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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2004)
P Sports TUESDAY 7 p.m. ■ports |he bat The Battalion Page 8 • Tuesday,April!) Cutting archery good for athletics Texas State rolls into Olsei R an By Step By Staff & Wire THE BATTALION TROY MILLER Whenever an intercolle giate athletic d e part m e n t cuts the fund ing to a pro gram under its umbrella, it stings. Nothing is different with Texas A&M Athletic Director Bill Byrne deciding to put the A&M archery program under review. Feelings are hurt - student athletes, coaches and admin istrators alike - but in the end. running an athletic depart ment is a business. And in the business of cutting funds to archery, Byme is right. Since archery and equestri an were elevated to varsity sports in 1999, equestrian has shown promise of expansion - maybe growing into an NCAA-sponsored sport soon. Thirteen schools sponsor the spoil with more on the verge of doing so. including Big 12 rival Kansas State University, which will sponsor equestrian as soon as next year. Archery, on the hand, has not grown past Five years - only A&M, James Madison and Columbia have teams. “When we added archery and equestrian to varsity sta tus. both sports were consid ered emerging sports for women and we hoped both would be added to the list of NCAA-sponsored champi onships,” Byrne said. “Since other in the that time, equestrian con tinues to expand while archery has remained with only Texas A&M, Columbia and James Madison as sponsors.” In the college athletics business, success is meas ured by championships; specifically, NCAA cham pionships. Points are given to each school based on its per formance in each sport spon sored by the NCAA. The school with the most points at the end of the academic year wins the Sears Cup - the crowning achievement of suc cess in intercollegiate athletics. Archery has won many medals and has represented A&M admirably on the national and international stages. Senior Mary Zorn, for instance, is the reigning world compound champion. But none of these champi onships are sponsored by the NCAA, and with the lack of growth in archery, it won't be sponsored any time soon. As a club team, archery can still compete in the same events as it has over the past five years including world championship events. In fact, present archery' events aren't composed of solely collegiate archers. Although some com pete. a majority of the compe tition is self-sponsored archers of high school age or other archers not in college. The only difference for the See Archery on page 9 Coming off a shortened week- end series against the University of Missouri, the No. 14 Texas A&M baseball team will host Texas State University at 1 p m. Tuesday at Olsen Field on 50- cent Slovacek sausage night. The Aggies (33-12) are com ing off a gcKxl weekend as they took two games from the University of Missouri before rain cancelled Sunday’s series finale. In the first game of the series, A&M freshman pitcher Jason Meyer (8-0) showed his nerves by holding a 1-0 lead for a com plete game shutout of the Tigers. It was Meyer’s first complete game of the year as he allowed seven hits while striking out eight batters. The Aggies’ only run came in the second inning when senior right fielder Cory Patton hit a solo home run. his fourth in five games. “I thought Jason Meyer real ly stepped up,” said A&M head coach Mark Johnson. "He got to the ninth inning, and I thought he rose up in the ninth inning.” Pitching was the story again in the second game as junior Zack Jackson (8-3) led the Aggies to a 7-1 victory by allow ing one run on seven hits while striking out 11 in 7.1 innings. “The biggest thing was work ing on my secondary' pitches, just fine-tuning my slider and throw ing my change-up a lot more and working it in there." Jackson said. "It just makes my fastball that much more effective." While the Friday and Saturday starters looked impressive again. Johnson was still unsure about his Sunday starter before the rain- out prevented the decision. A Wco jc Maw OWtioNt ENtertaiNWNt, DaNOMl, F 00 ^ Et a J3L3pefio eating OONteStl peawpNg HaccNda Recording Artists, prison colo^ and caior and a L°W RW EXtfb'tioN THE ASS Evan 0'Cow«u'TH[Sr Texas A&M redshirt freshman Jason Meyer delivers a pitch Friday at Olsen Field in A&M's 1-0 win over Wssw pitched the first complete gome shutout of his college career A&M will face Texas State at 7 p.m TuesdayolQj "We’d like to go w ith (senior left-hander Dan Donaldson) or Patton and see if they can do it.” Johnson said. "We’ve been snake- bitten a little bit on Sundays." Because of the rain-out, the Aggies will now' turn to Donaldson for Tuesday’s game. This will be Donaldson’s fourth start of the season, as he has compiled an ERA of 5.32 in 22 innings of work. Texas State (24-19) is also coming off a successful week end. us it took two of three games from the University of Texas-Arlington in a Southland Conference match-up. The first game was key. as the Bobcats collected 11 hits and handed UTA starter Michael Gardner, who came into the game with a 9-0 record, his first loss of the season. 6-5. "Some of the other hitters and I were talking about that and we wanted to make sure we put one in the loss column for him.” said Texas State first baseman Mark Cooper. We arlinc iter three ishes iodriguez \ Now the VP’s fori ,e AL 1 Iodriguez ankees are The Ran je >re of you ifter the op :ason aga jnts. Th Inaheim ft bxas won I ie Angels. “Us beii ling said al hd just wi Ltcher G Bonday. “It lam is reall Le fun am I When odriguez mining, ha slugger hd two-tii fonzalez, t ire predic lason. Imagine [angers lost tut three w< ie division didn t in, to o\er-mt J' ee ^ en d didn't tn to do toor. culminated ' just got good swintiB The Ran what we needed toil. ■ lot of ri In their first cootet™ espite the son. which \usheld'and le; Diamond inRoundRaJ d5 batting the Aggies prevailed“ am over improving their all-tiKi margin to 30-8. Texas State will r lefty of its own injur: Hurley, who is I4wi4i ERA in 39 innings. n raff, the v liree of the 4.34 ERA “We hav our you uck Show intentional! ia(ity. We' it of a 16. Im w A R E H O U S E |ir, so good Especiall ffourstrai During lith Rodri kst 270 gc he division jjjne of thos |ear’s seasc While F I arting to ew York, Iwept by E to drop to 8 |ut in the A Continut jarchery - just li at A&M But v that mo could b [sports c could gc NCA A : icated fo Eithe on-site leasing office now open! www.warehouseapartments.coiD 403 Cross Street, College Station, Texas 77840 * 979.218.9606 Diplomafra your frame FREE si OFFICIALl