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College Notebook: UNT women looking for indoor repeat

09:11 AM CST on Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The North Texas women had to wait until the bitter end of the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships last season to be sure that they had managed to eke out a team title.

UNT head coach Rick Watkins expects this weekend’s meet at Middle Tennessee to be another nail-bitter.

The Mean Green enter the meet looking to repeat after winning the school’s first indoor track title last season in Jonesboro, Ark. The UNT women dominated in the field events last year and edged Western Kentucky 111-108.5.

“We have a chance to repeat, but it will be real tight,” Watkins said. “We took a really young group last year and they made it happen.”

Several of those same athletes will be back this year to lead a more experienced group the Mean Green will lean on in what is expected to be a tight team race with WKU and Florida International.

Seniors Deidra Wesley and Ciji Brooks have both won medals at the Sun Belt Indoor Meet during their careers.

“We do have some seniors on this team with Wesley and Brooks and that will make a difference for us,” Watkins said.

UNT added to that core of other athletes this year and has one of the top young athletes in the conference in Brandi Stanfield. The freshman currently has the 14th-best triple jump in the nation at 42-6 3/4.

Stanfield’s mark is above the provisional national qualifying standard. Watkins said that even if Stanfield does not improve her mark at the conference meet, she will still have chance to become the first athlete in UNT history to advance to the indoor national championship meet.

The NCAA takes all of the athletes who meet the automatic qualifying mark to the national meet and then fills out the rest of the field with the top provisional qualifiers. There is no set number of provisional qualifiers who advance in each event.

Middle Tennessee is favored to win the men’s team title on its home track.

unt Briefs

Women’s basketball

UNT controls destiny

Even after falling to Western Kentucky and Denver in back-to-back games, UNT still controls its fate in the race for the Sun Belt Conference West Division title.

The Mean Green have games left at Troy and South Alabama, which leads UNT by one game in the division standings. UNT can win the division title by winning each game.

“Anytime you control your destiny at this point in the season, you have to feel good,” UNT head coach Tina Slinker said.

Ajekwu coming on late in season

Junior post Mia Ajekwu is playing her best as the race for the Sun Belt Conference West Division title heats up.

Ajekwu has averaged 13.1 points per game and is shooting 55 percent from the field in her last six games.

“Mia is starting to realize that she is moving into a leadership role,” UNT head coach Tina Slinker said.

Ajekwu scored a team-high 17 points in UNT’s loss to Denver on Saturday.

Men’s basketball

Jones: Bye critical for UNT

UNT has lost its last six Sun Belt Conference games, but still controls its fate when it comes to earning a bye in the first round of the conference tournament.

The top three teams in both the Sun Belt’s divisions earn byes.

UNT is in a tie for third place with Troy and Louisiana-Lafayette heading into the last week of the season.

“It’s really important,” UNT head coach Johnny Jones said of earning a bye. “You don’t want to have to play four games to win the conference title.”

The Mean Green still have a chance to rebound and finish as high as second in the division.

“The players have been good about putting losses behind them,” Jones said. “What we do is continue to put goals out there that we can attain.”

Track and field

Tylerbreaks record

Alana Tyler didn’t need long to adapt to competing in the weight throw.

The freshman from Lake Highlands took up the event this season and claimed a spot in the school record books last week by winning the event with a throw of 51-4 1/2 at the Sooner Indoor meet.

The mark set a new school record.

Swimming

Nyheim-Canales: future is bright for UNT

UNT head coach Mona Nyheim-Canales saw hope for the future after the Mean Green finished fifth in the Sun Belt Conference meet in Denver over the weekend.

UNT broke nine school records after an altitude adjustment was taken into account. The Mean Green will return all of their swimmers except Brooke Louisell, a senior who completed her career this season.

“The best news is we only lose one swimmer,” Nyheim-Canales said. “We had some great performances. It was a good weekend for us.”

UNT has finished fifth in the conference meet in each of the last two seasons.

Softball

Fowler loses no-hit bid late

UNT pitcher Kristina Fowler came up just three outs short of throwing a no-hitter last week during the Mean Green’s game against Nicholls State.

Fowler struck out seven and entered the seventh inning with a 5-0 lead before Nicholls finally broke through. Fow-ler recorded the first out of the final inning before pinch hitter Meghan Mulcahy singled to center for Nicholls’ first hit of the game.

The Colonels went on to score three runs on four hits in the bottom of the seventh before Fowler settled down and finished off a complete game.

The sophomore enters the week with a 3-2 record and a 3.53 ERA.

Mean Green look to build on solid start today

UNT will look to build on an improved start to the season today against Oklahoma State in a 5 p.m. home game at Denia Park.

The Mean Green enter the game with a 4-6 record, the best start through 10 games in the program’s three-year history. UNT started 2-8 in its inaugural season and opened with a 1-9 mark last year.

UNT did not win its fourth game until the 18th game of the season last year, starting 4-14.

The Mean Green have had some success against the Cowgirls since the program was reinstated in 2004, splitting four games against OSU.

The Cowgirls (2-4) come into today’s game off perhaps their best performance of the season in an 11-3 win over Texas-San Antonio that lasted just five innings due to the run rule.

Player of the week

The North Texas softball team is off to its best start in the history of the program through 10 games, thanks in large part to the play of third baseman Susan Waters.

The junior had at least one hit in five of the Mean Green’s last six games and finished 8-for-19 for the week.

Waters had her best day of the week on Monday when she went 5-for-8 with six RBI in a doubleheader against Nicholls State. Waters went 2-for-4 with a home run and four RBI in the first game of the series and then went 3-for-4 with two RBI and two home runs in the second game.

Waters’ big weekend helped push her season batting average to a team-best .353. She also leads the team in hits (12) and doubles (4). Only sophomore shortstop Katya Muller has more RBI at nine than Waters, who had seven.

Waters’ performance has helped UNT start the season with a 4-6 mark. For her consistent production last week, Waters is the Denton Record-Chronicle UNT Player of the Week.