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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 1998)
The Battalion Friday • April 17, 1998 ggie Sports Briefs from staff and wire reports re ball gears up r UT showdown The Texas A&M Baseball Team 2-13,14-7) will take on the Texas ms (16-23-1,4-10) for a three- ■series starting Friday in Austin :30 p.m. The series will then shift College Station for the final two j$s on Saturday and Sunday. The Aggies are coming off a come- Jehind 10-9 victory against the Iwls on Tuesday. The Horns re- fly lost to the University of Texas- jntonio 4-1 on Tuesday. Senior pitcher Ryan Rupe will prob- |y start game one in Austin. Rupe sa 7-3 record and a 2.64 ERA. Sophomore Casey Possum will ably start game two. Possum is Jfith a 3.35 ERA. Assuming he recovers from a tight jow. junior Matt Ward will start the game of the series. Ward is 6-2 a 4.84 ERA. If Ward cannot go, Imore Chance Caple will pitch. ipe nominated national award Texas A&M senior pitcher Ryan His on a list of 12 semifinalists f the Rotary Smith Award, the only tional award for college baseball’s fyer of the year as voted upon by Sports Information Directors Serica (CoSIDA). Rupe has a 7-3 record with a 2.64 land two shutouts. Including Rupe, the state of jas has four nominees for the |rd. The others include Stanford cher Jeff Austin (Houston), Rice fielder Bubba Crosby (Houston) ILSU first baseman Eddy Furniss icpgdoches). rack trio look to intinue quality lie Texas A&M Track and Field B will travel to Austin this Satur- to compete in a five-way meet be- i Oklahoma, Rice, Houston and the University of Texas. The meet will take place at Darrell K. Royal Memo rial Stadium, the site of the Texas Re lays just two weeks ago. The Aggies are coming off of their most impressive all-around meet of the season at the A&M Invitational and will look to carry that momentum into Austin against perennial power houses Oklahoma and Texas. Freshman Esther Eisenlauer will look to duplicate her last perfor mance in Austin, when she won the women’s javelin during the Texas Re lays. The women’s trio of Adrien Sawyer, Rosa Jolivet and Chimika Carter should continue to dominate the hurdles, while Sawyer and Carter have also excelled in the jumps. Meshell Trotter, Megan Koonce and Kelli Schrader also had exceptional meets a week ago in the throws. Over on the men’s side, senior Larry Wade is the odds-on favorite to win the 110-meter hurdles, and freshman Bashir Ramzy will look to continue his successful dual role as hurdler and jumper. Following this weekend, the Aggies will have little time to rest. Beginning on Thursday, April 23, Texas A&M will be competing in Pennsylvania in the always competitive Penn Relays. Softball goes on trip of Oklahoma The Texas A&M Softball Team (30- 20-1,4-6) will continue its conference play this weekend after sweeping a doubleheader against Sam Houston State on Tuesday. On Saturday, the Aggies will trav el to Stillwater to take on No. 8 Ok lahoma State in a doubleheader. On Sunday, A&M will travel to Norman to play a doubleheader against No. 5 Oklahoma. Both se ries will begin at noon. After dropping two games to Texas last weekend, the Aggies dropped to sixth in the conference standings and need to make a strong showing this weekend to im prove their current position. Wizards players under fire Grand jury presented with testimony in Webber and Howard investigation ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — “Parental discretion advised” was the best way to describe the evidence given by witnesses Thursday as the investigation of a sexual assault complaint naming Juwan Howard and Chris Webber went before a grand jury. One witness, an exotic dancer from Atlanta, told prosecutors the alleged victim spoke of re ceiving $1,000 after having sex with Webber dur ing a party at Howard’s house. “She came in the kitchen, I saw her in the kitchen” Natasha Shallow told WUSA-TV. “She told me she had just slept with Chris Webber. She said she got paid for it, a thousand dollars. I don’t know if that was true or not. She was in toxicated and kept on talking.” Webber and Howard have been under inves tigation since a Trumbull, Conn., woman filed a complaint after a party April 6 at Howard’s house in suburban Maryland. Neither player has been charged, and both have denied the allegations. A Montgomery County grand jury spent about four hours Thursday interviewing several people who were among the 40 guests at the party. About 10 people appeared for an early debrief ing with prosecutors, but all did not testify before the grand jury, officials said. State’s Attorney Robert JH Dean said il may be anoth- er two weeks before the ill grand jury completes its in- jl vestigation. V "ft 1| “We will take the time to I W* ^ get as clear a picture as possi ble,” Dean said. Thursday’s grand jury wit nesses mostly disputed the accuser’s statements. “It’s a lie,” said Donnie Kirk- sey, Howard’s high school coach, who flew in from Chicago to testify. “It’s not time about what happened. We know it didn’t happen.” Ferguson Evans, a lawyer who represents four women who attended the party, said his clients told authorities the woman was “trying to interact with (Webber).” “He didn’t respond,” Evans said. “She was, ac cording to them, kneeling down beside him ... basically trying to get his attention.” Shallow, the dancer, said Webber left the party before the woman. She said she later heard Howard yelling at his friends to get the woman out of his house. “Juwan Howard was upstairs and he was telling friends ‘Get her out of my house, get her out of my house.’ And all 1 saw was all of these guys picking her up, taking her outside,” Shallow said. “ (Howard) pulled me to the side and said ‘What’s wrong with your girl? She came up in my room trying to get in my bed and disrespected me.’... He said T didn’t touch her, I didn’t touch her. I did nothing to her.’” Mitchell Rubenstein, a lawyer who represents Howard and Howard’s roommate, Lamont “Juice” Carter, said Carter and other wimesses have said the woman was “banging” on Howard’s bedroom door. “When he finally responds, he tells her he has no interest. She became irate,” Rubenstein said. He said the witnesses also said the woman began throwing insults at Howard. Neither Webber nor Howard have been inter viewed by police. Both were with the Wizards preparing for Friday’s game at Miami. SFA Lumberjacks prepare for NFL draft NACOGDOCHES, Texas (AP) — The effort to recruit Mikhael Ricks, a multi-talented football player and a fair tuba player, to Stephen F. Austin has included a musical interlude. Coach John Pearce also made an extra effort for junior line backer Jeremiah Trotter, although neither athlete was heavily re cruited in high school. Ricks completed his college eli gibility by setting an NCAA record with 28.9 yards per catch for the Lumberjacks. “I had to sit through a band con cert to recruit him because he played the tuba in the school band,” Pearce said. “We recruited him as an athlete and tuba player but he was so talented we were going to find a place for him to play.” Pearce expects both players to receive more attention in Sunday’s NFL draft than they did coming out of high school. “I expect both of them to go on the first day,” Pearce said. Ricks and Trotter could be the first players selected from Texas, ahead of players at Big 12 Division I-A schools. That’s a sore subject for Pearce. “You hear knocks on our kids be cause they played at a Division I-AA school,” Pearce said. “But with 85 scholarships limit, there are plenty of good players in Division I-AA.” The Lumberjacks have several active players in the NFL including quarterbacks James Ritchey with the Tennessee Oilers and Mike Quinn with the Pittsburgh Steelers Ricks, a 6-5,237-pound wide re ceiver with a 4.4 40-yard dash time, has been projected to play tight end or wide receiver. But he could offer serious mismatches for smaller defensive backs if he lines up as a wide receiver. “He played tight end and wide receiver in college and played ex tremely well,” Pearce said. “He’ll be hard to overlook at either spot and I think he has the ability to play either one.” Ricks’ NCAA record of 28.9 yards per catch last season was 4 1- 2 yards better than the previous record set by Fresno State’s Henry Ellard in 1982. He caught 47 passes last season for 1,358 yards and 13 touchdowns. Ricks had touchdown catches of 97, 79, 78, 77, 74, 70, 55, 53 and 50 yards. Ricks also had TD catches of 68 and 56 yards as an underclassman— so half of his 22 career touchdowns covered 50 yards or more. “I’ll play tight end, H-back, wide receiver, wherever they want me,” Ricks said. “Whatever will help my draft stock, I’ll do.” Trotter grew up in Hooks, help ing his father in the wood cutting business. His regular chore after school was chopping wood. His strength training paid off at the NFL’s scouting the combine when he bench-pressed 225 pounds 32 times, the fourth strongest of the 325 players invit ed to the combine. Only three line men lifted more. Trotter is 6-0, 261 and has a 4.58 40-yard dash time. He had 300 tack les in three college seasons, inter cepted three passes and recovered three fumbles. He also had five sacks last season. Miiiiiiii msc mH llfci \ V \ % 42-peof ;i ; snded ^ ind ove' - lost 1® ee Acli v, ‘ Iccesso 1 ailing^' ; sold For the Champion in Every Aggie BRICK CAMPA1QM % Remembering the Aggie Spirit—Leadership, Fair Play, Honesty, and Integrity TEXAS A&TM UMIVERSITY ange The Walk of Champions Brick Campaign has been created to give all students, former students, and employees the opportunity to have their name permanently displayed on the Texas A&M campus and to ensure that this world class university contin ues to offer a world class recreational sports program. Order forms available now at the Student Recreation Center. •. For more information call 845-7826. SPORTS a • » mtm « ♦ & *f !» «»’ April 17 7:30 in Rudder Auditorium with special guest Jr Ivlb U 11 1 AIN JS jL H Tickets are S8.00 for more information call 845-1234 fTdwifX '~fr r CTiallv^