’s Jean Marie Sterling and
Tammy Christiansen.
Both tandems were named to
the all-SWC squad. Labuschagne
and Marshall received six of the
nine ballots, while Akagi and
Gensler got five votes.
The NCAA Men’s Tennis
Championships will be held in
Athens, Ga., May 17-25. Of the
Aggies, SWC No. 1 singles cham
pion Kimmo Alkio has the best
shot at receiving a bid.
Alkio is ranked 40th in the cur
rent H.I.T.S. List, but that doesn’t
include his victories over No. 14
John Ross of SMU and No. 4 Bob
by Blair of Arkansas during the
SWC tournament.
By Tom Tagliabue
Sports Writer
The newly crowned Southwest
Conference co-champion Texas
A&M baseball team will take on Sam
Houston State in a Highway 30 series
this weekend.
The Aggies, ranked No. 12 with a
39-21 overall record, will play a
three-game series against the Bear-
kats, whom the Aggies have already
beaten three times this season.
The Aggies and Bearkats are sche
duled to play a Saturday afternoon
double-header at Olsen Field at 1
p.m. They will switch sites and travel
to Huntsville for a Sunday single
game at 2 p.m.
Tickets for Saturday are $2 and
student passes will be honored this
weekend.
Aggie Coach Mark Johnson hopes
this series will give his team a com
petitive edge before the SWC Tour
nament, which the Ags host on May
16-18 at Olsen Field.
“We want to look at it like Sam
Houston is another team we’re going
to compete against,” Johnson said. “I
want to really compete hard because
you need to get back into the swing
and get that valve turned up again so
you get use to it again.
“So we want to make it important
and play hard even though we’re
going to throw a lot of pitchers, which
puts us back into that Tuesday game
rhythm that we’ve had before, where
we’re throwing a lot of different
& u y s -’’
Winning the championship, which
Johnson said has improved the
teams’ attitude, should be a big boost
against the Bearkats.
“Winning the championship —
what a lift for the guys,” Johnson
said. It was a great lift and it was a
deserved lift. It put us in a good
mood. The guys are coming out to
the ballpark and they feel good about
themselves and feel good about
what’s been accomplished.”
Johnson said finals week will pro
vide a lot of distractions for the team.
“We can’t put off the studies until
the last minute,” Johnson said. “Next
Photo by Anthony S. Casper
A&M’s Fred Gegen (24) is out at second amid a A&M hosts SHSU in a double-header Saturday at
cloud of dust during the Aggies’ sweep of TCU. 1 p.m., then plays in Huntsville Sunday at 2.
week they’re going to have a lot of
distractions. (We need to) be sure
we’re studying hard now and that
we’re planning ahead and not going
to pull all-nighters the night before a
tournament game.
“(We need to) make practice count
for the hour and a half or two hours
we’re out here and then get back and
get our priorities straight. Naturally
they’re looking forward to the tour
nament and they’re concerned about
how they’re going to play. We just
have to be mature enough to practice
hard and then leave it on the field.”
SWC Tournament Notes .. .Ticket
sales for the SWC postseason baseball
tournament are going well according
to Jim Kotch of the Athletic Ticket
Office.
Kotch said f ,500 reserved seat tick
ets, all located on the lower deck of
Olsen Field, were offered and fewer
than 200 per game remain. Six-game
tournament tickets are $24 and indi
vidual game reserved seats are $4
each.
The University of Texas Athletic
Department received 470 reserved
seats along the first-base line and
some 2,000 general admission seal
Neither Arkansas nor Baylor have rc
quested any tickets.
The upper deck of the stadium will
be general admission, Kotch said,
and only 300-400 of the $3 tourtu
ment tickets have been sold.
Kotch advised students that then-
season passes will not admit them to
the series and tournament tickets
must be purchased. Tickets are being
sold at the G. Rollie White ticket
office Monday through Friday from
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be purchased
by Visa or MasterCard.
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