The Ally Kats Strike
Over the weekend, the Sam Houston State Bearkat Bowling Team finished fourth at the Big Red Tournament in Lincoln, Nebraska. They are now 53-26 for the season and are currently ranked fourth in the new National Ten Pins Coaches Association media poll.
“You always have high expectations and because of the variables, we cannot take anything for granted,” head bowling coach Brad Hagen said. “We just needed to go out there and make shots.”
The process to get the bowling program at SHSU started in 2009 when the Southland Conference wanted to add an additional sports in order to have a balance between the men’s and women’s sports.
Stephen F. Austin State University became the first school in the conference to start a bowling program. It made the decision easy for athletic director Bobby Williams to add bowling as the 15th sport to the SHSU program.
Once the program was incorporated, they hired Hagen as the first head bowling coach.
He worked tirelessly to bring in top quality talent who would be successful in the game and in the classroom while at the same time preparing for the inaugural season.
Since they were a first year program, they were picked to finish next to last in the league, but instead made it to the NCAA Bowling Championships in Detroit, Michigan, USA, becoming the only first year program in history to make the championships. They finished 7th in the championships to complete their inagaural season.
Now they are determined to get back to the big dance as they started the 2011-12 season strong with a third place finishes at the Greater Ozark Invitational, the New Jersey Jamboree and with wins at the Lumberjack Invitational and their own Track Kat Klash Tournament.
“When we come together as a team, we rely on each other,” sophomore Neishka Cardona said after winning the Kat Klash Tournament. “We win as a team, we lose as a team.”
Here are some of the highlights from the Kat Klash Tournament on BowlTV.com.
When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Gets Going
The old saying goes, “Defense Wins Championships.” That holds true for the Sam Houston State Bearkat men’s basketball team as they won a nailbiter against Texas State Bobcats by the score of 71-68. They are now 2-2 in the Southland Conference and 8-10 overall.
“It was tough down the stretch, but we made the stop that was needed to win the game,” head basketball coach Jason Hooten said.
The Bearkat defense was outstanding in the first half as the Bobcats shot 36% from the field and turned the ball over thirteen times while the Bearkats converted eleven points off of those turnovers.
“Coach Hooten really harped on defense ,” senior forward Marcus James said. “The preparation that we had for two days leading up to the game paid off for us.”
The second half was a different story as the Bobcats battled back and shot 57% from the field and had opportunities to win the game, but the Bearkat defense stood strong in the final minutes to get their second straight conference win.
The Bearkats will face Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders on Saturday at Johnson Coliseum. Tip-off will be at 7 p.m. and for more information, visit gobearkats.com
How Times Have Changed
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Two years ago, the Indianapolis Colts was playing in the Super Bowl under first year head coach Jim Caldwell. Fast forward to today, Caldwell was fired by the same Colts.
Sure the Colts finished 2-14 for the season. Yes, the head coach should bear the brunt of responsibility for the performance of the team. But in this case, it was a lot of circumstances that cause the Colts to perform horribly. The main circumstance is quarterback Peyton Manning being out for the season. Why is that? How could one person being out change the entire perplexity of the team? This person, a.k.a. Manning was the most important person that made the Colts offense go. Not only did the Colts build their team around Manning, but they did not add other key components that would keep the team competitive. Components like key running backs, an established defensive line, etc. They did not think that nothing would happen to their star quarterback. Sure, it worked for a decade. Yes, they have made playoff appearances including winning a Super Bowl and appearing in another. Now the team is in disarray and they have cleaned house. The lesson that can be learned from this is to never depend on one person to deliver for a team because if a team becomes dependent on that one person and doesn’t make any improvements when given the opportunity, then they will end up like the Colts.
The “Frisco” Treat
by Cheval John
Frisco, Texas- From the time that Frisco has been hosting the NCAA Division I National Championship Game at FC Dallas Stadium, the United States has witness a first class city that has all the amenities to offer.
The suburban city of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area was the fastest growing city in the nation from 2000-09 with a population of 123,000.
“Hosting the NCAA Division I Championship Game fits into our family atmosphere,” Maher Maso, mayor of Frisco said. “We are a sports centric community and the city is nice and safe.”
Frisco was founded in 1904 around the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. Before that time, Preston Trail (now Preston Road) was used as a trail for moving cattle through the state of Texas.
The city’s population was at 35,000 in 2000 and with the completion of the Stonebriar Centre Mall, the city started to experience explosive growth.
“We have really grown exponentially since 2000 and I love it here,” Dana Baird, director of communications for the government of Frisco said.
Prior to joining the city government, Baird was a reporter for WFAA-TV, an ABC affiliate in Dallas from 1995 to 2000. She moved to Frisco in 1996 and fell in love with the city.
Though the center was the foundation of the city’s growth, it was just the beginning as sporting venues was another priority for the city council.
“Developing the city with sports focus was not necessary the goal, but it was one of the pillars of opportunity that we wanted to pursue,” city councilman John Keating said.
“In doing that, we formed a public/private partnership so that the entire burden was not on the taxpayers in order to make it easy for them to do what they wanted to do.”
Because of that agreement, various sporting venues was completed along the way: the
The Southland Conference, an NCAA Division I athletics organization, moved their headquarters to the city in 2006.
They worked in conjunction with the Hunt Sports Group and the city of Frisco to host the NCAA Division I FCS National Championship Game from 2011 to 2013.
Fans and visitors got to experience the hospitality from the residents during the festivities leading up to the championship game.
Their hope is to keep the championship game beyond 2013 so that they can continue to share the “Frisco” treat with everyone.
Loss For Words
By Cheval John
The free-skying world lost one of it’s icons yesterday. Sarah Burke, a four-time winter X games champion free-skier, passed away from injuries she sustained nine days ago in a skiing accident while she was preparing for this year’s winter X games that will be held in Aspen, Colorado.
Though I did not follow this sport as much as I should, I remember back in 2003 when the first ever X Games Global Championships that was held in both the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, USA and in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. I saw a high-flying Burke representing Canada in her hometown of Whistler. She had style and grace as she competed against the best from all over the world.
She was successful in getting the Olympic Committee to add free-skying to the roster of winter sports that will be featured at the next Winter Olympic Games that will be held in Sochi, Russia in 2014.
She was a true iconic figure in her sport and will be dearly missed.
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