The Fightin' Texas Aggie Cross Country Team is off to Ames, Iowa for the Big XII Championship to be held on November 1, 2008.   The conference will see a total of  five nationally ranked mens teams running and three nationally ranked womens teams.

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Brief note on the game, perhaps more to follow later.  CU scored a goal on a pretty cheap penalty kick call in the second half to go ahead 0-1.  Ags tied it with about 3:00 minutes left in regulation with a header.  Ags win with a beautiful header in OT.   Great game.

OK, here is the write up from the AD.  Seems they move into 1st place at least for now.  OSU plays OU in Norman on October 31st and will win the title if they can beat the Sooners.  Come on Sooners, give us a little help.

MTAggie

Well, I got to watch the Aggies Football team on TV for the second time this year, the first being the Lobo game.  It goes without saying that this was a game of two halves.  Seems to me that the injuries just caught up with us.  Even so, the team seemed to play hard and I see improvement between the games.  Some more depth and talent and the Aggies should be fine.

OK, now some quick shots on soccer, cross country and a couple of other "non-revenue" sports.

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Well, proving he still has what it takes, Gary Blair has secured a commitment from Cierra Windham. Ms. Windham is a top 20 player out of California.  Even Cessna has great things to say and offers the full gambit of her rankings.

Is it just me or is our BB recruiting exceeding what we generally expect?  Well, winning does that for a program.  Winning and having a coach like Gary Blair.

MTAggie

Very short update for the Soccer team.  The Aggies won both games this weekend , defeating Nebraska and Iowa State, both by 2-0 scores.  I watched the Iowa State game via the All Aggie Access.  Iowa State played great and the Aggies didn't score until the 80th and 81st minutes.

Overall the Aggie  Futbol team is holding up quite well kicking ass and taking names.

MTAggie

Sorry for the delay in getting another post up, but contrary to common attitudes in the Aggie Family right now, I did not jump out of a tall building.  I’ve simply been tied up with personal matters and work took its toll on me over the past few weeks. 

First out of the shoot this week:  Aggie Women Roundballers, ranked No. 4 in Athlon's Top 25.  These players will be getting some serious coverage this coming season – including national coverage and a Big Monday game.  Women Basketball Media Notes Speaking of roundballers, A'Quonesia Franklin recently got some props from the Sacramento Bee.  She played behind Sacramento’s co-captain, but her promising future was duly noted.  Sacramento was knocked off by San Antonio Silver Stars and her old teammate Morenike Atunrase.  An excellent write up from the department discusses their  seasons.  This weekend, the Silver Spurs’ run for a title was ended after being swept by the Detroit Shock.   We’ll see how these ladies play next year, but I’m expecting them to step it up some.  They’re just too good.

Next up, soccer.   The Aggies have been strong at least is futbol so far.  Since my last post, they’ve:  beat Cal (1-0) (scoring only the 5^th goal allowed by Cal until that point); beat Rice (2-1);  tied the sips (0-0), beat the Bears (1-0); beat No. 10 OSU (2-1), and managed to take possession of first place (shared with CU) with a beat down of OU (5-0).   Kelly Dyer is still killing as the keeper and in fact has won Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week two weeks running – something no other Aggie has done.  The Ags take on Nebraska and Iowa State this weekend.  NU seems spotty, but could be dangerous as they managed to defeat the sips (and then dropped a game to Baylor).   Iowa State has been less than impressive so far so the Ags should prevail in this home game.

The Athletic Department has a nice write up over cross country from the Texas A&M Invitational.    The Aggie Men came in first out of a field of 13.  This was the competition debut for Shadrack Songok , a Kenyan and transfer from A&M Corpus and he won the 8,000 meter race with a 24.16 (4.52 mile average).  The Aggie Men sweep the top 4 places coming in 1-2-3-4 with the other scorer coming in at 12 for a total of 22 points.   The second place team, Stephen F. Austin was far behind with 90 points.  The Aggie Women were not as impressive and finished 5^th with 134 points.  This put them behind the sips at 101, Rice at 64, SMU at 60 and Baylor at 32.  

Another nice write up is up concerning the Notre Dame Invitational.  The Men finished third, with Songok putting in 2^nd place performance.   Florida State was first with 81 points and Tulsa was second with 126 points  and the Aggies third with 136 points.  (I explain scoring below if you’re curious.)  This was a huge improvement over the prior year finish of 13^th.  The Women may have some work to do as they came in 20^th out of 23 teams, a drop for 16 out of 21 teams from the prior year.

How in the heck do you score in Cross Country?  Just in case you don’t know, a XC team runs with 7 runners, 5 of which can score.  A runner is given the point for their finishing position with first being worth 1 point, second being worth 2 points (well, we’re Aggies, but we get the pattern).  The goal is to score as low as possible.    In the event of a tie, you see where the No. 6 runners came in to break the tie.   Simple.

I’m out.  Good luck to all the Aggie Teams this weekend.  

            In spite of coverage suggesting otherwise, several other sports are going on now besides football.  It is my job to bring to light information concerning these sports – and as I have 4 daughters and 1 son, I think I’ll focus on the girls this week (probably most).  Warning:  I will also probably focus on XC, track and soccer as I have daughters that are involved in those sports (although none are Ags) so I have a personal interest in the sports.

 There is of course futbol, and the Aggies should have another strong team.  So far, the Aggies are 5-1.  The sole outscoring has been at the hands of perennial powerhouse UNC, in a 3-2 match.  Seems like the Ags always play UNC tight, but UNC came out on top.  This week the Ags (#8) play Cal (#16) this Friday, and both teams have identical records – with quality matches in favor of the Ags.  The Ags play Rice on Sunday.  You folks down home should get out and watch this bunch – one of the quality programs at A&M.

The XC team is in action on Friday in the Ike Delayed Texas A&M Invitational.  Checking the official Aggie page, I was surprised to learn the Aggie men are ranked 26^th in the Country and second in the South Central Region (behind #1 South Region Ranked sips).  The women are not as strong and ranked only 4^th in the South Central Region (however they are in front of the #5 South Region Ranked sips).    I know XC sounds like a snoozer, but I’m biased as I have 2 daughters running – one for the USAF Academy (WHOOP!) and one on perennial power house Senior High.   (Side note:  the new sip XC coach left the USAF Academy to go to Austin.  Nice guy, but bad place to go and bad timing to leave.  Que sera sera.)

Finally, the Ags dropped the opener against Iowa State in volleyball.  I’m going to have to pay more attention to volleyball as I’ve always liked the sport.  These gals fly around the court and it, like soccer, has generally been one of our stronger programs.  Coach C has perhaps slipped a bit in the past few years, but that could be attributed to having to play and recruit against the Corn which switched from football powerhouse to volleyball monster.

OK, that’s all for now.  I’ll try to make the next one more detailed and with some more analysis – especially in the XC area.  Anyway, be safe and BEAT THE HELL OUTTA EVERYONE!

MTAggie

BQ ‘80

P.S.  Watching CU and WV tonight.  CU concerns me.  Well, so does Baylor, but so maybe that ain’t saying much.

P.P.S.  Why is the  ABC coverage of the Big XII so bad?

“Hell yes it’s a Cuban cigar, but I’m not supporting their economy, I’m burning their fields.”  Kinky Friedman