Monday With the Mounties, 3/3/08

March 3, 2008

The Mountaineer track program is at it again! This time head coach Ben Welch is sending eight athletes to Johnson City, Tenn. for the national championships March 6-8. Three Mountaineer women qualified led by national meet regular, Marcella Bosch. The junior from Boise will be making her 7th trip to a national meet. Bosch will be running the 3000 meters. Joining Bosch, will be sophomore Kayla Weissert who qualified in the pole vault. Weissert is currently ranked 9th in the NAIA. Senior pentathlete Kasie Gillespie qualified on Feb. 23rd at a meet held at Washington State University. Gillespie qualified for both the indoor and outdoor meets last season.



The men's team will send five athletes to the meet. Adam Goulet qualified in the 1,000 meter run. Two years ago Goulet earned All-American status at the event. Junior Lucas Ohmes will be making his return to the national event. Ohmes competed in the indoor and outdoor meets last season, earning All-American status in the outdoor decathlon. Mitch Wheelhouse will represent the throwers for EOU. Wheelhouse qualified in the 35 pound weight throw, he is currently ranked 9th in the NAIA in the event. Finally, Eastern will also send mile qualifier Zach Heath who qualified in early February but suffered what was thought to be an indoor season ending injury. However, after undergoing sports hernia surgery Heath has made a miraculous recovery and will be ready to go in Johnson City.



Sheena Henderson, Tiffanie Ulmer, and Mark Carollo added to their great careers at Eastern by being named to their respective side's, Cascade All-Conference first-team. Men's head coach Ryan Looney was also named the conference's coach of the year. Looney turned around a program that was just 4-22 in his first season in 2004-05, his next year he went 17-11, 23-7 in 2006-07, and 25-5 this season. His career record at EOU is now, 69-45. This season, Looney has directed Eastern to new territory, Branson, Missouri for the national tournament, first in school history; and the school's first league title in 38 years.



Mark Carollo is averaging a career high 19 points and 7 rebounds per game this season. The older Carollo also become the schools all-time leading scorer along the way with more than 1,600 points. Henderson is averaging 15.1 points and 7.5 rebounds per contest and ranks 2nd in the conference in field goal percentage at 52%. Henderson was also voted onto the CCC's five player All-Defensive team. Just ahead of Henderson in field goal percentage is EOU's Ulmer, who shoots a league best 55%, averaging 15.8 points and 7.9 boards. Last season, Ulmer was Honorable Mention All-Conference.



Paul Carollo and Neil Fryer were named All-Conference honorable mention. Paul Carollo tallies just under 10 points and 8 boards per contest on the season. The younger Carollo, became the schools all-time leading rebounder with more than 500 in just 3 seasons. Fryer is also having a fine season averaging a career-high 12 points, shooting better than 50% from the field and 40% from the three point line. Jeremy Templeton was named to the conference's All-Defensive team with 44 steals on the season, 1.5 per game.



Mountaineer softball is underway, EOU split a preseason series with Blue Mountain Community College over last weekend in Pendleton. Eastern travels to Caldwell, Idaho this weekend for the season-opening The College of Idaho tournament. The Mounties will break-in their new field next Wednesday, March 12 in a scrimmage versus Walla Walla Community College before the March 15, home regular season opener versus The College of Idaho.



Back to Eastern basketball, both the men and women will know their national tournament opponents this Wednesday, March 5. The brackets will be unveiled and we will have all the info on the EOU athletic website. I have the extreme honor once again to tag along, this time with the EOU men to Point Lookout, Missouri. My duties include a daily blog for the Eastern men, daily audio interviews with players and coaches, a photo gallery, and I am taking video camera along to get more "Mounties All-Access." My other duties will be live-game and daily blogs on the Cascade Conference page, and a national daily recap on the Victory Sports Network page.

The Eastern women will be followed by EOU President Lund, who will be forwarding me her daily blog so I can post what's happening with them in Sioux City, along with a photo gallery. I will also be posting daily recaps from Coach Welch from Johnson City and he may have some video for me as well.



As a young voter, I speak to fellow young voters and young people who are old enough to vote... VOTE! Now is the time to. If you are old enough to vote, why not do it? There's nothing I hate more than to hear someone bad-mouth a politician, but do nothing about it. Your vote does count, look how close the Democratic race is at the moment. Oregon's votes will mean a lot in that race, even on May 20. I'm not asking you to join a protest, just go punch a card.



I had a sign that I watch way too much T.V. last week, there was a ricin scare in Las Vegas, and I could not help but think what's going to happen next? The news anchors did their best job at terrifying the audience with flashy graphics and scary music. But, they excelled at scaring me by knowing nothing of ricin. Because I also knew nothing of ricin, I just kept seeing in my head movies that began like this. News reporters from ground zero on "I am Legend," or "Night of the Living Dead," or "Invasion." Some odd outbreak that spreads and walking zombies overtake the city. My next thought, I wondered if I would have been as scared if this happened in the other big Nevada city, Reno and the Reno 911 cast were in charge. So, I turned off my television.



That's enough for now, as always, it's all in good fun, until next week, stay down or MOUNT UP!