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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 4, 1998)
I The Batii The Battalion ERS Sports Page 7 • Wednesday, November 4, 1998 I from Page] ers, smile if soi 'honey,” it’s aeon should becarefe rs,” however. )es tend to draw wing chicks like an to see in turn down (or Aggies kick off Reed opening with convincing 93-69 win W Vo )S icing, make sum sn’t have akes conqueriDj mely difficult, earned the breads and m ary. Now the lo is go CD shoptjjrs n to the Chert)' Squirrel Nut 2] Voodoo Daddy, ■lire of originals le ’20s, ’30s ai rediscovered, he more infli hei vent mg composes Duke Swinger Ellingtc:. )gg e ready to Swinj|(im ’dances, try thei st, sit back, w®ro nportant thing it everyone is ra m way, and yo. BY AARON COHAN The Battalion It was a special night for the Texas A&M men’s Basketball Team as they kicked off the -’99 season with an exhibition game against Austrian traveling club Almliesl Gustino Weis. Not only was it the first bas ketball game played on The ourt at Reed Arena, but the t time new coach Peggie illom would be able to see team in action. As the inaugural tip-off to the Aggies, the team ilayed with extreme intensity both ends of the court. « Iwwi . A three pointer in transi- ion by junior forward Prissy Sharpe put the ,ies ahead by seven with 13:31 remaining in he first half. The team never looked back as senior guard Tarkington and her seven first-half assists the Aggies shoot a blistering 63 percent m the field the first twenty minutes, love to give out the open passes and to give he ball to the open person,” Tarkington said. lelped Almliesl tried answering point for point, but the stingy Aggie defense tightened up down the stretch allowing only 38 percent shooting. The Aggies ended the first half with a note worthy 17-3 run, crushing any hopes of a come back from Almliesl. “Our offense was clicking on all cylinders and was run very good down the stretch,” Gillom said. Similar to the first half finish, the Aggies start ed the second half with relentless defense. But easy transition three pointers on fast breaks allowed Almliesl to try and climb back into the game with a 10-2 run. The Aggies’ lead was depleted to 21, but Gillom called her troops back for a timeout with 9:35 left that allowed them to regroup and play their tight defense again. The Lady Aggies finished the game with their own 10-2 run to beat Almliesl 93-69. Gillom said there was plenty of room for im provement even though her team played a great exhibition match. “I was not pleased too much with our re bounding or transition defense,” Gillom said. “Yet I was very pleased with the overall perfor mance of the team.” ROBERT MCKAY/The Battalion Junior forward Kera Alexander drives to the hoop in A&M’s 93-69 victory over Almliesl. I FREE T PAGES Harriers have difficult weekend at conference meet he Texas A&M Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Teams returned from action the Big 12 Championships last weekend in Lincoln, Neb. storage iges in the f lerience .com Ouch! Both squads had difficulty in Lincoln last weekend. The Big 12 is one of the top three confer- : resource ijences in the nation this year, and e Aggies learned why. The Aggies, who hoped to place in the top six, placed ninth with 272 points behind the strong running of junior Carl Stewart, who placed 39th overall with his season-best time of 25 minutes and 58 seconds. Sophomore Jim Pat Darcey fin ished in 60th place with a time of 26:27 and freshman Brandon Beasley followed in a second later at 61st place. Sophomores Mike Hummel [65th] and Chuck Cusimano [69th] finished the scoring for the Aggies with times of 26:37 and 26:45, respectively. Stewart attributed the poor showing to a lack of cohesiveness during the race. “Chuck Cusimano and Mike Hummel ran well,” Stewart said. “They really stepped up. ... But we didn’t all come together at the right time.” In a Texas A&M press release, Coach Dave Hartman said he felt the team wasn’t aggressive enough at the start of the race. “We did not get out well at all,” Hartman said. “We just did n’t have a very good start as a team, and we needed one on a narrow course like this.” The Aggies accomplished their goal of improving over last year’s 12th place finish by placing tenth with 252 points. They were led by freshman Sarah Doyle, who placed 45th with a time of 18:50. Freshman Melissa Gulli and sophomore Brooke Edwards paced each other to 52hd and 53rd place finishes, respectively, with times of 18:56 and 18:57. Sophomore Debbie Villareal [55th] finished in 18:58 and fresh man Kristy Bonn [57thj finished in 19:00 to round out the scorers for the Aggies. Doyle feels the teaip’s strategy was a key to their improvement. “We got a pretty good start, and that helped us,” Doyle said. In a Texas A&M press re lease, Hartman credited Doyle and the women for placing their top six runners within a thirteen second span. “Sarah Doyle ran a great race for us,” Hartman said. “We are very good at running in a pack, and I think that showed in our finishes.” see Harriers on Page 8. Former high-school star hits big-time at A&M BY TOM KENNEDY The Battalion A “sophomore jinx” can be de fined as a subpar second year in any type of competition following a strong first campaign. This term is nowhere to be found in Lauren Crawford’s vocabulary. So it should come as no surprise that Crawford, a sophomore, is having a breakthrough cross-coun try season following a year in which the Texas A&M Women’s Cross Country Team finished last in the Big 12 Conference Meet. As this weekend’s Big 12 Con ference Meet approaches, the team expects to improve its perfor mance, and Crawford appears to be peaking at the right time. After finishing the first two meets as the eighth and ninth run ner on the team, respectively, she has stepped up to finish as the teams’ first runner at the Universi ty of North Texas meet and placed second on the team at the Texas A&M Invitational. Crawford credits her improve ment to hard work in the offseason and first-year coach Dave Hart man’s new program. “Perseverance and hard work gets me through because I don’t have a lot of natural talent to go off of like some girls,” Crawford said. “Hartman’s program is more geared for runners like me because it’s more consistent.” Teammate junior Sandie Ram sey attributes Crawford’s success to her wanting to contribute to the team. “We’ve got such a good team with great depth that if you don’t work hard, you won’t get to go [to the conference and regional meets],” Ramsey said. “She likes cross country a lot more than track, and she didn’t want to miss that opportunity.” • Her consistency, has been even more amazing than her race times. Crawford’s three 5,000-meter race times this season have only differed by a mere 12 seconds, ranging from 19 minutes and 25 seconds at the University of Miami (Ohio) to 19:18 at North Texas to her season best of 19:13 at A&M. The results were not always this pleasant. The shock of collegiate cross country required an adjust ment period for Crawford. “I used to always finish in the top ten [in high-school meets],” she said, “so [not initially placing high] was a blow, ... but I’m defi nitely more competitive now.” Coach Hartman said Craw ford’s improvement has not gone unnoticed. “In this short time, she has come a long way in her workouts and races,” Hartman said. However, Hartman said he is not the only one to notice her contributions. “She leads a lot by example,” Hartman said. “The other girls re spect her because she shows up and does her job day in and day out.” Racing is not new to Crawford, who began her career by running track in junior high. She continued at Jersey Village High School outside of Houston, where she immediately became a key figure in the team’s third place finish at the Class 5A State Cross Country Meet in 1993. The team won two district titles and advanced to regional competi tion three times in her four years at Jersey Village. She added another 5A State Meet appearance to her resume in 1995, when she placed 28th overall to help the team to a fifth-place finish. After such a successful high- school career, it is surprising to learn that she almost gave up com petitive running. “I was fairly burned out after my senior year,” Crawford said. “I really didn’t consider running in college.” ' see Crawford on Page 8. at >u run a Du ll get •k and lease, ing f° r a rhan ON Use your dollars with sense. The Associates Student Visa® can help you manage college expenses with fewer worries. 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