SB Nation User Blog: MTAggie

Big XII Cross Country Championships Nov. 1

MTAggie — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 02:34:40 -0000

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.

The Aggie Men are ranked 1st in the South Central Region and 18th in the national poll. They will have their hands full with OSU, the holder of a number 4 national ranking, and CU, sitting at 17th in the nation. Behind the Aggies, but very much a threat are Iowa State, holding the 22nd spot in the national rankings and hated t.u. at 30th. (Sorry, for some reason I can't make myself add a link for the sips).

The Aggie Women remain at the number 7 spot in the South Central Region and will have a tough row to hoe. The sips are in the number 6 spot and nationally ranked Nebraska (who finished 9th overall at Pre-Nationals and is ranked 22nd), Baylor (who finished 7th at Pre-Nationals and is ranked 17th) and Texas Tech (winners of the Chili Pepper Festival and ranked 11th) are in the mix as well. Not sure what is up with normally strong CU, but anytime kids sleep at 5000 feet plus, they generally run pretty well at lower altitudes.

Ms. MTAggie and I will be in sunny San Diego watching the young one run in her first conference championships for the USAF Academy the same weekend. I promise I'll get an update out, but as we don't get to see her much I'll be visiting more than jumping on a computer. Also, I shouldn't leave out little sister who did very well at state, coming in 6th in a very strong field of runners.

MTAggie

Aggie Soccer Downs CU in OT

MTAggie — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:15:51 -0000

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

Quick Shots

MTAggie — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:46:45 -0000

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.

The Aggie XC team traveled to Fayettville, AR for the 20th Chili Pepper Festival. The 20th ranked Aggie Men came in first (out of 30 teams) with a score of 52, followed by Arkansas with 75. A&M's Shadrack Songok came in first and all the remaining scoring runners came in the top fifteen.

The Aggie women came in 7th (out of 30) with Texas Tech finishing 1st and the sips one spot ahead of the Aggies at 6th. A look at the results shows that A&M's #1 and #2 runners were stronger than the sips, but in the critical #3, #4 and #5 spots, the sips runners managed to best the Aggies by about 73 points. A swing like that demonstrates that the Aggie women need to have some more depth.

Side Note - At the Pre-Nationals at Indiana State on Saturday. A banged up USAF Academy team fell a little short of its goals and daughter was not pleased with her personal performance. Even so, the race was fast for all and #1 ranked U Dub managed to get 4 runners in the top 10 and its 5th scorer in the top 15 to "run away" with the Blue Race. Unfortunately, looking at this and other races, the Aggie Women (and the USAF Academy Women) don't have much of a chance to finish very high this season. Hopefully, they'll both make to Nationals though and use the experience to slowly move up and improve.

Well, the soccer team suffered its first Big XII outscoring this week when they ran out of time against KU. Looks like the Aggies had more looks, but just couldn't score. Today they play Mizzou and the captains have called on the 12th Man to show its support. If you're nearby, get out there and support this excellent winning program.

Finally, the Maroon & White Softball Series is now tied after the Maroon Team slammed the White Team 12-1. The final game is Monday at 4:00 pm. Be there.

I'm out.

MTAggie

Blair Does It Again - Top 20 Player to Aggies

MTAggie — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:53:47 -0000

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

Aggie Futbol Keeps Rolling

MTAggie — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:26:36 -0000

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

Following Up - Better Late Than Never

MTAggie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:38:19 -0000

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.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

MTAggie — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:52:36 -0000

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