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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SOCCER
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2007
Conference play begins at Baylor, Texas A&M
WWW.KANSAN.COM
PAGE 1B
BY ALISON CUMBOW
cumbow@kansan.com
OPENING CONFERENCE PLAY ON THE ROAD
The Kansas soccer team will open conference play on the road this weekend. The Jayhawks will face off against Baylor at 7 tonight and play Texas A&M at 1 p.m. Sunday in College Station, Texas.
For the first time since 2002, Baylor, 6-2-1, will play host to Kansas on its turf, Betty Lou Mays Soccer Field. The Bears have not lost a game at home yet this season, going 4-0. Baylor returned 10 starters from last season, as well as 22 letter-winners.
Cauzillo
The Jayhawks begin conference play with one victory, seven losses and a tie. The team has scored two goals this season, one by Kim Boyer during overtime against Missouri State. The second goal, scored by Nicole Cauzillo against No. 25 Illinois, resulted in a 2-1 loss.
Kansas and Baylor have played a total of 11 games against one another; each team has won five games, and they've tied once. The Jayhawks have won each of the past four meetings with the Bears.
Kansas will meet its familiar rival in College Station this weekend. The team has played the Aggies 10 times; the Jayhawks have lost eight of the games, played to one tie and won one, in 2004.
SHOWDOWN IN WACO, TEXAS
11TH TIME'S A CHARM?
The Aggies, at 6-1-1 this season, were ranked No.3 in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America poll. The team returned 11 starters and 15 letter-winners this season.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
FORTHE BAYLOR BEARS:
»» Who: Megan Sherrell
»» Position: Senior defender
Why: She has scored five goals and made seven assists this season.
>>> Who: Jessica Hutton
>>> Position: Senior forward
Sherrell
Why: She has already scored two game-winning goals this season.
FOR THE TEXAS A&M AGGIES:
Who: Ashlee Pistorius
Position: Senior forward
Why: She has scored eight goals and made two assists this season. She also was recently named a Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week.
» Wao: Kristin Arnold
» Position: Sophomore
goalkeeper
Arnold
Why: She has a .852 save percentage and has helped the team win with three shutouts this season.
WORD ON THE STREET:
Baylor head coach George Van Linder in a press release:
"Kansas is a team with a record that doesn't speak for its caliber of play."
www.baylorbears.cstv.com
Texas A&M sophomore defender Nicole Ketchum on her blog:
READY FOR THE REGATTA
"Expectations are high, and we are aware of our opponents' collective desire to end our dynasty."
Edited by Tara Smith
www.aggieathletics.com
New members of the varsity rowing team will experience their first race this weekend at the Head of the Des Moines regatta. Coach Rob Catloth said the race would be a training regatta.
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Season starts in Des Moines
BY BRYAN WHEELER
bwheeler@kansan.com
The Kansas rowing team will travel to Des Moines, Iowa, this weekend to compete in the Head of the Des Moines Regatta. The race is the team's first competition of the season, and this is the first time Kansas rowing will compete in the regatta.
A "head" race is a time trial in which the fastest crew is awarded the title "Head of the River."
The regatta will be the first varsity race for some members.
"The new varsity rowers have never sculled in a competition so we just want to see where they are fitness and technique-wise," Kara Boston, varsity senior, said.
Coach Rob Catloth
said the race was a training regatta to see
Bober
"In a head race, you and the clock are the biggest competitors," he said.
Big 12 rival Kansas State also will be competing in the regatta, but Boston said the Wildcats wouldn't be the main competition.
how the team and its new members were progressing and how it performed in a live racing situation.
Tulsa and Drake, two other teams that Kansas competes against regularly, also will be at the regatta.
Doing well could be an opportunity to build momentum for the season.
"Placing at this regatta will give our team a positive starting point to build off of throughout the fall competitions," varsity senior Alia Bober said.
After the Head of the Des Moines, the rowing team will have a month to prepare for the Head of the Iowa in Iowa City on Oct. 28.
Edited by Tara Smith
Kansas honored by poll rankings, talk of bowl game
BY ASHER FUSCO afusco@kansan.com
Kansas has been piling up some impressive statistics so far this season. The offense is averaging 553 yards each game and scoring almost 54 points per contest while the defense is yielding fewer than 220 yards and five points per game. In all of those categories, the Jayhawks rank in the top five
Kansas received six votes in the AP Top 25 Poll, placing them 33rd. In the USA Today Top 25 Coaches' Poll, Kansas garnered 20 votes, good for a share of the 29th spot. That Kansas is receiving any attention at all from national pollsters is an improvement from years past, but the small number
nationally. Unfortunately for Kansas, the dominant performance has not earned the team much notice in the polls.
of votes the team has received seems out of line with its nearly perfect performance.
"We just have to take care of our business, and we can't worry about right now who should be ranked and who shouldn't," Kansas coach Mark Mangino said. "The key thing is taking care of business. If we keep working at it and doing what we're doing, that will come."
the last time kansas was ranked
September 28,1996
top three songs of 1996
1. Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
2. The Fugees - "Killing Me Softly"
3. Los Del Rio - "Macarena"
top three movies of 1996
1. Independence Day
3. Mission: Impossible
1. Independence Day
2. Twister
3. Impossible
on TV in 1996
"The Daily Show" and "Hey Arnold"
debuted
"ER was the highest-rated show Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" ended
The Jayhawks have certainly taken care of business so far this season. Not only has Kansas won all of its games, Kansas has blown past its competition each week, tallying a combined score of 214-23 through four games. Despite the thrashings Kansas has delivered, a few experts have taken notice.
120" power-rankings, citing the Jayhawks easy early-season schedule as the reason for the low ranking.
In ESPN.com's most recent bowl predictions, writers Mark Schlabach and Ivan Maisel both pugged the Jayhawks for the Insight Bowl. The Insight Bowl, played on New Year's Eve in Tempe, Ariz., pits the No. 6 team from the Big 12 Conference against the No. 6 team in the Big Ten Conference, meaning Kansas would most likely face a middling opponent such as Iowa or Purdue. Rivals.com ranked Kansas 38th in its "Rivals
"You just have to earn it by being consistent week after week," Mangino said. "We can't control the rankings, but we can control how we play and perform each week. I think our program has to prove that we can play consistently well week after week, and if we do that we'll gain attention."
But for a Kansas football program that has found national respect hard to come by in recent seasons, any attention is good attention. The last time the Jayhawks entered either the AP or coaches' top 25 poll was in 1996, when the team cracked the top 25 for three weeks.
Starting Oct. 6, Kansas plays at Kansas State, hosts Baylor and visits Colorado — a string of three winnable conference games. If the Jayhawks reach 7-0, a move into the top 25 could follow. But for now, coaches and players are standing by the time-tested cliché of taking it one game at a time.
TENNIS
Duo selected for ITA Championships
Edited by Amelia Freidline
BY PAT TEFFT
ptefft@kansan.com
Tennis doubles partners Elizaveta Avdeeva and Edina Horvath will try to build on last weekend's success as they open play this weekend.
at the ITA All-American Championships.
The duo navigated a talented field to take second place in last weekend's Cissie Leary Tournament. They will face an even tougher challenge this weekend
Hall-Holt
The ITA All-American Championships features top players from all over the country.
Coach Amy Hall-Holt was pleased with the team's play last weekend, but she knew there was still room for improvement. As with the other fall tournaments, Hall-Holt sees this as an opportunity for Avdeeva and Horvath to improve their games and build more confidence to take into the spring season.
Edited by Tara Smith
Avdeeva, senior, and Horvath, junior, were selected for the qualifying draw of the tournament and will play early next week. The duo will need to win three matches in order to advance to the following weekend's main draw.
"It's not going to be easy. They are going to face very tough competition, but we will use this as a stepping stone to see where we're at," Hall-Holt said.
"There is still a lot of things we need to work on from top to bottom," Hall-Holt said. "For Liza and Edina the communication is there. They just need to keep building on what they know."
In addition to doubles play, Avdeeva was also selected to participate in the singles pre-qualifying draw starting this weekend at UCLA.
Who: Doubles partners Elizaveta Avdeeva and Edina Horvath
meet information
What: ITA All-American Championships
Hall-Holt said that the prospect of playing against some of the toughest competition in the country had not phased Avdeeva and Horvath. Instead, she said they were excited at the chance to see how they matched up against other top players.
» When: The pre-qualifying matches are on Saturday and Sunday. The qualifying match is on Tuesday.
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Where: University of Southern California in Los Angeles