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The Battalion
PORTS
Page 7
Wednesday • April 9, 1997
obcats snap Aggies' streak, 10-4
By Chris Ferrell
The Battalion
Welcome home Jeremy Fikac.
Fikac, a junior pitcher for the Southwest Texas State
Diversity Bobcats (24-16) and a Somerville native,
lebrated his birthday by going 6-1 /3 innings for the
in. The right hander surrendered three runs on sev-
hits, as the Bobcats defeated die Texas A&M Base-
ill Team (27-15) 10-4 Tuesday night at Olsen Field.
Southwest Texas took advantage of a four-run
[( j ( , ird inning as they got to A&M pitchers early and
” ten to pick up the victory.
A&M Head Coach Mark Johnson said Fikac was
ppressive.
“The kid (Fikac) goes out there, and he hadn’t
;en throwing,” Johnson said. “He started out in the
p four (in the pitching rotation) and they had to
ovehim to third base. (SWT Head Coach) Howard
lushong) told me, before the game, they had to get
m back in there because they’re going into touma-
Jents and stuff and he certainly earned his way back
■there. He had command of the breaking pitch.”
I Fikac had not pitched since the Bobcats third
lime of the season, when he lost to Texas Pan-
|nerican in February.
Johnson said freshman pitcher Chris Ful-
|right pitched well for the Aggies, but SWT rose
the challenge.
5 | "It was a tough outing for him,” Johnson said,
■hey got on him and I thought he threw some
[etty good pitches. Again that’s one of the reasons
ey have a pretty good club, because they hit some
od pitches. It was one his better breaking-pitch
rc^ys, and they got on that.
"I thought Courtney Weller threw well and
®ieed came in and faced their seven-eight-nine
[C
[batters] with nobody on and did fine. Other than
that we struggled a bit.
“We struggled at the plate and let them get some
momentum. It’s easy to go out and pitch when
you’ve got a five-run lead, a six-run lead, and we al
lowed them to do that.”
The Aggies were held hitless for the first 2-2/3
innings and the Bobcats exploded for six in the first
three innings.
Johnson said while the Aggies did not play up to
their potential, Southwest Texas played well
enough to win.
“I think we were a little flat, but I don’t want to
take anything away from them, I think they’re a
good ball club,” Johnson said. “It shows in the
record, it shows in what they’re doing in confer
ence. I know we’ve been a little emotionally strung
out on these conference weekend games but I was
disappointed we didn’t do better.
“They’ve beat a lot of people. They beat Rice and
Texas. They’re a pretty good ball club. It wasn’t like we
just gave them the game. They controlled part of it.”
The Aggies were finally able to get their bats go
ing in the sixth inning, however it was too little, too
late. Freshman third baseman Sean Heaney led off
the inning with a solo home run over the left field
wall. Junior second baseman Brian Benefield fol
lowed with a solo shot of his own.
The one-run home run parade continued in the
next inning when senior right fielder Johnny Hunter
hit his 14th home run of the season. Hunter ended
the evening 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored.
“I’d rather have a win then have a good night from
the plate,” Hunter said. “We’ve been on a role and
maybe this was an eye opener. We can’t take things for
granted, we have to go out and play each game like it is
our last. We just came out flat and we didn’t play well.”
-
Illllili
Derek Demere, The Baitalion
Senior shortstop Rich Petru slides into second base as SWT's shortstop Jack Wickersham (#2) and Rey Arredondo
(#16) try to tag him out last night.
Mountain man
The freshman pitcher has adjusted to A&M and Southern living
By Chris Ferrell
The Battalion
f o the average Texan, Missoula, Mont.,
hardly seems like a hot bed for top-notch
baseball prospects.
When Montana is mentioned, there are im
ages of mountains and little log cabins with
smokestack chimneys. A small creek, which
lays home to fish as big as the average man’s
rm, tucked away in the wilderness seems more
kelyto be found than a baseball diamond.
These images were similar to what freshman
itcher Courtney Weller expected when his fam-
f moved from Virginia to Missoula before his
eshman year of high school.
However, it was not like that at all.
"[I had] the regular questions, ‘Do they have run-
ng water?,’ that kind of thing,” Weller said. “I don’t
tow what most Texans think about Montana,
'
Derek Demere, The Battalion
reshman Courtney Weller pitches against
>wa State at Olsen Field.
maybe that it’s just a mountainous kind of country.
It’s not at all like that. It’s here, but they don’t have big
Houston-type towns. It’s like College Station. It has
a little University there, about 20,000 people.”
One thing Missoula did not have was a high
school baseball program. Unlike Texas, most of
the kids in Montana play for
American Legion teams.
“American Legion baseball
in Montana is very comparable
to high school baseball here —
it’s big,” A&M Head Coach
Mark Johnson said. “They hire
coaches and it’s a big deal. Ob
viously they don’t have the high
school programs.”
Weller set the league on fire,
leading his team, the Missoula
Mustangs, to state champi
onships in 1994 and 1995. He
was named the state’s Most Valu
able Player both years.
American Legion was an experience Weller
found to be rewarding.
“It was really actually a good program,” Weller
said. “We played Washington high school teams
and Idaho teams. It’s a real underrated program.
I think it offered me a real good background al
though it may not be viewed like that from a Tex
an. I was pleasantly surprised that they had a de
cent program.”
The main difference between baseball in
Montana and Texas is the window of opportuni
ty to play. While baseball in Texas is almost a
year-round sport, the Montana weather limits it
to a summer game.
“We wait until it’s warm in Montana,” Weller
said. “We start right about now. It’s getting warm
and you pitch in good weather. The summer
months in Montana are just awesome. That’s
about what it’s like here in the fall and the spring.
It gets hot, just not as often. That’s (Texas tem
peratures) a definite advantage. We would have
to play indoor some.”
Johnson said while most northern-based players
might be at a disadvantage because of the shorter
season, Weller’s tournament success made up for it.
“They miss a season actually because our
guys play the high school season and then they
play Connie Mack or something,” Johnson said.
“So he really is playing only one season. But, he
was a key guy and they went to advanced tour
naments, so he’s played probably as much base
ball as anyone in that area. I think he’s adjusted
well and is getting better every time out.”
The move to Montana actually opened the
door for Weller to come to A&M. Pitching Coach
“The quality of a
good pitcher is
that he can throw
with his maximum
velocity and
throw strikes.”
Mark Johnson
A&M head coach
Jim Lawler found out about Weller through
Weller’s American Legion coach, Brent Hathaway,
— whom Lawler coached earlier in his career.
“I came to a pitcher catcher camp and did
pretty well and my coach played for Coach
Lawler, so I had a little connection there,” Weller
said. “I had a good year each of
the years in Montana and lucki
ly, I got recruited to come play.
“He (Hathaway) played at Ida
ho and then Lawler went to UTEP
and brought Hathaway down
there. He had a real great arm, but
he hurt his arm and it never
panned out for him. It (coming to
A&M) was definitely the right
choice as far as an engineering
school and the climate is definite
ly superior in the school months.”
Once Weller arrived in Ag-
gieland, he had a tough time find
ing his groove. A&M made the de
cision to redshirt him for the 1996 season.
“When I got here, they were working on hitting
spots,” Weller said. “And I got away from power
pitching. My velocity went down. This year, I’ve
been throwing hard and I’ve retained some of the
spotting ability. It’s worked out good.”
Johnson said the problem is common among
many of the pitchers A&M recruits.
“He got so concerned, and a lot of our pitch
ers do because they don’t get to play if they don’t
throw strikes,” Johnson said. “They know that, so
a lot of them back off and they don’t throw the
ball as hard as they can, so they throw strikes.
“The quality of a good pitcher is that he can
throw with his maximum velocity and throw
strikes. We’ve got his velocity back up. He’s going
to be respectable. He was throwing very low ve
locity for us last year — for our league.”
Weller was able to use the time off to regain
his velocity and gain confidence in other some
of his other pitches.
“He knew his curve ball was his pitch and didn’t
have a lot of confidence that his fastball was going
to get people out,” Johnson said. “Now he realizes
that he can set up his curve ball and get away with
his fastball because he has his velocity back up.”
Aside from regaining velocity, Weller said his
redshirt season was productive because it gave
him an extra year of eligibility.
“We had so many good pitchers,” Weller said.
“I think we had 18. Just like any year goes, you
just do what you can and it didn’t work out for
me. But it gave me another four years to play. It
turned out well.”
The folks back in Missoula would agree.
Lady Ags defeat
Baylor Bears, 6-3
By Courtney Lyons
The Battalion
On a breezy, overcast after
noon, the Texas A&M Women’s
Tennis Team overcame an open
ing loss in the singles matches to
take out Baylor University, 6-3,
and hold on to their tie with the
University of Texas, for first place
in the Big 12 Conference.
The Lady Aggies came into the
match ranked 23rd in the nation
and turned up the heat on the
Lady Bears, frying them in five
straight sets to head into the dou
bles matches, 5-1.
“Baylor is a good team,” Head
Coach Bobby Kleinecke said. “But
we played very well and took care
of business.”
Kleinecke said the play of the
team in the No. 3 and 4 singles po
sitions was the key to A&M’s re
sounding victory, setting the tone
for the entire match. Lady Aggie
sophomore Monica San Miguel
took out Baylor’s Vanessa Able in
the No. 4 match 6-1, 6-0.
San Miguel said she was ready
for the match because she was
well-prepared.
“I was very focused today and I
concentrated weU,” San Miguel said.
“I was being aggressive and coming
up to the net more. By the second set,
she (Able) was not pressing as hard.
I had a good day—the match went
very smooth, with no ups or downs.”
San Miguel said the Baylor
team, ranked 35th in the nation,
put up a hard fight, and the Aggies
could not relax while playing them.
In match No. 6, Lady Aggie se
nior Julie Beahm struggled in the
first set, losing to Baylor’s Sophie
Goldschmidt. In the second set,
Beahm managed to overcome
those errors and go on to win the
match in three sets.
“Julie’s key was to keep fighting
and take care of the errors she was
making,” Kleinecke said.
Although the doubles matches
had to be temporarily postponed
because of the weather, the match-
Derek Demere, The Battalion
Junior Monica Rebolledo
shows off her backhand against
Baylor Tuesday at Omar Smith
Tennis Center.
es resumed and the Lady Aggies
lost two out of three.
Kleinecke said the team was
glad to get the match in, despite
the rainy day. They are preparing
for a tough schedule next week,
and will face the Lady Longhorns
in Austin on Tuesday.
Kleinecke also said the girls
played well during the match against
Baylor, as they have done all year
long, and they will be ready to face
next week’s challenges.
“The wins in the singles re
lieved the stress for us heading
into the doubles (as the Lady Ag
gies had already won by that
point),” Kleinecke said. “That
made it much easier on me.”
The 14-2 Lady Aggies have
one more home dual-meet Fri
day with the University of Okla
homa, before heading to the
University of Texas and then to
Kansas University.
The Battalion
Applications for Section Editors for the summer
and fall semesters are now available in Room
013 Reed McDonald Building.
Applications are due Friday, April 11, in
Room 013 Reed McDonald by 5 p.m.
All majors welcome. Experience not required.
For more information, call 845-331 3.
We need YOU to volunteer for
SPECIAL OLYMPICS
A
April 11 and 12
Please come anytime between
3:30-6:00 pm on Friday and
7:45 am-7 pm on Saturday
at A&M Consolidated High School
For more information, come to an orientation meeting
Wednesday at 7 pm in Zachry 127B
or call the AP0 office at 862-2525
J