Weekly Preview Feb. 4, 2010

Swimmers off to AUS championship

This weekend the Sea~Hawks swimming, women’s volleyball, and women’s basketball teams will be in action on the road. The swimmers are heading to Charlottetown with high hopes for the AUS Championship. The women’s volleyball team is off to Antigonish to take on St. FX in a weekend series. The women’s basketball team will be in action in Wolfville, looking to rebound in a weekend series against the Axewomen.

Swimming

The Sea~Hawks swim team will head to UPEI this weekend for the Atlantic Univesity Sport Championship in Charlottetown. With a number of athletes already qualified for CIS Champs, a large amount close to qualifying times in their events, and a great facility from last summer’s Canada Games for competition Memorial has high hopes of having a record breaking weekend.

Both men's and women's swim teams will put a big push to get more swimmers qualified for the CIS Championships at the University of Toronto Febraury 18-20th. The men's team will already be represented at CIS by sophomore David Forbes who qualified in the 50m and 100m Freestyle and the 50m Butterfly, as well as 5th year Timothy Rusted who qualified in the 1500m Freestyle. The women's team will be represented by sophomore Kelsie Rogers for her 50m Freestyle and Leah Tomblin who qualified two weeks ago in the 200m backstroke.

This weekend at the AUS Championships the men’s and women’s will aim to repeat second place team finishes from last year, when they finished only behind Dalhousie. UNB will be the strongest competition for the Sea-Hawks for second place in both the men's and women's competition.

The Sea~Hawks men's team will be led by David Forbes who will be racing for Gold in all four of his 50m and 100m Freestyle and Butterfly events. 5th year Timothy Rusted will be competing in his last AUS Championships and looks to add to his career medal total in the distance freestyle events. Rookies Adam Harvey (freestyle and backstroke), Richard Hibbs (breaststroke and individual medley) and Ryan Allen (breaststroke, butterfly) will all aim to medal and qualify for CIS Championships during the meet. Tim Bennett (backstroke) and Brett Foster (butterfly) will also be focused on finaling in their events to push the team to their second place goal. Both should close in on CIS qualifying standards.

The Sea~Hawks women's team have high expectations for the five swimmers travelling this weekend. Leah Tomblin will be in position to medal in all of the backstroke events. Kelsie Rogers will be racing for medals in the sprint freestyle and butterfly events. Dayna Hogan (distance freestyle) and Erin Daly (breaststroke) will be aiming to qualify for CIS Championships as well as medal in their top events. Third year Monica MacGillivray is the veteran of the young team and will be competing in the individual medley and freestyle events.

The CIS Championships will be Feb 18-20th, check up on the Sea~Hawks Sportsline for updates throughout the weekend at 737-7678.

Women’s Volleyball

The Sea~Hawks take to the road this weekend to Antigonish, Nova Scotia to take on a surging St. Francis Xavier squad in a two game series. St. FX, now 7-7, are 6-1 in 2010 as they have found their niche as a team behind the strong play of Katherine Ryan.

Last season’s AUS Rookie of the Year and CIS All Rookie Team member has been sensational for the X-Women this year, currently ranked fifth in the AUS in kills/game at 2.83. Another second year left side playing exceptionally for St. FX is Catherine Thornton, averaging 14.0 points and 12.3 digs in the team’s past three wins. St. FX will look to this young nucleus of attack hitters to play aggressively from the opening serve this weekend.

The Sea~Hawks continued to face adversity this past weekend as they were unable to seal the win being up two sets to one against UNB and losing the second match in straight sets. Despite the two losses, Memorial will look to build off some of the positives shown in these two games. Second year left side Erin Bursey was fantastic for the ‘Hawks this past weekend, averaging 10.8 points and 13.0 digs against the Reds. Sasha Wilkins missed the second match of the weekend due to injury, her status is questionable for this week’s action. Veterans Nicole Jolliffe and Sarah Strickland both put forth solid efforts in last weekend’s matches and look to continue leading the team as they head to St. Francis Xavier. Matches begin at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday and finish up 11a.m. Sunday (AST).

Never count this young team out as they have shown that, despite their record, they will compete from start to finish.

Women’s Basketball

After a rough pair of game this past weekend at the hands of the Capers the Sea~Hawks look to get back to their winning ways as they travel to Acadia. After dropping both contests to CBU, Memorial drops to 9-5 and now sits third in the AUS behind St. Francis Xavier and first place Cape Breton. The ‘Hawks swept the Axewomen at the Field House in November but both games were close.

Despite the disappointing 3-10 record, the Acadia Axewomen have been playing better basketball than one would think. They have only lost by an average margin of 3.0 points in the past five games which included formidable opponents like CBU, Dalhousie, and St. Francis Xavier. Although they have lost eight in a row, Acadia has more fight in them and need to be prepared for accordingly if the Sea~Hawks want to secure a win.

A point of emphasis for the ‘Hawks this weekend will be to shut down former AUS All-Star Alise Brown who is currently 3rd in the AUS in both scoring and assists at 19.4 ppg and 3.69 apg, respectively. Acadia has plenty of fire power but their difficulties lie in being able to stop runs and be effective defensively, as a team they allow the second most points per game in the AUS.

Although the ‘Hawks are coming off a very difficult weekend they have sown that they are a resilient bunch. This trend should continue as the women head into Wolfville. Look for the backcourt of Brittany Dalton and Erin Mullaley to bounce back and play inspired, aggressive basketball while the veteran front line of Ally Forsey, Grace Fishbein and Vicki Thistle continue to outmuscle their opponents at the hoop.

Games begin on Saturday with tip off at 7 p.m. and finish up Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. (AST)