riday • February 27, 1998 The Battalion ggies off to Big 12 Championships ;xas A&M Track and Field Team gears up for conference competition in Ames, Iowa IfcXAB AU5 m RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion timan Bashir Ramzy competes in the long jump at the Houston Invitational. By Michael Ferguson Staff writer The Texas A&M Track and Field Team will wrap up the indoor sea son this weekend when it travels to Ames, Iowa, to compete in the Big 12 Indoor Conference Champi onships. This promises to be an ex tremely competitive meet with the northern Big 12 schools tradition ally dominating the events. How ever, the Aggies are concluding their best indoor season in recent years and should rise up to meet the challenge. After last year’s disappointing performance in the conference championships, Texas A&M is out to prove that last year was noth ing more than just a fluke. Coach Ted Nelson said last season was an inaccurate reflection of the team’s ability. “We were a better team than we showed. Things just didn’t go right for us,” Nelson said. “If you go back and look at the events, if they were qualifying eight for the finals, we’d be ninth. It just wasn’t our day.” The Aggies have put that per formance behind them and are ea gerly awaiting the opportunity to redeem themselves. The experi enced gained last year did help the team and coaches make adjust ments this season in preparation for the season finale. “We’re going to approach it a lit tle bit different this year. We went into it a little apprehensive last year,” Nelson said. “I think our ath letes are going to react good to it.” This newfound approach cou pled with the knowledge gained in “I feel like our luck may change a little bit (this year), Ted Nelson Track and Field Coach the first Big 12 Indoor Champi onships should lead to much more success for Texas A&M this week end. Nelson said he has a positive attitude going into the meet. “I feel like maybe our luck will change a little bit (this year), and we have the quality of athletes that can do that,” Nelson said. The Aggies will begin their quest for redemption today at 9 a.m. The preliminaries and semifi nals will take place today, with the finals following on Saturday. Following the Big 12 Indoor Con ference Championships, the indoor season will be completed (with the exception of the NCAA Champi onships), and the outdoor season will get underway March 7 at the Alamo Early Bird in San Antonio. Softball team on the road at NFCA Classic By Robert I Iollier Staffwriter The No. 22 Texas A&M Softball Team (11-3), coming off a second- place finish in the Aggie Invitational, will face its toughest competition of the season as it travels to Columbus, Ga., to participate in the NFCA Clas sic Tournament this weekend. The Aggies will play No. 3 Michi gan at 3 p.m. on Friday followed by No. 7 Arizona State at 5 p.m. On Sat urday, they will play Nicholls State at 9 a.m. and Canisius at 11 a.m. fol lowed by bracket play on Sunday. Other Big 12 teams participating will be No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 9 Oklahoma State, No. 12 Missouri, No. 16 Kansas, Texas and Nebraska. “This is the best and toughest tournament in the country,” Coach Jo Evans said. “This tournament will give us a good idea on how far we’ve come and where we need the most improvement.” Senior catcher and co-captain Mary McGuire agreed, saying this tournament will provide the team with some tremendous competition against some of the country’s top- ranked teams. At this point in the season, much of the team’s success can be attrib uted to consistent and dominating pitching performances. The starters, which include senior Irina Solesbee, sophomore Danielle Lemuth and freshmen Ashley Lewis and AmyVining, have gone 10-1 (in cluding eight complete games and two shutouts) with a 1.34 ERA and have allowed only a. 178 batting av erage against them. Freshman clos er Kristina Gandara has also come in to nail down two saves. “Right now they (the pitchers) are our team’s biggest strength,” Mcguire said. “When they get into really tough situations, they always seem to get the job done. The more comfortable they get, the more they excel.” Evans said the team still needs to get more consistent and pro ductive hitting. “We need to be more aggressive at the plate,” Evans said. “We need to get more consistent RBI production from our lineup to be more effective. Lack of hitting probably costs us first place in the tournament. McGuire said the team just has not clicked in all phases of the game yet. “When the season began, we were hitting the ball so well, but we weren’t making the plays in the field,” McGuire said. “In the last tourna ment, we fielded die ball well, but we couldn’t hit consistendy. We just need to put it together.” Evans said the Aggies have played as well as she had hoped, but they know they can play better and con tinue to improve. After this tournament, the Aggies will return home to play a double- header against the University of Texas-Arlington on March 4. STAY, day! 4 aseball team faces tough Big 12 opener JEI By Travis Harsch Staff writer The Aggie baseball team will try to i^akeoff a mid-season loss Friday as they lenup Big 12 play against Texas Tech, of the preseason favorites to win the nierence. Coach Mark Johnson said the Red liders are a team that can do a lot of ingswell. We’re facing one of the teams that favored to win the championship, idyouhate to open up your Big 12 sea like that, but I’m glad we’re at me,” Johnson said. “They’re going to outstanding pitching, and they inrun the bases well and they’re going hit, Texas Tech has always been a hit- igballclub, they’ve got a great staff, eve got our hands full, we’re going to iveto play well.” Senior Ryan Rupe, sophomore Casey ByAl Lazarus Staffwriter :eNo. 38 Texas A&M Women’s Ten- Team will face No. 14 Brigham ling University at 1:30 p.m. today at Omar Smith Tennis Center, and remain at home Saturday after- »nto take on Kansas State Universi- :30 p.m. The Aggies (7-1, 0-1) are coming off a *Free Ad' *Access< sl3 * 2, S 05 Doc. /ahkohn/iS ent the en away 5-0060 i™ 1 Possum and junior Matt Ward will start in the three game series for A&M, Johnson said, as the Aggie offense will try to cope with an injury to one of its key compo nents, junior Jason Tyner. “He rested over the weekend and Monday felt like he would go full speed,” Johnson said. “Then he got an infield hit that he had to leg out, and it tight ened up, and so we took him out. It’s a day by day deal, I’m not as optimistic right now as I was Monday, he’s got a pretty good strain. “He’s going to have to tell us how it feels, it’s more important now that he plays at 95 percent than not playing at all, he’s so critical to offense that we need to have him in there.” Johnson Although the Aggies did lose 10-7 to Sam Houston State Tuesday, Johnson said he did not think that would have much of an effect on the Tech game, be cause all of the conference teams are just getting started. “We always start with a chance to win and we want to put our best game out there,” Johnson said. “Nobody at this time is on full cylinders there’s not going to be a Big 12 team on full cylinders in the latter part of February.” The Aggies are ranked fifteenth in the latest Collegiate Baseball poll. Johnson said although it was nice to be noticed, the rankings really do not have all that much importance. “It’s fun to have recognition, but no body knows who the fifteenth team in the nation is,” Johnson said. The first game of the series will start at 3 p.m. on Friday with Saturday’s game at 3 p.m. also and Sunday’s beginning at 2 p.m. H : S3 ill I SMfl w lit ■ y BRANDON BOLLOM/The Battalion Junior third baseman Craig Kuzmic backhands a ground ball in a game against Mississippi. omen’s tennis team at home with matches against BYU and KSU disappointing loss at No. 36 Baylor on Wednesday, 5-4. After winning four of six singles matches, A&M needed only one doubles victory to secure the match, but could not manage it. In BYU, the Aggies face a perennial power that is fresh off an upset of the No. 2 team in the nation, Pepperdine University. “BYU is an excellent team,” Coach Bobby Kleinecke said. “They are a top- San Miguel 15 team, and they’re just getting back from the national in doors, so they proba bly have more expe rience than we have at this point of the season.” The Aggies are coming off a tough road stretch during which they played regional powers LSU, Rice and Baylor. “It’s going to be good to get back home again,” Kleinecke said. “We’ve been on the road for quite a while, and it should be good to play some home matches.” At the beginning of this season, among the Aggies’ goals were to finish first in the the Big 12. After losing to Baylor, they will likely have to win their remaining confer ence matches to accomplish this goal, starting with KSU on Saturday. A&M was victorious, 6-3, at KSU last year. Junior Monica San Miguel said al though the Aggies defeated KSU in Kansas last year, she does not expect an easy go of it this time around. “They were a pretty strong team last year, and they are supposed to be even stronger now,” she said. “We are just glad to get a chance to play them at home.” ■ ELECTIONS MARCH 2-6 9am-5|>m IN ROOM 149 KOLDUS YEU IEADERS-STUDENT SENATE- CLASS COUNCILS-STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT-RHA OFFICERS http://www.lamu.edu/sga If you need special assistance, please call 84S-3051 y$ elections are sponsored by the Election Commission. impmvisational comedy Mmmrnra..irnprov Friday & Saturday, Feb. 27 & 28 9 p.m. Rudder Theatre Tickets are $4 in advance (MSC BoxOffice) http://http.tairiu.edu :8000/~fslip *JB*»**8* >«'*<**$*. On sale this week at the M&€, :