Alabama CB/RS Javier Arenas - photo by UA Athletics
Alabama Athletics Media Relations issued releases below about another preseason honor for Alabama football CB/RS Javier Arenas, Bama Women’s Golf and a win for the Crimson Tide Volleyball team.
Arenas Selected as Finalist for Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama defensive back Javier Arenas was selected as one of 30 finalists for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, which was announced on Friday by Lowe’s.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
Arenas has volunteered more than 50 hours of community service throughout the Tuscaloosa community. He has spent time in the local school systems speaking to children about the dangers of bullying and the positive effects of teamwork. Arenas has also attended birthday parties of physically challenged children and reached out with phone calls to children battling cancer.
On the field, he is one of the most dangerous return men in the county and an All-SEC cornerback, Arenas will factor heavily into the Crimson Tide defense and special teams as a senior in 2009. His 650 punt return yards led the nation and set an Alabama single-season record while he also registered 63 tackles at corner. The Tampa, Fla. native was selected as a preseason Playboy All-American, but his accomplishments in the classroom and in the community are bringing him accolades off the field as well.
To be eligible for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior in the Football Subdivision and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence – classroom, character, community and competition.
After narrowing the list to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one finalist who best exemplifies excellence in the four Cs of classroom, character, community and competition.
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Women’s Golf Opens Season with High Expectations
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Entering head coach Mic Potter’s fifth season at the helm, the University of Alabama women’s golf team looks to build on the momentum created by two of the most successful seasons in school history, and solidify its place as one of the premiere programs in the nation.
The Crimson Tide begins the 2008-09 season on Sunday, Sept. 6, when they tee off at the NGCA Match Play Championships in Daytona, Fla. It is an event that the Tide took second place in last season. Alabama will face a challenging 16-team field, featuring 15 teams that finished in the top 50 of the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings last season, on the par-72, 6,339-yard LPGA International Legends Course.
The event is a hybrid stroke play-match play format in which teams compete in a 36-hole stroke play qualifier to determine seeding for the match play portion. The field includes seven teams from the Southeastern Conference led by the Tide, Auburn, LSU and Georgia who all concluded last year ranked in the top 15. Duke, who defeated UA in the finals last season, returns to defend its title.
“We start with the NGCA match play, and last year’s match play I think was a real springboard for us when we made it the finals,” Potter said. “Our team experienced some things in that tournament last year that they probably never experienced before competitively, so I think it’s good to have that in our first tournament. It will be a good building block for us.”
Last season the Crimson Tide finished in the top five in nine-of-12 events against a challenging schedule last season, including a team title at the First Market Bank Invitational and second-place finishes at the SEC Championship and NCAA Central Regional.
Despite losing the services of two-time All-American Kathleen Ekey, the Crimson Tide returns a wealth of experience from last year’s team that spent the entire season ranked in the top 10 and finished tied for 11th at the NCAA Championships.
“You can’t say enough about the confidence and the momentum it builds being at the national championships and being paired with teams like Southern Cal and Purdue in the first two rounds,” Potter said. “Playing with those teams that are always at or near the top, and realizing, we did this all year and that we’re as good as they are. We just need to believe that we’re as good as they are.”
Junior Camilla Lennarth enters this season as Alabama’s most accomplished returner and boasts an impressive list of achievements in two seasons with the Tide, including honorable mention All-America honors last year from the National Golf Coaches Association. She led the team in scoring average last season at 73.70, the third-lowest total in school history, and finished in the top 15 in nine of the 12 events she competed in. The Stockholm, Sweden native has four top five finishes in 23 career events.
“(Camilla) is one that I see stepping up this year, and really feeling like she belongs,” Potter said. “Being named an All-American last year I think surprised her a little bit, but I think now she sees that she’s capable of not only honorable mention but first team. When she stays focused and stays positive, she’s a great player.”
Sophomore Brooke Pancake put together a dazzling freshman campaign, and will be relied on heavily in her second season. Pancake notched five top-10 finishes during her first year with the Tide and ranked as the nation’s best in fairways hit, driving the ball in the short grass 92 percent of the time.
Seniors Helena Blomberg and Rhea Nair have competed in a combined 54 tournaments in three seasons with the Tide and both have proven themselves capable on the biggest of stages. Blomberg has six career top 10 finishes including a seventh place at the SEC Championships her freshman year. Nair sat out the fall season last year with a wrist injury, but played all seven spring events and won her first collegiate medalist honors at the First Market Bank Intercollegiate.
“I think that Helena and Rhea coming in with more than three years of experience each competing with our team and at the intercollegiate level that we compete at now, it will all come together for them this season,” Potter said.
Junior Courtney Harter has shown flashes of brilliance in her first two seasons at the Capstone showcased by her victory in her first collegiate tournament, the Wildcat Invitational in the fall of 2007. Harter has played 20 events for the Tide, and last season she posted the team’s lowest 18-hole score with a 67 at the Cougar Classic.
“How good your team is really comes down to depth more than anything else,” Potter said. “The fourth and fifth players are huge. So how they play will tell us how good of a team we’re going to have. All three are very capable; they’re all three capable of being All-Americans.”
Adding to the depth of experienced performers for UA is incoming freshman Jennifer Kirby, who is currently dominating on the Canadian amateur circuit. The Team Canada member from Paris, Ontario, has won two straight national competitions, first at the Royale Cup Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship followed by the Royale Cup Canadian Junior Girls Championship.
“Jennifer has shot the scores that would indicate that she can step in and play for us and do well,” Potter said. “She’s the only person ever to win the Ontario Junior, Ontario Women’s Amateur, Canadian Women’s Amateur and Canadian Junior in the same year. I think the thing that I like best about her is that she seems to be incredibly mature, incredibly self-reliant. It’s clear to me that she can play at this level.”
The Crimson Tide fall schedule will have some familiar stops from past seasons along with a few new events, including this weekend’s NGCA Match Play event.
UA also returns to the Legends Golf Club in Franklin, Tenn., to play the Mason Rudolph Women’s Championship before playing the Tar Heel Invitational and the Landfall Tradition to wrap up the season.
The highlight of the Tide’s spring schedule comes in April when Alabama hosts the SEC Championships for the first time since 1998. The tournament will be held at the NorthRiver Yacht Club marking the first time that the SEC champion will be crowned in Tuscaloosa as the last time UA hosted, the event was played in Birmingham.
“We’re excited about hosting our fellow SEC members and doing a good job to make it the best SEC Tournament ever,” Potter said. “We hope to get the Tuscaloosa community involved too.”
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Alabama Volleyball Opens Bama Bash in Convincing Fashion
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama volleyball team earned a straight-set victory to open the Bama Bash, downing visiting SMU 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-22) Friday night at the CAVE. With the victory the Crimson Tide earned its second straight victory and improved to 2-3 on the season.
“I thought it was a total team effort tonight,” Alabama head coach Judy Green said. “I thought the passers played great. I thought the setters did a great job of running our offense and the hitters took care of the ball. When you side-out the way we did tonight, you are not going to lose very many matches.”
Junior Alyssa Meuth and newcomer Kayla Fitterer led the Tide offensively. Meuth paced all hitters with 12 kills while Fitterer followed with nine. Alabama was efficient early and set the tone by hitting .459 (17-for-37) in the first set and finished the match with a .333 (44-for-105) percentage.
The Tide put together its best passing effort of the year as sophomore Stephanie Riley tallied 21 assists and junior Kayla Schmidt chipped in with 12. Sophomore Ashley Frazier led all players with 18 digs and nearly recorded a double-double with nine kills.
“We brought our primary passers in 30 minutes before every practice we had this week and we got them more reps, they obviously needed more reps to be comfortable,” Green explained. “The other thing we worked on in practice was our side-out efficiency because we sided-out horribly in the first tournament and tonight you could tell we were a product of what we practiced. It was really good to see our hitters be very efficient with our offense tonight.”
The two squads traded points to open the match until the Crimson Tide took a 12-10 lead and then went on a 9-2 run to jump out to a 21-12 lead and secure the first set 25-17.
In the second set it was more of the same with both teams knotted at 15 but Alabama then took control and played 10-5 the rest of the way to seize control of the match heading into the intermission.
In the third set Alabama raced out to a 9-2 lead but SMU rallied back to pull within two late in the set but the Tide closed out the match with a kill by Frazier.
The Mustangs were led offensively by Dana Powell and Kathryn Wilkerson. Powell tallied 11 kills and added six digs while Wilkerson recorded nine kills and seven digs. Kelli Becerra tallied 29 assists while Sidney Stewart paced SMU with 13 digs.
The Crimson Tide continues Bama Bash play with two matches on Saturday. UA will opens at noon against Jacksonville State and then closes out the tournament against McNeese State at 5 p.m.
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