Utah State University’s volleyball team hopes to finish strong

 By Ashley Springer

 

Utah State University’s volleyball team is looking to focus on the details and finish out games as it takes on the United States Air Force Academy on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. at the Wayne Estes Center.

“They’re all important matches for us and for our growth and for the process of us getting better,” said USU coach Grayson DuBose. “We want to be able to go out and play composed and play consistently.”

“Right now we need to focus on a lot of our little things,” said redshirt sophomore middle blocker Carly Lenzen. “Because the whole big picture’s there, it’s just these minute things that end up costing us games.” Lenzen had nine kills in the 3-0 loss to New Mexico on Wednesday attacking at a team high of 50 percent.

One of the little things the team is focusing on is blocking.

“I want to see better blocking,” DuBose said. “We’ve always kind of been a really nice blocking team, and then this year we’ve really struggled. So I want us to finish the last couple matches by just going out and defending well.”

Lenzen said for better blocking the blockers need to have good footwork and eye work to make sure they see where the setter is setting the ball so they can be in a good position to block.

According to DuBose, one element the team is missing is the ability to finish under pressure.

“That kind of is a learned skill as much as any of the other skills: pass, set, hit. Learning how to be good under pressure is kind of a learned skill and experience makes a difference,” DuBose said. “I think we’re figuring it out, but we’re just not quite there yet.”

“Maintaining good energy… especially if we’re down we need to make our own momentum to push us through and carry on,” Lenzen said. “We put in all this time and energy and so I think it’s just time to believe in ourselves and know that we can beat these teams.”

Saturday will be the Aggies' final home game of the season.

“It’s almost the end of season, so I think just going out with a bang and having fun and leaving nothing behind on the court,” Lenzen said.

Air Force is coming off of a 3-1 loss to Boise State on Wednesday. Air Force has lost its last five matches and hasn’t won a match since its 3-1 win over San Jose State on Oct. 31.

Against New Mexico, sophomore outside hitter Rachel Gale led the Aggies with 13 kills, junior setter Erica Moscoso had 29 of the team’s total of 33 assists and junior libero Hannah Gleason led with 18 digs.

Utah State University women's basketball focusing on the big picture

By Ashley Springer

Focusing on the bigger picture.

That is the goal of the Utah State University women’s basketball team this season.

“It’s more about putting all the pieces and parts together to make the whole,” said USU coach Jerry Finkbeiner said. “I’ve always said this team has a chance to be pretty good this year.”

Finkbeiner said getting better weekly, both offensively and defensively, is the focus, especially for such a young team. The team has seven freshmen and three sophomores listed on its 15-woman roster.

“This team is… inexperienced,” Finkbeiner said. “It’s a teaching element… Our classroom’s the basketball floor, our practice is daily homework but the games are the test. So hopefully we perform better this Saturday than the previous Saturday.”
 

“We need to be better on our defense,” said freshman guard Katie Toole. “We just haven’t been as solid as we should’ve in our last couple games so that’s a big focus.”

According to Finkbeiner, a piece of the bigger picture is the team becoming more aggressive.

“It’s the blessing and the curse of having good kids, good character, good chemistry because sometimes that could be a fault,” Finkbeiner said. “We may not be as aggressive or tough as we need to be… So that’s always going to be part of the big picture is taking a group of young ladies that are good people and making them tough and turning that switch on-and-off for that two hours during the week when we play a game.”

Finkbeiner listed three statistics he has emphasized: getting more rebounds, making more free throws and having less turnovers. He believes if the team beat its opponents in these categories, the Aggies will likely get the victory.


This ideal has been reflected in the past two games. In the 74-67 win against Westminster College on Monday, the Aggies had a total of 36 rebounds, 19 made free throws of 23 attempts and had 12 turnovers. Westminster had a team total of 32 rebounds, made 13 of 18 free throws and had 20 turnovers. However, in the 86-95 loss to Sacramento State on Saturday, the Aggies had 52 rebounds, made 11 of 20 free throws and had 27 turnovers. Sacramento State had 54 rebounds — 35 of which were offensive —, made 17 of 25 free throws and had 13 turnovers.

 

 

 

 

 

Utah State University women’s volleyball hopes to keep momentum going to get a win against New Mexico

By Ashley Springer

Utah State University volleyball coach Grayson DuBose said he's been happy with the way his team has been playing over the past few matches — 90 percent of the time.

When DuBose's team takes the court against the University of New Mexico on Wednesday, he'll be looking for that other 10 percent. 

"If we can put together a whole complete match I think we’ll have a nice opportunity to go compete,” DuBois said.

“We’re really focusing on the little things like getting our feet to the ball, getting nice passes and then getting everyone up so we can get three options up for the hitters,” said USU junior libero Hannah Gleason. Gleason had 21 digs in the 3-2 loss against San Diego State University on Saturday.

DuBose said the keys for success would be to get New Mexico out of its system by serving tougher and defending its quick outside hitters.

“I always want them to think we have a chance to win,” DuBose said. “I think the mindset always has to be ‘hey we’re going to put together a game plan we’re going to be prepared’ and if we can do those two things then we’ll be alright.”

“Just to forget about the last play and be in the play that we’re in and focus really on that and play with passion and our hearts,” Gleason said. “I know they play with a lot of passion and stuff so we just need to focus on ourselves and I think we’ll do well.”

The Aggies played well for four sets against San Diego State, but fell short in the last set due to serving errors. DuBose said the team has to serve better.

The Aggies had four players with double digit kills against San Diego State led by junior outside hitter Kaylie Kamalu’s 15. The Aggies tied their season high of 65 kills for a 23.2 attack percentage. Junior setter Erica Moscoso led the Aggies with 39 assists while freshman setter Kassidy Johnson, who replaced Moscoso in the fourth set and continued as setter through the rest of the match, had 15.

New Mexico is coming off of a 3-0 win over Fresno State on Saturday.

New Mexico had 52 kills for a 31.9 attack percentage against Fresno State behind junior outside hitter Devanne Sours’ 12. Redshirt senior setter Hannah Johnson led New Mexico in assists with 38 and redshirt sophomore outside hitter Ashley Kelsey and junior Cassie House both had 11 digs. New Mexico has a 21.8 attack percentage on the season.

The Aggies are currently 2-13 in conference play and 6-13 overall while New Mexico is 8-7 in conference play and 15-13 overall. If New Mexico wins the match and UNLV loses its match against third in the conference University of Wyoming, New Mexico will move to fourth in the conference.

 

Utah State University women’s volleyball team stays focused earning a win against Nevada

By Ashley Springer
 

Playing scrappier and getting a win, that was the goal.

And it was a goal the Utah State University women’s volleyball team accomplished against the University of Nevada Thursday night as the USU Aggies won 3 sets to 1 at the Wayne Estes Center.

The USU Aggies were coming off of a 3-0 loss against San Jose State University on Nov. 5 while Nevada was coming off a 3-1 win against Fresno State on Saturday. Both USU and Nevada are in the Mountain West Conference and until Thursday the Aggies’ only other conference game win was against San Jose on Oct. 10.

The Aggies won the first two sets 25-21 and 25-23. However, after a 3-0 start for the Aggies in the third set, Nevada took charge to win the set 25-20.

"When we struggled passing in the third set that's when we struggled as a team," said Rachel Gale, a sophomore outside hitter for USU.

The Aggies led 16-9 in the fourth set forcing Nevada to call its second timeout of the set. Nevada was able to come within two point, but the Aggies went on to win the set 25-20.

“The score’s 0-0, let’s go win this game, let’s go each ball one at a time, and go be gritty, go pound balls, go do what we do and go get this game,” said sophomore USU defensive specialist Maddie Day on the mindset the team had going into the fourth set.

Thursday was a career night for the Aggies. Junior USU setter Erica Moscoso had a career-high of 51 assists while Day had a career-high of 12 digs. Junior libero Hannah Gleason led the team with 23 digs and is now sixth for the highest number of digs in a single season in USU history with 434. Gale had 24 kills while junior outside hitter Kaylie Kamalu had 16.

“The thing that I really liked was our lack of errors," said USU coach Grayson DuBose. "I thought that was huge."

“We’ve been focusing on being gritty for the last half of the season,” Day said. “Our whole team was just determined to go dig balls and go throw your body at something and see if you can get it up. You’ll never know if you never go for something so just go try to make something happen and I think that’s what we did and it was successful for us.”

Nevada was led by junior right side hitter Madison Morell’s 24 kills and 16 digs. Setters Lyndsey Anderson and Taylar Rothfuss led Nevada in assists with 26 and 24 respectively.

The Aggies are now 2-12 in the conference and 6-22 overall while Nevada is 6-9 in the conference and 11-16 overall. This win marks the end of a seven game losing streak for the Aggies.

“I think we did a really good job at staying mentally tough this game,” Gale said.

“It’s huge,” DuBose said about the win. “We battled a little bit and it’s nice to finish this stuff out… It’s rewarding for them. They’ve worked really hard all season long.”

 

 

Dual language immersion program allowing students to receive college credit to be implemented in August 2016

By Ashley Springer

A new program that will allow high school students who have passed the advanced placement Spanish test the opportunity to take 3000-level college courses was presented Wednesday evening at Utah State University. The Dual Language Immersion Bridge Project, which will be put into place in August of 2016, was described in a presentation by USU graduate student Chemaris Ethington at the fifth annual Lackstrom Linguistics Symposium.

“The ideal is they take the AP test when they are in the ninth grade if they are in the dual language immersion program,” Ethington said. “But anyone that has taken the AP test and passed it, they can take the classes.”

The program is for students in grades 10 through 12.

“By the time that they finish high school they can be two to three courses shy of a minor in that target language,” Ethington said.

Students can take up to nine credits of upper division college courses. The classes taught will cover pop culture, Spanish in the global world, and Spanish surveys of the professions. Spanish will be the first program implemented in the Bridge Project, followed by Chinese and French.

Davis and Granite school districts will be the first to receive this program according to Maria Luisa Spicer-Escalante, an associate professor at Utah State University who also works with the Utah State Office of Education.

“They have identified at least two high schools,” Spicer-Escalante said, “but they don’t know how many students will make it to this level.”

Utah is the only state in the United States with this program.

“We are really the cutting edge in dual language immersion,” said Spicer-Escalante on Utah’s progress in dual language immersion education. “Everybody’s looking at what Utah is doing.”

Deans and other representatives from seven higher level institutions of Utah got together to discuss and put this program into place.

“We started the conversations a year ago,” Spicer-Escalante said. “To discuss the needs, the possibilities and to start exploring what would be the best way to deliver the best education for these students who will come with a very high level of proficiency.”

The program will not come into effect in Cache Valley for another six years, according to Spicer-Escalante, as students in the dual language immersion programs in the valley are in the third grade.

“We have a gap of six years to prepare our teachers to face the challenges and the demands and the opportunities that this will bring into the classroom,” Spicer-Escalante said.

Ali Adair, a graduate student at USU and a teacher at Willow Valley Middle School, was excited about the opportunity the program will give heritage speakers — students who speak both Spanish and English.

“A lot of them crave literacy and kind of validity in Spanish and so with this project it will not only give the DLI students… the opportunity to take the AP test and then to take the 3000 level courses, but it will also give the heritage speakers who already speak the language really well… those same opportunities,” Adair said. “And a lot of these kids might not be headed to college and so this might be like a spring board from which they jump into the academic world.”

Utah State University and city of Logan continually implement the Americans with Disabilities Act

By Ashley Springer

 
This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Utah State University and the city of Logan continually are striving to implement the act in the community.

According to officials of the university’s Center for Persons with Disabilities, one of the main focuses in implementing the act is bringing awareness. Sue Reeves, the public relations specialist at the CPD, would like people to start seeing individuals with disabilities “as people rather than the disability.”

 “It’s a good start, but the kinds of discrimination that you saw in 1990 still are occurring today for people with disabilities,” Reeves said. “They still have issues with accessibility and discrimination and employment. Even though it’s not supposed to be there, it still occurs in practice.”

The act is still constantly being put into place in various ways such as by putting in curve cuts and automatic doors.

“All five titles have areas in them that haven’t been implemented,” said Gordon Richins, the consumer liason at the CPD, “or if they have, just in select areas.”

Logan has made changes and improvements but it is still working toward better implementing the act. According to Richins, Logan is an older city and has older buildings which makes it harder to make everything accessible.

 “The newer facilities is where you see the biggest change,” Richins said, “because the architects that put the buildings together understand the ADA and the requirements and codes.”

Richins fell and broke his neck, becoming paralyzed, just before the act was put into place. “Myself and friends that I know with disability, if they can’t get in the business, store etc. they’ll go to a newer facility in the community that they can get into to spend their hard-earned money,” he said.

Shane Johnson, the associate director of development at the CPD, hopes “not only that the original law stays preserved but that we actually add to it.”

The university is trying to do better serve those with disabilities. One newer program the CPD is continually working on is WebAIM, which focuses on making websites more accessible to those with disabilities.

“You don’t always think about what needs changed on that so that somebody can access that,” said Marla Nef, the program coordinator of Up to 3 at the CPD, “but there are things that need to be accessible so that people can view it and all those things there.”

Another new way the university is implementing the law is through its Aggies Elevated program — an inclusive campus experience for young adults with intellectual disabilities who otherwise would not be able to attend college. The program is in its second year and the CPD just received a federal grant last week allowing for a five year extension of the program.

“By that time we’ll be able to show outcomes and hopefully get the funding that we need to keep it going,” Reeves said.

Various organizations on campus are continually striving to better implement the law.

“The Center for Persons with Disabilities, the Disability Resource Center, the special education department, groups like… communication disorders in the college of education, all these groups are always working with people with disabilities and have new programs all the time that are expanding the services and number of people they serve,” Johnson said.

One of the main goals of the act is to improve the lives of all those affected.

“I’ve been able to see some of the quality of life improvements that the ADA provides,” Richins said, “such as camping at an accessible campground and other activities in daily life we Americans enjoy.”

“It’s a group anybody can join at any time,” Johnson said. “Aging comes with a host of disabilities… so we really consider that the things the ADA covers to benefit everybody universally.”

The act is “not just for people with disabilities,” Nef said. “We all will need some kind of accommodation at some point.”

 

 

Utah State University to private housing complex: No more 'Aggie'

 

By Ashley Springer

     
In September, students living in the apartment complex known as Aggie Flats received an email saying the apartment had officially changed its name to Alpine Flats. The change came at the request of Utah State University, which is consolidating its hold on the word “Aggie.”

This is “part of an ongoing business scrub that we’re doing,” said Heidi Adams, the Utah State University trademark and licensing director, “so any businesses that are using our names or trademarks or things that are owned by the university, we’re going out and meeting with those people and making sure that either they’re not using it or that they have a contract and a license to do so.”

Alpine Flats is owned by Nelson Brothers Property Management, which has come under fire recently in relation to another student housing unit, once called Aggie Factory. The complex now known as The Factory is still under construction, even though renters were told it would be ready for this school year, causing many students to be without a place to live at the beginning of the semester.

“When we sat down and met with them, we found out they owned both companies so we addressed them using ‘Aggies’ on both housing establishments at the same time,” Adams said. “They had made up marketing materials with ‘Aggie Factory’ and ‘Aggie Flats’ on there so we gave them a grace period to use those items and then followed up with a take-down notice.”

A corporate official of Alpine Flats sent an email to the property manager Rachel Romney concerning the name change. “The name Aggie is not allowed to be used per the school,” the official wrote. “We respect exactly where they’re coming from so we changed the name to Alpine Flats.”

The request for a change in name was not due to any conflict between the university and Alpine Flats. “Utah State does not have any problems with The Flats at all,” Adams said.

Tyler Goucher, a Salt Lake City attorney specializing in patent, copyright and trademark law, said he believes Utah State has “a legitimate claim for the name ‘Aggies.’”

“They would have a common law trademark,” he said. A common law trademark occurs when a business or organization is the first to use a trademark in its state commerce, and as a result the business will be given the rights to the trademark without formally registering.

According to Goucher, two entities can own the same trademark if the services provided are unrelated. However, once an organization’s trademark becomes well known it receives a broader protection in order to prevent consumer confusion.

Maddie Christensen, a student who lives in Alpine Flats, said she was “kind of indifferent” to the change. “I think it’s kind of funny,” she said. “But I don’t know… I liked the name Aggie Flats.”