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Western Carolinian Volume 62 (63) Number 18

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  • western ■ • • arolinian Track Ventures Back to Clemson by Daniel Hooker For the Western Carolina Catamount Indoor Track team, Littlejohn Coliseum on the campus of Clemson has been like a home away from home. The first two events of this season have taken place in South Carolina. The Clemson Invitational was very successful for the women's team and was close for the men. The women finished second out of four teams, while the men tallied a fourth- place finish out of five participating teams. Head Coach Danny Williamson commented that, overall, it was a pretty successful meet. He also noted that the caliber of competition that his teams faced was of the nationally elite. Clemson, one of the top ACC teams in track and field, won the women's meet with 60 points, followed by the Lady Catamount team with 35, Auburn with 27, and Coastal Carolina fourth with 26 points. Helping the women to their second- place finish was junior Kamilah Gabriel. Her first place finish in the triple jump and the fourth place finish in the 55 meter hurdles aided in the high finish. Accompanying Gabriel atop the placing in the triple jump was Dee Mittman, who finish second with a height of 36 feet, 11.5 inches. Mittman duplicated her second place finish in the high jump, at a height of 5'3". Robyn Stockunas added two third-place finishes in the 20-pound weight and shot-put events, with distances of 47'10" and 40'4" respectively. In the women's track events, the 800 meters was very strong. Western had the third- through sixth-place finishers. Keeya McManus finished third, followed by Shawnta Person, Shayla Reid, and Jessa Brown in sixth. The relay team of Kamilah Gabriel, Keeya McManus, Jessa Brown, and Shawnta Person won the mile-long relay event. The first-place time of 4:06.95 helped the lady team to their finish. On the men's side, Clemson duplicated their victory with 105 points, followed by two of the SEC's top teams, Alabama with 52, Auburn had 40, closely contended by Western with 39.5, and finally, Coastal Carolina with only eight points. Despite the lower finishing order, the day had many good highlights for the Catamounts. Cory Cooper finished first in the high jump, at the height of 6'8". Also in the field events, Rayshon Carthen notched a third-place finish in the triple jump and finished right behind teammate Corey Williams in the long jump with fourth and fifth places respectively. Ernest Moss also place fourth in the triple jump. The shot put event saw two Catamounts place near the top. Jeff Chambers and Zed Call now to find out how you can receive free Internet Service for up to six months! •mm ...and let WCU On-Line bring the world • to your fingertips! Cruising the Internet has never been easier! With WCU On-Line you can now Jump on the Net* for just $14.95 a month and a low one-time activation fee of $14.95. And if you sign up now, you'll receive a coupon worth $10* off your Internet bill! All you have to do is give us a call - and then the world will be yours. Plus, you'll get; • 75** hours of local access per month • Free local access from 1a.m. - 6a.m. daily • Access to e-mail, chat lines and news groups (at no extra charge) •Free personal home pages*** • High speed X2 internet access (X2 modem required) up to 53.3 kbps at no extra charge! (Available mid-February, 1998) So what are you waiting for? Jump on the Net today!!! Call 1-800-821-5624 now! "■-■tUmimmjLzzwi. Cory Cooper: "Raising the bar." Photo by Don Anderson finished third and fourth respectively with distances of 44'9" and 44'4". Rounding out the field events, Joe Condrey flew to a third-place finish in the pole vault. His height was 15 feet, 1.75 inches. In the way of track events, Rahsaan Uldaneta's fifth-place finish with a time of 8.26 seconds was a new school record in the 60 meter hurdles. His performance broke Bryan Ballard's old record of 8.58 that was tied in the Clemson meet by Johnny Bomar. Uldaneta also scored a eighth place finish in the 200 meter event. Costello. Corey Williams, sophomore, also scored a seventh place finish in the 200 meter race. Coach Williamson commented that the fourth place finish wasn't too bad considering the competition that his men faced. He was pleased, but also noted that improvement was possible and needed. Next up for the Catamount track and field teams will be the U.S. Airways Invitational from the campus of East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn. That event will take place on January 23-24. Lady Eagles Soar Past Lady Cats by Don Costello Points in the paint once again plagued Western Carolina as they dropped their fifth conference game to Southern Conference leader Georgia Southern, 98-78, Monday in Cullowhee. The points that killed the Lady Cats in the paint had been coming from penetration by the opposing guards. Against Georgia Southern, the fatal blows came from the Eagle post players. Sharon Mitchell, GSU's leading scorer, scored 21 points on 80 percent shooting while fellow post-woman Telly Hall, 15.1 ppg, contributed 19 to the cause by shooting 8-13. Six-foot forward Tondra Warren put in 19 points of her own off the bench while hitting all seven shot attempts. The Catamounts couldn't counter the lane attack due to injuries to experienced post players LaSha Jackson and Willow Russell. Jackson saw only 12 minutes on the floor and Russell served for five minutes. "Without Willow and Sha at 100 percent we can't expect to stop [GSU's] post players," said Head Coach Maria Fantanarosa. Western could only counter with leading scorer freshman April Fleck, who scored 24 points despite a poor shooting performance. Fleck hit 5-8 in the first half but connected on only 5-16 in the second half as the Lady Cats looked to her to bring them back after trailing 42-31 at the break. GSU jumped out in the second half to a 53-36 lead at the 16:49 mark before Coach Fantanarosa called a 20-second time-out. Following the time-out, Western rolled off six straight points to cut the lead to 13 but found themselves down 59-43 three minutes later. Western then cut the deficit to nine points following a bucket by guard Tamara McMahan, who had five points, four assists and four rebounds for the game. Two possessions and two three-pointers later, the Lady Catamounts found themselves down by 13 once again and they never recovered. The two three-pointers contributed to Georgia Southern's 56 percent shooting from beyond the arc and an astonishing 63 percent from the field. On the flip side, Western knocked down only 41 percent of its shots and 24 percent from downtown. Fantanarosa said that those shooting numbers are very difficult to overcome. "Teams like Georgia Southern can knock down the big shots," said Fantanarosa. Fantanarosa added that a major weakness of her team was their intensity when other teams hit the big shots. "Instead of getting fired up like we should [off an opponent's shot], we let it take the wind out of us and the other teams rolls off six straight points. That's a big problem." The loss moves Western to 2-5 in Southern Conference play leading into their match-up with arch-rival Appalachian State this Thursday in Boone, N.C. It will be the first of two regular season meetings between the two foes. App State comes to Cullowhee on January 31.
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