by Chris Ello on November 13, 2009
For one team, it was a trip to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. For another, it was a first step toward trying to reach that same stage again. All in all, Friday was a pretty good night for the San Diego State women.
Thanks to Cat Walker’s goal in the 39th-minute, the SDSU women’s soccer team defeated USD, 1-0, in Los Angeles to win its eighth-straight game overall and its first in NCAA Tournament play in 11 years.
The SDSU women’s basketball team, which reached round No. 2 of the Big Dance last season, opened its highly-anticipated 2009-10 campaign with a 64-42 victory at UC Irvine.
Beth Burns’ team was sloppy throughout, committing 26 turnovers, but led comfortably all the way behind 18 points, eight rebounds and five blocked shots from junior center Paris Johnson.
On the soccer pitch, things were much tighter for Mike Friesen’s club, which held on after Walker’s first-half goal to extend its unbeaten streak to 16 games. The Mountain West Conference champions (15-3-5) will meet host UCLA in the second round on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.
UCLA, ranked No. 3 in the country, has reached the Women’s Soccer NCAA Final Four in each of the last six seasons. The Bruins (18-2-1) blew out Boise State, 7-1, in their Tournament opener.
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by Chris Ello on May 19, 2009
“Aztecs Are In It To Win It”Fort Worth, Tex. — For now, the focus for Tony Gwynn’s San Diego State baseball team is the five rivals they must defeat here beginning today in the 2009 Mountain West Conference postseason baseball tournament.
But in the back (or, actually the front) of Gwynn’s mind is only this: will his Aztecs (37-19 overall, 15-9 MWC) be among those chosen next Monday when the NCAA Tournament field of 64 is announced?
If SDSU qualifies, it would mark the first postseason appearance for Aztec baseball in 18 years. And for Gwynn, it would validate the vow he made to return the Red and Black to prominence the day he took the job seven seasons ago. The road back to respectability has been far more difficult to traverse than the Hall of Famer thought it was going to be. But the longer he has chased it, and the longer is has remained elusive just out of his reach, the more it has begun to mean to him.
The Aztecs can clinch an automatic bid to the NCAA’s by winning this week’s postseason party, played on the campus of regular-season MWC champion TCU. But in order to accomplish that, SDSU is going to have to play above its No. 4-seeding and most likely defeat solid clubs like BYU, New Mexico and 10th-ranked TCU along the way. The double-elimination tournament begins today with No. 6 Utah meeting No. 3 BYU, followed by No. 5 UNLV vs. No. 4 SDSU (webcast on goaztecs.com, beginning at 5 p.m. Pacific Time). No. 1 TCU and No. 2 New Mexico have first-round byes.
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