Tuesday, February 8:
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SPORTS
uesday, February 8, 2()()()
THE BATTALION
Page 7
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Ags host UTSA in home opener
JP BEATO/Thk Baitauon
|\&M senior Angie Long hopes to lead the Aggie softball team in 2000^
oftball begins season
^ dc
BY JASON LINCOLN
The Battalion
■ The Texas A&M softball team raised
lie bar last season, posting 41 wins and
> A |> n rTT laming its first trip to an NCAA region-
since 1996.
r Tuesday at 7 p.m. the Aggies vvill in
■o pick up where they left off in the sea-
Bon opener against Sam Houston State
Btaiversitv at the Aggie Softball Complex.
The postseason experience brought
Big changes in Aggie softball. A&M is
Bio longer a my stery team. The young
BVggies of 1999 have learned they can
compete w ith the best.
I Competing in the nation’s second
wrongest softball conference, the Big
' i|2. A&M is used to playing top teams.
MVith more experience under their belts
this season, the Aggies expect to build
on last season.
I A&M returns eight starters into the
nix for the 2000 season. Led by Amy
lining, Lisa Klam and TilTany Esters,
he Aggies bring back the best of their of
fense and defense.
ppa«.entlV ) This' "We've got a great nucleus coming
3iN& to mm£ back," A&M softball coach Jo Evans said.
e etfecTimf (Htr Mining, the Aggies’lead-off pitcher,
'of t Hiti ADvftWiciteads the A&M defense with an ERA of
I DRAG!
11.26 and 22 wins last season.
Klam and Esters return the
iffen-
sive power that led the team into the
postseason in 1999.
Klam, the Aggies’ second baseman/
catcher, powered the Aggies with a .348
hatting average, 15 home runs and 23
stolen bases in her freshman season.
Esters brings consistent scoring to the
A&M lineup. In 1999, she batted .311
and drove in a team-leading 40 RBI.
The Aggies look to build on the of
fensive power of Klam and Esters with
four new hitters that add strength to the
Aggie bats.
“This year, pitchers are going to have
to pick w ho they want to pitch to," Klam
said. “W e have a lot of weapons in the
line-up, one through nine.”
The SHSU Bearkats are a familiar op
ponent to the Aggies. A&M leads the se
ries 64-13 between the two schools and
has won the last 17 games since 1995.
Despite A&M's dominance in the
series, the Aggies respect the early op
position.
"They're a scrappy team,” Evans
said. “They never quit and they always
give us a good game.”
Evans w ill start Mining on the mound
for the opener and then move to fresh
man pitcher Kara Weikel.
“Anybody could show up tomorrow
night and we'd be fired up because our
kids are ready to play,” Evans said.
BY DOUG SHILLING
The Battalion
For the Texas A&M baseball team, this weekend
was not exactly how it wanted to begin the year. The
Aggies started off the 2000 season by losing two out of
three games in the Spalding Fiesta Tournament in Al
buquerque, N.M.
A&M lost its first game of the season, 5-3, to the
Washington State University' Cougars, bounced back to
take its second game against the Oregon State Univer
sity Beavers, 9-4, and dropped Sunday’s game against
the Cougars by a score of 14-4.
The Aggies return home today, hoping to get back
on the winning track against the University of Texas-
San Antonio Roadrunners at 3 p.m. at Olsen Field.
A&M baseball coach Mark Johnson said he thought
last weekend was a good learning experience for the
young Aggie team.
“There really were some bright and encouraging
spots,” Johnson said. “You want to learn and win at
the same time but it always doesn't happen that way.
It was very exciting for a lot of the guys to get out there
in their first time in an Aggie uniform. It didn't sur
prise me that we had some guys with anxiety over
swinging and overpitching.”
One of the brighter spots over the weekend for A& M
was junior rightlielder Daylan Holt. I le left off where
he did last year, leading the Aggies in batting with a .500
average and had one double, a triple and one RBI.
Holt said the Aggies need to continue growing and
learning as a team.
“We just have to build on last weekend,” he said.
“We did some things good and some things bad. We
have to build on that and hopefully we can come in at
the first game at home and get a big 4 W.’”
The Aggies hope to gel a ‘ W’ against a Roadrunner
team which played two wild games with the Ags that
were both decided in the ninth inning last year.
Early in the season, UTSA downed the Aggies in
San Antonio, 10-9. A&M scored five runs in the top of
the ninth to take the lead 9-7, hut the Roadrunners
scored three in the top of the inning to take the game.
The Aggies returned the favor later in the year at
Olsen when they turned in a rally of their own to defeat
UTSA, 12-11. ’
Down 10-6 in the seventh inning, the Ags scored one
run in the seventh, three in the eighth and two in the
ninth to secure the win.
Johnson said although he does not know' much about
UTSA’s team this early in the season, the Roadrunners
should provide a challenge for the Aggies.
“Early in the year, it’s so hard to get scouting re-
JP BEATO/Thk Battalion
A&M junior rightfielder Daylan Holt slides into second base last season against Clemson University.
Holt and the Aggies take on UTSA Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Olsen Field.
ports,” Johnson said. “Guys change so much and
teams change so much, 1 really don’t know much
about their ballclub.
“They have played us very well in the past, howev
er. We had a great comeback on them last year and we
were lucky to have won that game. So they aren’t a
weak team.”
The Aggies’ scheduled starter is Ryan Warpinski.
Warpinski, a freshman from Maribel, Wis., will be mak
ing his first start as an Aggie.
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