Jerry Micco Sports Editor Fans, writers must live with sports policy Newspaper policy is something all reporters and editors must live with, like it or not. Indirectly, of \ course, our readers must too. The sports department at The Daily Collegian has its own policies and not only do the reporters and editors have to live with them, but the fans must, too. Sports policy will\be set and enforced 'by myself and two assistant editors. Any complaints or questions should be ad dressed to us, but I can't guarantee you'll be pleased with the decision. I won't try and fool you. I think it's really a bunch of garbage when someone in this business tells readers "These are your pages, they're for your use." Sorry, folks. These really aren't your pages, they are given to me by a news editor, and the assistant sports editors and myself decide what goes on them. When you really look at it, the readers and fans have very little say to what goes into a newspaper. Where sports are concerned, if we did every story that every person wanted us to do, we would make the sports section .in the Philadelphia Journal look like a newsletter. There must be more than 20 sports this term alone that we could cover, everything from varsity sports to club sports to intramurals to Ultimate Frisbee. (I don't know why they call it "Ultimate"). That's a lot no matter how you look at it, and we only have so many sports writers and so much time. We can never please everyone. Every athlete wants their particular event covered and, in this respect, the sports department can never be the wiener. If you cover one athlete's sport, then other athletes start complaining about you not giving their sport any space in the newspaper. If you don't cover the sport, then you're the biggest schmuck this side of Woody Hayes. What we eventually decide to cover depends on a couple of things. One, does the event have a wide impact on the students here and two, does the story have widespread interest and im portance. That's one small part of policy. There is much more to it than I have put down so far, but those parts afore mentioned are the ones that affect the readers and fans most. There are also certain sports and types of stories that fans want most to read about, and that is a whole dif ferent policy area. What you must remember when you read the Collegian is that we must cover the varsity sports first and foremost it's a hard and fast rule. We are not a big city daily which has the local pro teams to cover and has a page for full statistical coverage of sports. What we are is a large college paper that at times seems to have a ton of varsity sporting events to cover at once and as a result, the readers are drowned in a sea of Penn State sports copy. Sorry, but we have our priorities and again that's policy. Some people tell me they want to see more national sports in the Collegian and that our coverage of national events stinks. In a way they are right. Sometimes we cannot fit national sports into the paper the way we should because of the amount of local sports we print. Although we'll try to cover the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia teams the best we can, even this presents problems. People from New York, and other cities say, "Why don't you - guys cover the Yankees, Knicks, etc.,. etc." , Well, you can't have everything. Certain sports have priority in this section, at least they have in the past. Football here has the same con notation to Penn Staters as Salt Lake City has to Mormons. If we decided to give football only half the coverage we gave them last fall, fans would think the sports department had gone crazy. We are a little crazy, but I really wouldn't want to think we got that tag because of our coverage. There are a couple of things we will try to do for the readers. We will first of all try to give three sides of every sports story, not just two. We want to give you the pros and cons but most important of all, the human side of sports. That, I believe, is most important. That's because I firmly believe sports is made up more by personalities and philosophies than by statistics and boxscores. This is the side we want to show people in our stories and I hope we can accomplish that. Better yet, we will accomplish that. It's policy, you know. Collegian sports the daily Lady Gagers a victory away from nationals° Jen Bednarek Only Rutgers stands in the way By DENISE BACHMAN Daily Collegian Sports Writer In its quest to qualify for its first berth in nationals, the women's basketball team, faces Rutgers, 25-3, in the Middle Atlantic district semifinals at 7 tonight at Towson ( Md.) State. A victory would assure the 21-6 Lady Lions, seeded No. 3 in the region and ranked No. 10 in the nation, a spot in• the national tournament, and would place them in the finals (at 8 tomorrow night) against the winner of the Cheyney-Maryland contest (at 9 tonight). The championship team would then play in the Eastern tournament at Fordham and the runnerup would compete in the Southern tournament at Tennessee Tech. "Rutgers has peaked and is flying high right now," said Lady Lion coach Pat Meiser. "We are going to have to play the best we've ever played to win." . The Lady Knights, seeded No. 2 in the region and ranked No. 7 nationally, advanced to the semifinals after easily defeating Edinboro, 95-56, in the Eastern Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women Middle Atlantic Satellite tournament at Maryland last Saturday. Rutgers never trailed in the game and were up at the half, 45-20. "They played a weak opponent, but they played a superb game against Edinboro," Meiser said. "Their execution was amost without fault." Pacing the Lady Knights' attack is 6-0 freshman center June Olkowski. She is averaging 15-4 points per game, including a 19-point average in the last six games, and 9.3 rebounds per game. She also leads the squad in blocked shots (19) and ranks second in steals (52). • • •-• • • Starting Torwa . its 'for 'Rutgers are 'two of their tri-captains, Patty Sikorski and Kathy Glutz. Sikorski is a 5-10 junior who is averaging 8 points per game and 4.7 rebounds per game. Glutz, a 5-11 junior, averages 11.1 points per game and is second in rebounding with 6 per game. In the backcourt are Denise Kenney (tri-captain) and Mary Coyle. Kenney, a 5-7 senior who was a 1976 Olympic team alternate, is second in scoring (12.9) and is averaging 5.5 Lady gymnasts out of top spot but should beat Scarlet Knights By DARLENE HROBAK Daily Collegian Sports Writer When the Lady Lions enter torn morrow afternoon's gymnastics meet at Rutgers, it won't be as the top team in the nation. In fact, it won't even be as the top team in the East. Penn State is seeded second behind Clarion State in next weekend's EAIAW regional championships at Maryland. To determine the seedings, the four highest scores of the season were averaged. Penn State had an average of 140.9, while Clarion had a 142.4. "In all fairness to ourselves," Penn State coach Judi Avener said, "we are not counting on winning the regionals and winning the nationals. We're not healthy enough to have that be a certainty." About the only certainty at this time in the season is that Penn State will face the Rutgers Lady Knights tomorrow at 3 p.m. in its last dual meet of the season. It might not be too rash to say that at the end of tomorrow's meet, the 11-0 Lady Lions will be 12-0. Rutgers, seeded 14th going into regionals, has only been able to post a 126.75 as its high score of the season. Penn State's season low has been 138.3. "We should do pretty well," Lady Lion Jan Anthony said. "We are just looking to be really clean and con sistent. We're more or less aiming for regionals. That's in the back of our minds." The tentative line-up for the Rutgers meet has Anthony, Marcy Levine, Lisa Ingebretsen and Debbie Alston at all-around. Specialists should be Lynn Samuels, Joanne Beck and Pat Spisak. Neither Ann Carr nor Margie Foster will compete because of persistent injuries, but indications are that they'll both be ready for regionals. Spisak, who got her cast off and is finally able to put some weight on her wrist, should perform tomorrow. "Our injuries are healing, but the kids just haven't had a chance to work on them," Avener said. "We'll be limping into this meet. yj ..,r ~~ "The Rutgers meet is basically a last stop before regionals to work out a few kinks. We'd be really pleased if we could break out of the 140 rut, but I don't think that will happen." It didn't happen in the last two meets a 139.65-126.1 victory over Southern Illiois on Feb. 17. and last Saturday's 139.35-134.6 win against Pitt. Avener said the Pitt meet, which was tacked on to the schedule to provide additional practice, was encouraging. , The team total of 36.1 in the vault, which included a 9.25 by Levine, was the highest the Lady Lions scored all season. Levine took the all-around with 35.75 points, followed by Ingebretsen's 35.05 which featured a 9.25 uneven bar routine, Anthony's 34.9 and Beck's 32.45. Carr competed in three events in Lisa Ingebretsen and the 11-0 Lady gers tomorrow in their last regular weekends' Eastern Regional meet. fool Nancy Kuhl rebounds per game. She also leads the Lady Knights in steals (60) and is second in assists (72). The Lady Knights' playmaker is 5-6 freshman Coyle. Averaging 9.4 points per game, she js the leader in assists with 110. "They are very ' aggressive; they have an ideal style of play," Meiser said. "We're going to have to play Rutgers straight up, not keying on any one player. And they'll have to play us straight up, too. "The key is going to be on offense; we must re-orient our offense and do specific things. We must play our game." Earlier this season, Rutgers edged Penn State, 78-77. Despite outshooting the Lady Knights both from the floor (54.6- 44.3) and at the line (58.3-34), the Lady Lions did not have many other things working in their favor. First, _they were minus 6-3 center Mary Donovan who was recovering from a knee injury. Then early in the second half 6- 2 Peg Schwinge, filling in for Donovan, picked up her fourth foul which enabled the Lady Knights to chew away at the Lady Lions 43-31 half-time lead. Glutz, who led the Lady Knights with 23 points, finally put Rutgers on top at the 6:20 mark, less than a minute before the Lady Lions' playmaker Nancy Kuhl fouled out (5:46) ; Sch winge fouled out soon after Kuhl. "Fouls are going to be critical for us," Meisel. ' said, "because in that game they went inside as soon as Peg picked up her fourth foul, and 'scored on an awful lot of three-point plays. ``Andwe have Mary pack,,whicli will be a big factor because she plays bigger and more aggressive (compared to Rutgers' Center, Sandy Tuptirins). "We are going to have to peak, get in the game early and psychologically break them." Cheyney, the top seeded team in the region and No. 5 in the nation, takes on Maryland, and the No. 4 seed and ranked sixth nationally following Penn State's game. Cheyney downed Pittsburgh 62-46 and Maryland nipped Montclair, 57-55, in the Satellite tournament last weekend to advance. Mary Donovan the Pitt meet and garnered an 8.8 on vault, an 8.5 on the uneven bars and a 7.75 on the balance beam. She scratched the floor exercise because her ankle, which isn't progressing as well as expected, was bothering her. "The Pitt meet gave us some practice we needed," Anthony said. "We didn't score that well but everybody started working harder when we got back. It kind of spurred us on." BACK FLIPS Carr didn't fulfill the requirement that states she had to compete all-around in four dual meets and the regional competition to be eligible to win a national all around title. However, a petition to waiver that rule for her was approved .. . The Lady Knights are New Jersey state champs and their top gymnast is senior Annette Digiglio. Lion gymnastics team will compete season meet, but their sights are set z ~ .t,. MEE at Rut on next Sue Martin This season's capers provided glimpse of what may be ahead By RON WENIG Daily Collegian Sports Writer The signs and billboards around town read, "Penn State basketball the awakening of the Lion." The message heralded incoming coach Dick Harter and a supposedly new era of basketball at Rec Hall. The Lions did not exactly awaken this season, but they did yawn and stretch and make some rumblings that could be interpreted as signs of life in a previously degraded basketball program. "The way we played in the last part of the season proves that we became competitive." "I think we earned some respect this year," said junior forward Steve Kuhn, who finished the year as the team's second leading scorer with 10.8 points per game. "We were pretty happy 'with the season's outcome. We ended up playing some pretty strong defense and I think we gave people a taste of what basketball could be like here." Penn State's final regular season record was 12-18, but it won six of its final 11 games, including some big victories over Duquesne and George Washington. Rutgers defeated the Lions, 67-57, in the first round of the Eastern Eight playoffs. "The way we played in the last part of the season proves that we became competitive," Harter said. "Next year, the immeditate goal is to become a winning team, but I would like to skip a year and become a championship contender for our league and tour nament titles." The Lions could become a top con tender if they can come up with another crop of freshmen•like this year's. Guards Mike Edelman, Craig Buffie and Jim Solic along with for Wards Mike Owens and Scott Wolz, all received a good deal of valuable experience and proved their worth with some hard-nosed play. Hard-nosed play is the key for the ~~~: Peg Schwinge Pat Meiser future success of the Lions. Hatter expects nothing less from his players "He gets everything out of you," Kuhn said about Harter. "He is constantly expecting greater things from I t jits players." Harter said: "We wanted to bec*e, known as a team that played ;;in telligently, had good shot selection and: played tough aggressive defense. What' this team accomplished in the face; of what was one of the most diffio#. schedules in the country provides a god foundation for our program. The qext order of business is adding four or five quality players." Scoring punch is another quality Harter may like to add to next seas§n's team. The Lions' slowdown offqnsg made scoring a rare art, although itidid help them stay close to many opponnts that might have blown them out if Yenn State had decided to pick up the pace, "I don't think any player in his right mind enjoys that style of play," laid Kuhn, whose mid-season scoring slump s ,, began when the slowdown was first employed. "But, we ended up playing some pretty strong defense. I hope cdach Harter can install a high-powered:, of fense to go along with our defense." :, "He gets everything outrOfl you. He is constantly expecting greater things from his players." ,t The Lions finished the seaton averaging 58.2 points per game orilof tense while allowing 61.6 on defense, eighth best in the country. Out of the last 12 teams Penn State played, Rutgers was the only team to score ovet:! 60 points, and that was mainly due top,tho outstanding play of All-American ceiter James Bailey who scored 26 points, including six dunks. Perhaps the biggest reason for Ptrin ,State's late season success was the plaS , of guard Tom Wilkinson. The 6-1 juniiir, named team MVP by his teammatesiset a new career assist record for the Lions at 375 and controlled the slowdown of fense with cool, calculated ballhandling. 1 Friday, March 9,197-6
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