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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2004)
Page IB • Friday, May 7, 2004 'WTAUl, Sports The Battalion A&M equestrian travels to National Championships By Jordan Meseroie THE BATTALION Hotel and motel owners are Irejoicing in Murfressboro, |Tenn.,this weekend as 107 col- llegescome into town to partici- Ipate in the Intercollegiate iHorse Show National [Championships. The Texas A&M equestrian [team is included in that group, but pries a little different distinction [from the rest of the teams. A&M is one of only five col- lleges that will have both squads lofequestrian competition, west- lem and English, riding for the luational championship. The last lieam to win both trophies was |the University of Findlay of which accomplished the litatin 2(KH). m excited to have both Items going there,” said A&M lEnglish coach Pam Breummer. rThat’s an accomplishment in Itself almost. Kind of an icing Inn the cake before competition |ffen starts." And if being involved in a dis- Itnct group wasn't enough, the p.M western team enters the pnpetition with the possibility fbeing the second team in col- |kgiate history to w in three con- utive national championships. “It’s a big accomplishment to pin a championship, but it adds lot of pressure.” said A&M tad coach Tana Rawson. leavingy°u w in one. everyone Vets you to do well, and other tams set their sights on you.” A&M will see tough compe tition from all parts of the I 1 Evan O'Connell • THE BATTALION Texas A&M senior English rider Meredith Houx practices jumping fences with her horse Houdini at the Dick Freeman Arena in College Station. A&M will travel to Tennessee for the IHSA Nationals this weekend. THE BATTALW uokreative United States, but will see the strongest competition from four parts of the country. Cazenovia College of New York, California State University-Fresno, Findlay and Oklahoma State University will bring almost as many riders as A&M into the four-day competition. Cazenovia and Findlay have been regulars at the champi onships, while Fresno and OSU have recently been show ing they are schools to be reck oned with as well. Rawson said practices lead ing up to this weekend’s compe tition have been focusing less on technique and more on the men tal aspects. “When you get to this stage. See Equestrian on page 4B A&M lady netters on hot streak entering NCAA Championships JON GILBERT The No. |3 Texas | & M ■men’s ten- iis team out its leding for \k NCAA nen's ten- |ms champi- Ihip. Now. Jit's time for liie Aggies to make a run at the |ltleagainst the nation’s best. The Aggies are seeded No. 12 |mthe 64-team field. The top 16 llfams host the first two rounds pn their home turf. A&M will the first and second rounds IMay 14 to 16 at the George P. iMitchell Tennis Center. The will begin by playing iSouthern University followed by jlexas Christian University or lOUthern Methodist University in the second round. This A&M team has achieved much this season. It won 20-plus matches for the fifth time. The team posted its best conference record ever, 10- I. And last weekend, the Aggies won the Big 12 Tournament Championship for the first time. Four Aggies tabbed individ ual conference championships for their positions. Furthermore, senior Jessica Roland and junior Helga Vieira were named first-team all-Big 12 and Vieira earned Newcomer of the Year honors. With the Aggies’ current streak they should steamroll their way into the Sweet 16 and probably further. This team is extremely deep, and can compete with any team in the nation from No. 1 to No. 6 sin gles. Senior Nikki Mechem and freshman Anna Lubinsky, A&M’s No. 5 and No. 6 players, are a combined 45-8 in dual matches this season. In other words, Mechem and Lubinsky dominate. Furthermore, Roland, play ing at No. 1, is 18-7 and Vieira is 22-6 at No. 2. Yet, there are teams in the national top five that also have the type of depth the Aggies enjoy. The strength of schedule factor is another reason A&M will gar ner success in the NCAA Championships. Of the top 21 teams in the nation, the Aggies have faced nine of them, includ ing the No. 12 University of Texas twice. Even with the 4-6 record against them, the experiences the Aggies have gained from playing those powerhouses will benefit them when they are playing solid teams at the NCAAs. Thus, if the Aggies are able to advance to the Sweet 16 they will more than likely be playing the fifth best team in the nation, since they are seeded No. 12. A&M has had success against fifth-ranked teams thus far this season. The Aggies upset then-No. 5 University of Southern California, 4-3, at the National Team Indoors in Madison, Wis., on Feb. 5. Finally, this A&M team is one of the most mentally tough teams around. Time and time again, the Aggies have displayed superior mental strength com pared to their opponents. Head coach Bobby Kleinecke has ingrained this toughness in his team since the first day of prac tice, and it has helped the Aggies achieve this great season. A&M will now see how much longer its season will last. It’d be a good bet to see the team advance far into the tournament in Athens. Texas A&M Basketball and The Aggie Angels Present... The Wells Fargo $1000 Fans Aggie Angels Kristin Compton, Niki Janecka, and Tracy Devillier award a $1000 check to the Wells Fargo Grand Prize Winners, Phi Beta Sigma. Thanks to Wells Fargo for their continued support of Aggie Basketball At each men’s basketball home game this season, Wells Fargo awarded $100 to a student organization showing support and school spirit. Each winning organization was later eligible to win the $1000 Grand Prize at the end of the season. Congratulations to this season's $100 winners: MSC FISH A Company Alpha Phi Omega Sigma Phi Lambda Howdy Camp Phi Beta Sigma MSC LEAD Iron Spikes Delta Gamma Gamma Phi Beta ALOT FLIC Bonfire Coalition for Students a II d a]m ■Uq WELLS FARGO U.S. debates on sending team to Athens Olympics By Tim Dahlberg THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The question hasn’t come up since President Carter angered the world and his nation’s athletes by keeping the U.S. Olympic team home from Moscow. Even now, there are just whispers and speculation, though they grow louder with every bombing and passing day. Would the United States dare pull out of the Athens Games because of safety concerns? Unlikely, but not entirely out of the question anymore, either. “It would mean things have spiraled totally out of control,” said Walter Purdy, a director of the Terrorism Research Center outside Washington. Barely three months from opening cere monies, U.S. offi cials say they are committed to going to Greece and remain confi dent Olympic organizers can protect the 500- plus Americans who will compete in the games. Others, though, are beginning to wonder if that could change as the Summer Olympics draw closer. “1 think it’s going to come down to the wire in making a huge decision whether they send the U.S. to Athens,” said Stacy Dragila, who won gold in the pole vault at the 2000 Sydney Games. “It’s unfortunate to the athletes because we’ve worked so hard in training.” The bombings Wednesday in Athens highlighted the dan gers that face the Olympics despite a security plan with a price tag over $1 billion, four times the cost in Sydney. Greek officials have revised the plan dramatically in the last few months to try to ease concerns, and they have called in NATO countries to help. Athens organizers say all athletes will be protected, and that all countries remain res olute in their intention to come. Americans have a right to feel more jittery than most. Some experts say the Olympics will be tough for terrorists to resist in a country with strong anti-American sentiment. “This Olympics has the potential of enormous symbolic appeal to terrorists,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at RAND, a think tank that often does work for the Pentagon. Hoffman said the latest bombings, a series of timed blasts that caused no injuries, indicated that Greece has not been entirely successful in wiping out its homegrown ter rorist groups. Those groups don’t kill on a widespread basis, he said, but the fact they are still active is troubling. “From al-Qaida’s point of view it’s manna from heaven because you now have another group the Greeks have to be concerned with,” Hoffman said. “It increases the attrac tion for the really more seri ous terrorists to take advan tage of this opportunity.” Top U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Greece is moving too slowly in implementing security meas ures, although they say much progress has been made in recent months. But delays in construction will make guarding Olympic venues even more diffi cult. Most securi ty experts say the real threat is not to athletes - Bill Martin or Olympic USOC President sites. Terrorists could attack a hotel filled with tourists and still achieve the desired effect, Purdy said. “Nobody remembers that in Atlanta the bombing wasn’t at an Olympic venue,” Purdy said. “They just remember there was an Olympic bombing.” Still, the U.S. Olympic Committee says no one in the government has mentioned anything about the possibility of not sending a team. “We’re going. We’re not going to rob our athletes of the chance they’ve worked for years to earn,” said Bill Martin, acting USOC president. The International Olympic Committee doesn’t seem quite as confident about the success of the games. Last month, the IOC for the first time took out a $170 million policy to pro tect against the cancellation of the games because of war, ter rorism or earthquakes. And on Tuesday, a Senate subcommittee heard testimony before two senators met behind closed doors with ter rorism officials and the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. “We were beginning to hear a lot of concerns about the preparations and whether we should go,” said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. Some of those concerns See Olympics on page 4B We're going. We're not going to rob our athletes of the chance they've worked for years to earn.