Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Good sports year at Pima
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The year in sports at Pima College, 2015-16, was ridiculously good.
How good? On Friday, the Aztecs learned they finished No. 5 nationally in overall NJCAA on-the-field excellence.
It was unquestionably the finest year in PCC sports since the school began competition 44 years ago.
Finishing No. 5 in the junior college NATYCAA Cup is the equivalent of Arizona finishing No. 5 in the NCAA Director’s Cup. (The Wildcats haven’t been in the Top 10 for more than a decade).
The Pima men’s sports teams finished No. 4 and the PCC women’s teams were No. 5 nationally. The previous high for the Pima athletic department was No. 10, last year.
It’s not that you couldn’t see it coming:
Pima’s men’s soccer team was No. 3 in the nation.
Pima’s women’s soccer team finished No. 4 nationally.
Pima’s women’s basketball team was No. 3.
Pima’s women’s cross country team was No. 6.
Pima’s men’s cross country team was No 9.
Pima’s men’s golf team was No. 6.
Pima’s women’s golf team was No. 11.
Pima’s men’s track and field team was No. 10.
Pima’s softball team finished 47-19, or the equivalent of No. 9 nationally, and the football team, 7-4, reached the WSFL championship game for the first time.
Pima had an impressive list of first- and second-team NJCAA All-Americans: high jumper Sam Shoultz, basketball player Sydni Stallworth, football standouts Wesley Payne and Landry Payne, golfers Frankie Wu and Desiree Wong, soccer stars Jason Romero and Devyn Hunley, softball players Courtney Brown and Margarita Corona.
Coaches of the year? Clark Rustand, Jim Monaco, Kendra Veliz and Dave Cosgrove.
Last week, Pima promoted athletic director Edgar Soto. His new title is Dean of Athletics and Physical Wellness. He will not only oversee the athletic department, but the school’s fitness sports science and physical wellness on each of PCC’s campuses.
For the Aztecs, it was a season and a job well done.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The U.S. Olympic Team Trials begin Friday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, and six Tucson-affiliated track and field athletes have a reasonable chance to make the American team for Rio de Janeiro.
The strongest pick is former Arizona All-American hurdler Georganne Moline, who was No. 7 at the 2012 London Olympics. She is seeded No. 2 going to Hayward Field. Salpointe Catholic grad Jaide Stepter, a USC athlete, is seeded No. 8 in the same race.
Much of the intrigue at Hayward Field will feature Tucsonan Bernard Lagat. At 41, the silver medalist at 1,500 meters in the 2004 Athens Olympics and bronze medalist at 1,500 in the 2000 Sydney Olympics will give it a final shot.
It’s not that Lagat isn’t on the radar. He has qualified as the No. 5 seed in both the 5,000 meters and the 10,000.
A London 2012 Olympian, Tucsonan Jill Camarena-Williams, is seeded No. 6 in the shot put, and former UA NCAA high jump champion Liz Patterson is No. 4 in her event. Ex-Wildcat high jump All-Americans Brigetta Barrett and Nick Ross chose not to compete this year.
Don’t forget Flowing Wells High grad Tara Erdmann Welling. She will run in the 10,000 meters final Saturday morning, and is among the top 13 seeds. In 2012, Welling finished No. 6 overall and a year later was No. 3 at the USA World Championship trials.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Tucson athlete of the week: Ryan Gray, baseball. The Catalina Foothills High School grad, a lefty pitcher at Trinity (Texas) University, helped the Tigers win the NCAA Division III World Series last week in Wisconsin. Gray went 9-3 with 75 strikeouts in 74 innings. He pitched a shutout in the World Series opener as the Tigers rolled to 17 consecutive victories to end the season. Gray was 21-3 in his Trinity career.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Rio Rio High distance running star Allie Schadler was named the Arizona Girls Gatorade Track and Field Athlete of the Year last week. She won the Gatorade state award for cross country in the fall. Schadler, who will surely be one of the nation’s top four or five female distance running recruits, has a 4.0 GPA and is being sought by track power Stanford, among others. If Schadler repeats as the state’s top track and field athlete next spring, she will join Amphi’s Michael Bates, 1986 and 1988, as the only two-time winner from Southern Arizona.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona’s soccer team will play host to Oklahoma on Sept. 16, a Friday. That will allow Emily Parker, a Catalina Foothills grad, to return home for a match. Parker was the Southern Arizona girls soccer player of the year in 2013, leading CFHS to back-to-back state championships. It would be nice if her father, former UA and NFL offensive lineman Glenn Parker, a Pac-12 football analyst, is assigned the Sept. 17 Hawaii-at-Arizona game so he can see Emily’s homecoming.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When the USA Olympic Swimming Trials begin Sunday, one ex-Wildcat is guaranteed to be on the medal stand. George DiCarlo, who won a gold medal in the 400 freestyle at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, has been asked to present the medals to the 400 freestyle winners Sunday night. My one prediction for the Olympic swimming trials: Tucsonan Matt Grevers will surpass Michael Phelps as America’s leading men’s swimmer.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
About 400 people gathered Friday night at the JW Marriott Starr Pass in attempt to rally financial and moral support for Arizona’s 1994 All-Pac-10 lineman Warner Smith. The San Manuel High School grad has been fighting ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) for about 18 months. Among those who flew to Tucson to support their ex-teammate were Tedy Bruschi, Mike Scurlock and former Desert Swarm-era coaches Duane Akina and Charlie Dickey.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona’s 1997 Final Four guard Jason Terry, who intends to play his 18th NBA season in 2016-17, is now hosting a weekly SiriusXM NBA Radio program. Title: “On The Runway with Jason The Jet.” Terry has said he hopes to coach after his career; I suspect ESPN or another network will attempt to hire him first.
- Johanna Eubank
- Updated
New UA women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes did what most good coaches do: she poached a player from another roster. Barnes’ first recruit at Arizona is Bria Rice, a point guard from the Seattle area who committed to Colorado in March 2015, but asked to be released from her letter-of-intent when CU made a coaching change two months ago.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Now that Kaleb Tarczewski is available to the highest bidder for the NBA Summer Pro League, most notably Detroit and Washington, it’s humbling to realize how little progress he made at Arizona. His point averages, in order, were 7.7, 9.0, 9.3 and 9.4. He was never a preferred option in Sean Miller’s offense and never the best player on the court. Zeus arrived at Arizona the No. 4 prospect in the country, according to ESPN. What happened? He plateaued. Some players, like Solomon Hill, continue to get better. Some, like Zeus, don’t exhibit that capacity. Because he is 7 feet tall, he played basketball, even if it didn’t best suit his skills.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
CDO grad Robert Metz will become a pro football player next week in Cologne, Germany. Metz last week signed with the Lubeck Cougars of Germany’s GFL2 pro league. After becoming a two-time all-conference linebacker at Dixie State in St. George, Utah – in which he made 217 career tackles – Metz was assisted in getting attention from the German team by Catalina Foothills football coach Jeff Scurran. After Metz had an NFL Pro Day audition, and was scouted by Canadian teams, Scurran contacted the Lubeck Cougars; he has given clinics for German pro teams the last few years.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Former UA volleyball standout Lindsey Hahn Buechler, who played at Arizona from 1986-89 and married UA and NBA basketball player Jud Buechler, will return to Tucson on Nov. 4 for a homecoming and a bit more. Lindsey will be part of a 35-year reunion of the UA volleyball program on the night Arizona plays UCLA. One of UCLA’s top players is her daughter, Reily Buechler. What’s more, Lindsey and Jud’s youngest daughter, Brynn, will enroll at the UA in August.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Chaz Mack, an all-Southern Arizona basketball player at Catalina Foothills in 2015, was honored by the NJCAA last week. Mack, who averaged 11.5 points and 6.8 rebounds as a freshman starter for 26-7 NJCAA powerhouse Cochise College, was presented the Pinnacle Award of Academic Excellence by the NJCAA. He had a 4.0 GPA as an Apache freshman.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Mark Wasikowski, who helped Andy Lopez coach Arizona to the 2004 College World Series, became the head baseball coach at Purdue last week. Wasikowski played for Lopez’s 1992 national championship team at Pepperdine, coached 10 years in Tucson and the last five years at Oregon. Talk about a rebuilding job: Purdue was 2-22 in the Big Ten this season.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
With the December 2018 departure of Ann Weaver Hart as UA president, there might at last be some progress on the construction of a Lute Olson statue near McKale Center. Hart did not approve when a group with private financing made a proposal to build a statue of Olson last year. Here’s hoping the next UA president will have a better perception of Olson’s significance to Tucson.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona’s All-Pac-12 pitcher, Nathan Bannister, left Friday’s College World Series start against Oklahoma State with what appears to be an injury to his pitching arm.
Some will say UA pitching coach Dave Lawn and head coach Jay Johnson asked too much of the righty — too many innings, too many pitches.
That’s probably not accurate.
Bannister threw 141 innings in 20 starts. That’s not being overworked, according to the leading pitchers in UA history. At Arizona, it’s a bit less than average for the ace of a World Series staff.
In 1989, when he won a school-record 18 games and Arizona was the Pac-10 champion, future MLB All-Star Scott Erickson pitched 172 innings.
In 1986, when he pitched Arizona to the national championship, Gil Heredia pitched 165 innings.
In 1985, future MLB standout Joe Magrane pitched Arizona to the College World Series by throwing 149 innings.
All three had accomplished professional careers.
Erickson not only pitched 172 innings for Arizona in 1989, he pitched 78 innings that summer for Single-A Visalia. When he was 30, in 1998, Erickson pitched 251 innings for the Baltimore Orioles.
After leaving Arizona in ’87, Heredia pitched 101 innings that summer for Fresno and Everett (Washington) in Single-A. When he was 34, Heredia won 15 games for the Oakland A’s and pitched 199 innings.
When Magrane left Arizona in ’85, he pitched 66 more innings that summer for St. Petersburg and Johnson City in the low minors. Three years later, he won 18 games for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Baseball coaches (and trainers) now err on the side of caution. Pitch counts have become as important as ERAs.
When Arizona won the 2012 College World Series, star right-hander Kurt Heyer pitched 153 innings. Two years later, making 27 starts for St. Louis’ affiliates Springfield and Memphis, Heyer pitched 152 total innings.
That’s one fewer inning than his epic 2012 Arizona season, a year in which some analysts said Heyer was overworked.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
The year in sports at Pima College, 2015-16, was ridiculously good.
How good? On Friday, the Aztecs learned they finished No. 5 nationally in overall NJCAA on-the-field excellence.
It was unquestionably the finest year in PCC sports since the school began competition 44 years ago.
Finishing No. 5 in the junior college NATYCAA Cup is the equivalent of Arizona finishing No. 5 in the NCAA Director’s Cup. (The Wildcats haven’t been in the Top 10 for more than a decade).
The Pima men’s sports teams finished No. 4 and the PCC women’s teams were No. 5 nationally. The previous high for the Pima athletic department was No. 10, last year.
It’s not that you couldn’t see it coming:
Pima’s men’s soccer team was No. 3 in the nation.
Pima’s women’s soccer team finished No. 4 nationally.
Pima’s women’s basketball team was No. 3.
Pima’s women’s cross country team was No. 6.
Pima’s men’s cross country team was No 9.
Pima’s men’s golf team was No. 6.
Pima’s women’s golf team was No. 11.
Pima’s men’s track and field team was No. 10.
Pima’s softball team finished 47-19, or the equivalent of No. 9 nationally, and the football team, 7-4, reached the WSFL championship game for the first time.
Pima had an impressive list of first- and second-team NJCAA All-Americans: high jumper Sam Shoultz, basketball player Sydni Stallworth, football standouts Wesley Payne and Landry Payne, golfers Frankie Wu and Desiree Wong, soccer stars Jason Romero and Devyn Hunley, softball players Courtney Brown and Margarita Corona.
Coaches of the year? Clark Rustand, Jim Monaco, Kendra Veliz and Dave Cosgrove.
Last week, Pima promoted athletic director Edgar Soto. His new title is Dean of Athletics and Physical Wellness. He will not only oversee the athletic department, but the school’s fitness sports science and physical wellness on each of PCC’s campuses.
For the Aztecs, it was a season and a job well done.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
The U.S. Olympic Team Trials begin Friday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, and six Tucson-affiliated track and field athletes have a reasonable chance to make the American team for Rio de Janeiro.
The strongest pick is former Arizona All-American hurdler Georganne Moline, who was No. 7 at the 2012 London Olympics. She is seeded No. 2 going to Hayward Field. Salpointe Catholic grad Jaide Stepter, a USC athlete, is seeded No. 8 in the same race.
Much of the intrigue at Hayward Field will feature Tucsonan Bernard Lagat. At 41, the silver medalist at 1,500 meters in the 2004 Athens Olympics and bronze medalist at 1,500 in the 2000 Sydney Olympics will give it a final shot.
It’s not that Lagat isn’t on the radar. He has qualified as the No. 5 seed in both the 5,000 meters and the 10,000.
A London 2012 Olympian, Tucsonan Jill Camarena-Williams, is seeded No. 6 in the shot put, and former UA NCAA high jump champion Liz Patterson is No. 4 in her event. Ex-Wildcat high jump All-Americans Brigetta Barrett and Nick Ross chose not to compete this year.
Don’t forget Flowing Wells High grad Tara Erdmann Welling. She will run in the 10,000 meters final Saturday morning, and is among the top 13 seeds. In 2012, Welling finished No. 6 overall and a year later was No. 3 at the USA World Championship trials.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Tucson athlete of the week: Ryan Gray, baseball. The Catalina Foothills High School grad, a lefty pitcher at Trinity (Texas) University, helped the Tigers win the NCAA Division III World Series last week in Wisconsin. Gray went 9-3 with 75 strikeouts in 74 innings. He pitched a shutout in the World Series opener as the Tigers rolled to 17 consecutive victories to end the season. Gray was 21-3 in his Trinity career.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Rio Rio High distance running star Allie Schadler was named the Arizona Girls Gatorade Track and Field Athlete of the Year last week. She won the Gatorade state award for cross country in the fall. Schadler, who will surely be one of the nation’s top four or five female distance running recruits, has a 4.0 GPA and is being sought by track power Stanford, among others. If Schadler repeats as the state’s top track and field athlete next spring, she will join Amphi’s Michael Bates, 1986 and 1988, as the only two-time winner from Southern Arizona.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Arizona’s soccer team will play host to Oklahoma on Sept. 16, a Friday. That will allow Emily Parker, a Catalina Foothills grad, to return home for a match. Parker was the Southern Arizona girls soccer player of the year in 2013, leading CFHS to back-to-back state championships. It would be nice if her father, former UA and NFL offensive lineman Glenn Parker, a Pac-12 football analyst, is assigned the Sept. 17 Hawaii-at-Arizona game so he can see Emily’s homecoming.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
When the USA Olympic Swimming Trials begin Sunday, one ex-Wildcat is guaranteed to be on the medal stand. George DiCarlo, who won a gold medal in the 400 freestyle at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, has been asked to present the medals to the 400 freestyle winners Sunday night. My one prediction for the Olympic swimming trials: Tucsonan Matt Grevers will surpass Michael Phelps as America’s leading men’s swimmer.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
About 400 people gathered Friday night at the JW Marriott Starr Pass in attempt to rally financial and moral support for Arizona’s 1994 All-Pac-10 lineman Warner Smith. The San Manuel High School grad has been fighting ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) for about 18 months. Among those who flew to Tucson to support their ex-teammate were Tedy Bruschi, Mike Scurlock and former Desert Swarm-era coaches Duane Akina and Charlie Dickey.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Arizona’s 1997 Final Four guard Jason Terry, who intends to play his 18th NBA season in 2016-17, is now hosting a weekly SiriusXM NBA Radio program. Title: “On The Runway with Jason The Jet.” Terry has said he hopes to coach after his career; I suspect ESPN or another network will attempt to hire him first.
- Johanna Eubank
New UA women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes did what most good coaches do: she poached a player from another roster. Barnes’ first recruit at Arizona is Bria Rice, a point guard from the Seattle area who committed to Colorado in March 2015, but asked to be released from her letter-of-intent when CU made a coaching change two months ago.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Now that Kaleb Tarczewski is available to the highest bidder for the NBA Summer Pro League, most notably Detroit and Washington, it’s humbling to realize how little progress he made at Arizona. His point averages, in order, were 7.7, 9.0, 9.3 and 9.4. He was never a preferred option in Sean Miller’s offense and never the best player on the court. Zeus arrived at Arizona the No. 4 prospect in the country, according to ESPN. What happened? He plateaued. Some players, like Solomon Hill, continue to get better. Some, like Zeus, don’t exhibit that capacity. Because he is 7 feet tall, he played basketball, even if it didn’t best suit his skills.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
CDO grad Robert Metz will become a pro football player next week in Cologne, Germany. Metz last week signed with the Lubeck Cougars of Germany’s GFL2 pro league. After becoming a two-time all-conference linebacker at Dixie State in St. George, Utah – in which he made 217 career tackles – Metz was assisted in getting attention from the German team by Catalina Foothills football coach Jeff Scurran. After Metz had an NFL Pro Day audition, and was scouted by Canadian teams, Scurran contacted the Lubeck Cougars; he has given clinics for German pro teams the last few years.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Former UA volleyball standout Lindsey Hahn Buechler, who played at Arizona from 1986-89 and married UA and NBA basketball player Jud Buechler, will return to Tucson on Nov. 4 for a homecoming and a bit more. Lindsey will be part of a 35-year reunion of the UA volleyball program on the night Arizona plays UCLA. One of UCLA’s top players is her daughter, Reily Buechler. What’s more, Lindsey and Jud’s youngest daughter, Brynn, will enroll at the UA in August.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Chaz Mack, an all-Southern Arizona basketball player at Catalina Foothills in 2015, was honored by the NJCAA last week. Mack, who averaged 11.5 points and 6.8 rebounds as a freshman starter for 26-7 NJCAA powerhouse Cochise College, was presented the Pinnacle Award of Academic Excellence by the NJCAA. He had a 4.0 GPA as an Apache freshman.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Mark Wasikowski, who helped Andy Lopez coach Arizona to the 2004 College World Series, became the head baseball coach at Purdue last week. Wasikowski played for Lopez’s 1992 national championship team at Pepperdine, coached 10 years in Tucson and the last five years at Oregon. Talk about a rebuilding job: Purdue was 2-22 in the Big Ten this season.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
With the December 2018 departure of Ann Weaver Hart as UA president, there might at last be some progress on the construction of a Lute Olson statue near McKale Center. Hart did not approve when a group with private financing made a proposal to build a statue of Olson last year. Here’s hoping the next UA president will have a better perception of Olson’s significance to Tucson.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
Arizona’s All-Pac-12 pitcher, Nathan Bannister, left Friday’s College World Series start against Oklahoma State with what appears to be an injury to his pitching arm.
Some will say UA pitching coach Dave Lawn and head coach Jay Johnson asked too much of the righty — too many innings, too many pitches.
That’s probably not accurate.
Bannister threw 141 innings in 20 starts. That’s not being overworked, according to the leading pitchers in UA history. At Arizona, it’s a bit less than average for the ace of a World Series staff.
In 1989, when he won a school-record 18 games and Arizona was the Pac-10 champion, future MLB All-Star Scott Erickson pitched 172 innings.
In 1986, when he pitched Arizona to the national championship, Gil Heredia pitched 165 innings.
In 1985, future MLB standout Joe Magrane pitched Arizona to the College World Series by throwing 149 innings.
All three had accomplished professional careers.
Erickson not only pitched 172 innings for Arizona in 1989, he pitched 78 innings that summer for Single-A Visalia. When he was 30, in 1998, Erickson pitched 251 innings for the Baltimore Orioles.
After leaving Arizona in ’87, Heredia pitched 101 innings that summer for Fresno and Everett (Washington) in Single-A. When he was 34, Heredia won 15 games for the Oakland A’s and pitched 199 innings.
When Magrane left Arizona in ’85, he pitched 66 more innings that summer for St. Petersburg and Johnson City in the low minors. Three years later, he won 18 games for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Baseball coaches (and trainers) now err on the side of caution. Pitch counts have become as important as ERAs.
When Arizona won the 2012 College World Series, star right-hander Kurt Heyer pitched 153 innings. Two years later, making 27 starts for St. Louis’ affiliates Springfield and Memphis, Heyer pitched 152 total innings.
That’s one fewer inning than his epic 2012 Arizona season, a year in which some analysts said Heyer was overworked.
Tucson official: Air Force won't pay for D-M groundwater cleanup now
