Wednesday, March 2, 1988/The Battalion/Page 9
Sports
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Jnderdogs,
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1966 — A little-known West Texas col
ie called Texas Western knocks off tradi
al power Kentucky 72-65 in the NCAA
ision I basketball finals.
1969 — The New York Mets beat the
tirnore Orioles four games to one in the
rid Series.
1969 — Joe
Jmath leads the
delegattBw York Jets to a
e startflBnning 16V7 upset
1 albi'if the Baltimore
directioBlts in Super Bowl
letting the
upswulSrld know that
as fro® fledgling Arner-
alreaii|pi Football Con-
Kelletrence was for
I V'
1980 — The
held mBi i t e d States
ietop)lympic hockey
cetoimfim shocks the
fcd with a 3-2
ation jir over the seemingly-invincible Soviet
lifferenlnion. The U.S. goes on to defeat Finland
studencKthe gold medal.
:mselvA 1984 — A struggling 5-5 Texas A&M
me aofitball team takes the field against the
■hly-regarded University of Texas Long-
ran lhapi ns and promptly executes them 37-12
limilinjC national television, providing the cat-
:e, BJyM for the Aggies’ three consecutive
g nowipiithwest Conference championships,
m dowffll'here’s a point to this brief chronology
■ sports events. All were upsets, and I
■ik it’s high time to celebrate one of
lerica’s greatest institutions: the under-
Loyd
Brumfield
Sportsviewgoin^
T
Colo.
lowhere else can you capture the true
aloe of sport until you see a team like the
finnesota Twins go from nobodies to
odd champions in less than a year, and
fen didn’t cheer for Great Britain’s upstart
lie Edwards in the ski jump during the
ently completed Winter Olympics?
l)n the other side of the coin, did any-
tty (except for those souls who had bets
| the series) want the Boston Celtics to
Firing anything but blanks
Aggies hitbulls-eye with pistol team
By Stan Golaboff
Reporter
Most students know about the
success of the T exas A&rM’s foot
ball team and most know about
the women’s softball team win
ning the national championship
last year, but few know about
one of A&:M’s most successful
collegiate teams, the pistol team.
Mark Benden, a junior bio
engineering major and a team
member, says the pistol team
consistently has been one of the
top 10 teams’in the nation over
the last 14 years.
1 he team competes in air pis
tol, free pistol and standard pis
tol categories as a team and as in
dividuals.
The air pistol competition
consist of the shooter shooting
60 rounds using a pistol that re
sembles something similar to a
pellet gun.
Team Coach Curtis Burns
says, “We start most people out
in this event since it is the easiest
of the three events to compete
in. Once the shooters get better,
then we move them up into the
other events”.
The next event is the standard
pistol, which has the shooter us
ing a .22 caliber at 50 yards. The
shooter still shoots 60 rounds.
The shooter shoots 20 rounds at
his own pace, 20 rounds timed
and 20 rounds at a rapid pace.
The hardest event is the free
style, Burns said.
Photo by Teresa Montz
Mark Benden practices standard pistol. He ranked first in
state and 13th in the nation in the event last year.
Benden said that the team has
1 1 members, but only four com
pete as a team for competition.
This year’s varsity team has
three members returning from
last year’s team that advanced to
the nationals.
Benden says, “We should
have . good shot at returning to
the n tionals, but it’s hard to tell
because a score that would have
qualifed last year may not qualify
this year.”
Burns says A&M hosted a sec
tional competition two weeks
ago and won. Teams from all
over competed, including Texas
Tech, the University of Texas,
the University of Texas-Arling
ton and Sam Houston State.
There is also an individual
from Long Beach State attend
ing, Burns says.
T he sectionals will determine
who goes on to compete in the
nationals held at Colorado
Springs on April 5 through 10.
The top 30 individuals and the
top 10 teams in the nation will
compete at the nationals.
“A&M recently held a warm
up meet a couple of weeks ago
for these sectionals and A&M
did rather well,” Burns says.
A&M won first place in the
overall team category. Scott Fos-
dal, a senior political science ma
jor, won first place in the free
pistol.
A&M began pistol competi
tion in 1944. Burns says that
when he retired from the Air
Force in 1973 he came back to
A&M and found that the team
no longer existed.
With help from a captain in
the ROTC department he
started the team again in 1974
and has been coaching the team
ever since.
The team receives funding
from the Texas A&M Bookstore
profits like all other campus or
ganizations and also charges
dues to cover the teams ex
penses.
■t the Detroit Pistons in the 1987 NBA
8 . tfte Item Conference finals, or the Houston
t ' ,1|ir rackets the year before in the
com hampionship series?
ICS ' underdog is a cherished institution,
* >as( ne that somehow seems unique to the
,e ' 1 ‘ l Inited States. My theory is that the whole
jfthe Ijition of the underdog began way back
ulen J776 or so, whenever those 13 miniscule
nized 1
urdfl* J1 -
i-que, 1
is’ lc- I
colonies picked a fight with the British Em
pire to kick off the Revolutionary War. Do
you think anybody outside of England
wanted the British to tame America once
and for all? 1 don’t think so.
The underdog has flourished since then,
and occasionally an underdog has gone on
to be an American or world power. College
basketball provides a good example here.
DePaul was unheard of until it made it to
the Final Four several years ago, and al
though the Blue Demons haven t equaled
that success of yet, they are now a house
hold name among basketball fans.
Texas has seen plenty of underdogs of its
own. Take the 1980 and 1986 Astros, for
instance. Both made it to the National
League Championship Series, and they lost
both times. But they played classic games
against teams considered far superior to
them in the Philadelphia Phillies and the
New York Mets.
And let’s not forget A&M. Many aju un ;
derdog has worn an Aggie uniform. Not
only can Aggies relish in the 1984 walloping
of Texas, they can also look to the 1986
A&M basketball team that came alive to
thoroughly thrash TCU, Texas Tech and
Baylor in the post-season tournament to ad
vance to the NCAA playoffs, or the 1987
baseball team that came within a game of
advancing to the College World Series, or
the A&M’s women’s tennis team that won
the SWC championship in the spring of
1986 behind Gaye Lynn Gensler and Kim
Labuschagpe, qnd on and On and on . . .
Long live the underdog.
,-7W. ^ r\ - * * !* ST 1 - -
Lady Ags fall
to UT 79-57
Those Texas Lady Longhorns keep on
rolling.
The Texas A&M women’s basketball
team couldn’t stop them, losing 79-57 Tues
day night at the Frank Erwin Special Events
Center in Austin.
A&M’s Donna Roper had 23 points in
the loss, and forward Nette Garrett chipped
in 10. The Lady Aggies outrebou tided the
Lady Horns 36-33.
“The pressure bothered us,” A&M
Coach Lynn Hickey said. “Considering
Roper had a bad ankle and that she played
40 minutes against (UT’s Yulonda) Wimb-
ish, I thought she played an excellent
game.”
The Lady Aggies are now 13-12 overall
and 7-8 in the Southwest Conference. UT’
improves to 27-2 and 15-0 in the SWC.
The game was relatively even until the
6:47 mark of the first half, when UT made
a string of shots to pull away and take a 38-
24 halftime lead.
It didn’t take long for the Lady Horns to
take control in the second half, increasing .1
48-32 lead to 56-32 at the 14:42 mark.
UT was led by Wimbish with 21 points.
Beverly Williams added 12, all coming in
the first half.
“We came in here with one purpose in
mind — to play hard,” Hickey said. “We got
beat by 21 points but we didn’t play scared.
We just don’t have the personnel to match
up with them for 40 minutes.
“Texas has one of the finest teams in the
country, no doubt,” Hickey said. “We tried
not to get the team too hyped up that it
wouldn’t carry over to the TCU game.”
A&M will play TCU Saturday at 5 p.m. at
Daniel Meyer Coliseum in Fort Worth.
Men’s hoopsters
at UT tonight
The Texas A&M men’s basketball team
will play Texas at 7:30 tonight at the Frank
Erwin Special Events Center in Austin.
The Aggies will be trying to avenge theit
52*49 loss earlier this season at G Rotiic
White Coliseum.
A&M is in sixth place in the Southwest
Conference at 7-7. UT is 9-5 and fi^‘
for a third or fourth seed in next wee!
Southwest Conference Classic.
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