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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 2003)
MlGIELlf Sports The Battalion Page 5 • Monday, November 17, 2003 Munsch’s triple-double leads volleyball past Texas Tech > be featurd st album,'?;] ffers little or] te public y id a fomnilii| rescriptioa uldjust ass| sn’t atotall? e standout ss r. Other soa as in “But t’s sort thi' ty wli idonna. Tk;: eer in his s rst song, teric lyrics :t to folio* long with oil lov.' the M sany y of the Yai - ChnsEc By Staff & Wire THE BATTALION Texas A&M's Melissa (Munsch posted the second triple- |double of her career'to lead the -ranked Aggie volleyball [team to a 30-21, 21-30, 30-22, 30-32, 15-9 victory over Texas Tech at the United Spirit Arena. The junior middle blocker tied her career high with 25 kills and added 13 digs and 11 blocks while hitting at a .449 clip. Sophomore Laura Jones added Tech raced out to a 9-1 lead to 22 kills as the Aggies improved to begin Game 2 and built its 19-7 overall and 11-5 in the Big 12 Conference. Tech fell to 11-15, 3-14. A&M held Tech to a negative .024 hitting percentage and out- blocked the Red Raiders, 6-1, in the opening game as the Aggies cruised to a 30- 21 win. Munsch led A&M with six kills in six attempts. MUNSCH biggest lead at 14-4. A&M, which was out- hit, .220 to .087 in the frame, got within four at 17-13 but was unable to get any closer the remainder of the game as the Red Raiders went on to take the game, 30- 21, and even the match at one game each. A&M held the lead through out the third game en route to a 30-22 win. The Aggies had their third six-point lead of the game at 17-11, but Tech scored four unanswered points to get back within 17-15. The teams exchanged points until the Aggies went on their own four- point run to pull ahead, 23-17. The Red Raiders could get no closer than four points the remainder of the game. Jones clinched the game with a kill as A&M ran off three consecutive points. A&M took its first lead of the fourth game at 4-3 and built its biggest lead at 15-9. A&M was serving for the game and the match at 29-26, but Tech rallied to tie the score and even tually win the game. A&M took its first lead of the final game at 2-1 following a back-row kill by Munsch. Tech tied the score with a kill before A&M went on a three-point run, and the Aggies held the lead for the remainder of the game. A&M was leading, 10-7, when the Red Raiders committed three consecutive hitting errors to give A&M a 13-7 lead. An A&M service error gave the Red Raiders their final point before Carol Price ended the game with a kill down the block. A&M, which completed the season sweep against the Red Raiders, outhit Tech, .238 to . 130. The Aggies return home Wednesday to play host to Baylor. The match begins at 7 p.m. at G. Rollie White Coliseum. Texas A&M sports informa tion contributed to this report rive $ji iey seplup nds in fe and folio* reports in cCaughey, jplets.told I ’’ added t*J leys sow .rten classej up sbarioi d. “It ’ ong witli is uesas aey, Bo ;ause olce' walk ados middle nai 5 e can’t rei Sweet 16 bound Aggies beat Duke, SMU to earn fifth straight Sweet 16 By Troy Miller THE BATTALION It took an unlikely hero to send the Aggies into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Championship Tournament for the fifth straight season as Texas A&M beat Duke University 2-1 in front of 1,165 at the Aggie Soccer Complex. Junior midfielder Laura Probst, who had sat out with an injured foot for two weeks, shrugged off the pain and came off the bench to lift the No. 17 Aggies into the third round of the tournament. “She (Probst) came to me at the end of warm-ups and said she was feeling good today, and if we need ed her she was willing to go,” said A&M coach G. Guerrieri. “Kat Krambeer, who had a brilliant game on Friday, unfortunately the tank was almost empty for Kat. The timing was good enough for us that Laura was available.” In the first round Friday night, A&M (13-5-3 Big 12) and Southern Methodist University finished after two overtime periods knotted at one apiece, forcing the match to be decided by a penalty kick shootout. After building a 3-1 lead in the shootout, Probst lined up to take a penalty kick despite not playing a single minute of the match. Probst buried it to clinch the win for the Aggies. Then, with just 36 seconds remaining in the first half of their second round match with No. 12-seed- ed Duke, Probst sent a beautiful serve from the left flank that dipped over a Blue Devil defender onto the head of Aggie freshman forward Suzette Devloo, who buried the header to give the Aggies a 1-0 lead going into halftime. Devloo, who only played in nine matches and recorded two shots this season, scored her first career goal as an Aggie. “It gives you a lot of momentum going into half time and a lot of confidence,” Probst said about the goal. “We had strung together a lot of good passes in the first half and had a lot of good chances, and getting one right before the buzzer really gave us a lot of momentum.” The Aggies began the second half just like they ended the first. In the second minute of the half, Krambeer passed to junior forward Emma Smith, who spun around her defender and then slotted the ball between the right post and Blue Devil senior goalkeeper Thora Helgadottir to give A&M a 2-0 lead. “When you get a 2-0 lead like A&M did you have the tendency to sit back,” said Duke coach Robbie Church. “That adds a little more urgency to the team.” THE BATTALION JP Beato I Texas A&M forward Emma Smith plays the ball during the Aggies 2-1 win over Duke Sunday. Smith scored A&M's second goal to clinch the win, as A&M advances to the NCAA Sweet 16 for the fifth straight season. Duke (12-6-1) thought it would get on the board when, in the 58th minute, two shots passed Aggie goalkeeper Kati Jo Spisak off a Blue Devil corner kick. The first shot was cleared off the goal line by Aggie freshman Annie Burnett. The rebound went directly to a Duke striker who immediately put the ball back on net only to see the shot cleared this time by Aggie junior Shannon Labhart, again from the goal line. “They’re obviously a well-coached team,” Church said. “It’s always tough when you look up and see the ball going past the goalkeeper because you do feel like it’s going to go in, but other times it does get cleared off the line.” Duke finally got on the board in the 64th minute when sophomore forward Carolyn Riggs lifted a shot that dipped over Spisak and under the crossbar to bring the Blue Devils within a goal. That was the closest Duke got, as Spisak shut the door on any chance of a Blue Devil comeback in the final 20 minutes by making a couple of miraculous saves. Spisak finished the match with eight saves. “I knew they were going to start packing it in at See Sweet 16 on page 7 Mens cross country team earns berth in NCAAs By Staff & Wire THE BATTALION The Texas A&M men’s cross country team earned its second straight trip to the NCAA Championships with a sec ond-place finish at the NCAA South Central Regional Championships Saturday at the Cottonwood Creek Golf Course in Waco. The No. 26 Aggies scored 73 points and were a close second to Arkansas, who won with 54 points. Stephen F. Austin (77), Texas (85) and Sam Houston State (163) rounded out the top five. “Overall, I’m pleased,” said A&M coach Dave Hartman. “The main thing today was us going out there and getting the job done. Advancing to nationals was our primary goal and we did that. “I still see some things we can improve on at the national championships, but we got the job done when it counted and I’m looking for big things next week in Waterloo.” The Aggies placed four runners among the top 20 finishers. Leading the way for the Aggies was fifth-year senior Tommy Bonn, who placed seventh on the 10,000- meter course with a time of 30:31. Rounding out the scorers for the Aggies were sophomore Brian McKinstry (9th, 30:48), followed by senior Andrew Cook (10th, 30:49), junior Jonathan Lewis (19th, 31:28) and sophomore Matt McLeod (35th, 32:16). Other A&M finishers on the day were senior Joe Lanzillotti (40th, 32:20) and freshman Jose Moctezuma (45th, 32:33). On the women’s side, a pair of fresh men led the Aggies to a fifth-place finish with 118 points. Texas won the regional with 66 points, followed by host Baylor (68), Arkansas (70) and TCU (86). True freshman Jamie Geissler led A&M with a 17th-place showing, com pleting the 6,000-meter course in a time of 21:44. Bonn, Cook, Hummel, Geissler, Lewis and McKinstry earned all-region honors with their top-25 finishes. The men will now head to the NCAA Championships Monday, Nov. 24 in Waterloo, Iowa. Texas A&M sports information con tributed to this report. Ags can’t contain Missouri, 45-22 By Dallas Shipp THE BATTALION ty r t 8 ' LO se ipatc th 0 f Cadets p & sow" COLUMBIA, Mo. — It was the same old story in Columbia Saturday. The Aggies dug themselves a hole and kept on digging. Before too long, they had buried themselves alive. The Aggies dropped their fifth and final game on the road this season Saturday to Missouri, 45-22, assuring their first losing season since 1982. The Tigers jumped out to a 16-0 lead less than six minutes into the game and never looked back. “It was good to jump out to an early lead,” said Missouri coach Gary Pinkel. “After we went up 16-0 we had other chances, but we ended up making mis takes and moving backward.” Texas A&M coach Dennis Lranchione said it was exactly what the Aggies did not want to do coming off a 77-0 thump ing by Oklahoma last week. “As a coach you say (falling behind early) is not what we need to happen,” Franchione said. “But our players weren’t phased by it and that shows some mental toughness there. A lot of times a team will let a tough start like that bother them, but they didn’t do that. They kept battling.” They kept battling, but it didn’t matter. The Aggies couldn’t get much of any thing going in the first half and headed into the locker room with 78 rushing yards and 78 yards through the air. a It was a tough beginning. We needed to turn our field goals into touchdowns. — Dennis Franchione Texas A&M football coach “It was a tough beginning,” Franchione said. “(It’s) not the way you’d like to start the game on the road against any team. We needed to turn our field goals into touchdowns. That would have been nice if we could have done that.” The Aggies made adjustments at half time that were effective against the Tiger defensive scheme. But they did it without sophomore quarterback Reggie McNeal, who Franchione said was sick to his stomach prior to the game and was unable to finish. Junior quarterback Dustin Long stepped up in a big way, completing 23 of 29 attempts for 252 yards and a touchdown. “Reggie was sick, Dustin came in and did a nice job,” Franchione said. “You’ve gotta hand it to him.” But Long said he thought McNeal left due to an injury. “At halftime Reggie was a little dinged up so coach said they were gonna go with me and see what was wrong with Reggie,” Long said. ”1 think he had a concussion or something. I don’t know what it was but they stayed with me the whole time.” McNeal appeared to be groggy follow ing the game, walking slowly down the ramp to board the team bus and using the hand rail to keep his balance. It was unclear if McNeal had suffered a concussion that may have compounded his stomach troubles. While it was a tough day at the office for McNeal, sophomore Missouri quarter back Brad Smith was feeling quite well. Smith had his usual performance, rushing for 136 yards and three touch downs on 17 carries. He threw for 89 See Mizzou on page 7 John C. Livas • THE BATTALION Missouri quarterback Brad Smith runs for his second touchdown during Saturday's 45-22 win over Texas A&M. Smith finished with three touchdowns and 136 yards.