One man’s look at the 10 leading newcomers in UA sports, 2014-15:
1. Stanley Johnson, basketball. A combination of Chris Mills and Michael Dickerson.
2. George Cunningham, golf. The UA’s top men’s golf recruit since Ricky Barnes 14 years ago.
3. Bailey Roth, distance runner. The school’s 50-year lineage of elite distance runners continues with the Colorado steeple-chaser.
4. Gabi Stoian, soccer. Arizona’s 2014 player of the year at Phoenix Pinnacle High School should help to revive Arizona’s long-suffering soccer program.
5. Kadeem Allen, basketball. No apostrophe in Kadeem, but the 2014 NJCAA Player of the Year is the X-factor on a bid to get to the Final Four.
6. Trish Parks, softball. A combo hitter-pitcher from SoCal is a big talent who’ll try to fit into a big-time program.
7. DaVonte’ Neal, football. Think of Dennis Northcutt in 1999 when he caught 88 passes and averaged 18.9 yards per punt return.
8. J.J. Matijevic, baseball. Drafted in the 22nd round by the Red Sox, Matijevic, a Pennsylvanian, chose to enroll at Arizona. He’s a lefty hitter, middle infielder, who hit .567 with 10 homers as the Pittsburgh area’s prep Player of the Year.
9. tie, Samantha Senczyszyn and Rasmus Skjaerpe, swimming. You’ll need spell-check to get their names right, but Senczyszyn, of Wisconsin, and Skjaerpe, a Norwegian national team swimmer who went to prep school in Florida, are among the nation’s most sought-after freshmen prospects.
10. Trevor Wood, football. He’s not the next Rob Gronkowski, but who is? Wood is a hybrid tight end/athlete made for 21st century offenses.
Special mention: Freshmen golfers Krystal Quihuis of Salpointe Catholic and Natalia Forero of Cali, Colombia, are elite-level additions. But Laura Ianello’s five-woman team returns intact from last year’s group that tied for seventh in the NCAA finals, so making the lineup will be unusually difficult.
