UNT Notes from the DRC

[UNTLifer]

Plus the 7 Day Calendar

Softball

Waters posts first hit

Susan Waters made sure the first hit of the North Texas softball team’s season was a memorable one.

The freshman from Davenport, Okla., hit a solo home run to lift UNT into a tie with Texas A&M on Feb. 2.

Waters’ hit proved to be one of the few highlights for the Mean Green in its first game. The Aggies came back to win the game 6-1.

UNT’s game against Texas A&M is part of a brutal schedule. The Mean Green will face 10 teams that are ranked in the ESPN/USA Softball Top 25 poll.

The Mean Green is fielding a softball team for the first time since 1988.

Track and field

UNT hit stretch run

The indoor track season only started a few weeks ago, and it is already entering the stretch run.

UNT has competed in three meets so far this season. UNT’s final tune-up for the Sun Belt Conference meet will come this weekend at the Oklahoma Indoor meet in Norman, Okla.

"It’s a short season," UNT coach Rick Watkins said. "We are starting to sharpen up for the conference meet."

UNT began the buildup for the conference meet when it competed in the Houston Indoor meet. The event had one of the largest fields UNT’s athletes will compete against this season.

A total of 18 teams competed.

Junior Jarrod Stone posted the second-best high jump marks of his college career in Houston, a leap of 6-8 3/4. The mark also ranks second in the Sun Belt this season.

Sprinter Osaze Aghedo posted a time of 7.76 in the 60-meter dash, a time that ranks third in the conference. David Turner (49.38) and Andre Douglas (49.68) posted times that rank sixth and seventh, respectively, in the Sun Belt in the 400-meter dash.

UNT will open its outdoor season at the College Station relays on March 12-13, a week after the NCAA Indoor National Championships.

Player of the week

One of North Texas’ newest athletes continued to shine in one of the NCAA newest events this week.

Desiree Hill broke the school record in the pole vault for the second time this season when she posted a mark of 11-1 3/4 at the Houston Indoor meet. Hill’s mark ranks second in the Sun Belt Conference.

The freshman from Arlington Bowie has competed in three meets this season.

"She is very aggressive," UNT coach Rick Watkins said. "That is what you need to be in the pole vault."

For her efforts, Hill is the Denton Record-Chronicle’s UNT athlete of the week.

7-day slate

The following events are on tap in the UNT athletic department in the next week.

WEDNESDAY — Softball at Texas, 5/7 p.m.

THURSDAY — Middle Tennessee at men’s basketball, 7 p.m.; Women’s basketball at Middle Tennessee, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY — Softball vs. Colorado State, 9:30 a.m.; softball at UT-San Antonio, noon

SATURDAY — Men’s basketball at Western Kentucky, 7 p.m.; Western Kentucky at women’s basketball, 7 p.m.; softball vs. Bethune Cookman, 9:30 a.m.; softball vs. Kansas, noon; softball vs. Kentucky, 5 p.m.

SUNDAY — Softball vs. Missouri-Kansas City, 5 p.m.