VOLUME 1, ISSUE 9

January 22nd 2012 Volume 1, Issue 9

Vikings Nation @UOFA_AUGVIKINGS

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Game Schedual

Men’s & Women’s

Volleyball Vs. Lethbridge

Jan 25th @ 6 & 8

AWAY

Vs. Lethbridge

Jan 26th @ 1 & 3

AWAY

Men’s & Women’s

Basketball Vs. Kings Jan 24th

@ 6 & 8 AWAY

Vs. Kings Jan 26th

@ 6 & 8 HOME

Men’s Hockey

Vs. NAIT Jan 23rd

@ 7:30 HOME

Vs. NAIT Jand 25th

@7:00 AWAY

Last Friday the Augustana

Men's and Women's Volley-

ball teams travelled to play

the Lakeland Rustlers. The

women played well but due

to some unforced errors they

could not pull out a win and

were beaten in three straight

sets. Kiera Lotoski was play-

er of the game. Saturday’s

game was slightly more suc-

cessful, taking a set off of the

nationally ranked Women's

team. Laura Kvemshagen re-

ceived player of the game.

The men's game ended with a

win on both Friday and Satur-

day night, pushing them for-

ward in the league standings.

Kieryn Murphy received

POG on Friday and libero

Thomas Regier on Satur-

day. Both teams are travel-

ing to Lethbridge this

weekend with their heads

held high- looking for a

win on the horizon.

Men’s and Women’s Volleyball Vs. Lakeland By Siobahn McKenna

Page 2 Vikings Nation

Men’s Hockey vs. Sait

gustana post and went into the

mesh. Overtime would solve

nothing, as the game ended in

a 5-5 draw.

Saturday night in Sait, the late

heroics would not be needed

for either team as the game

was a bit of a lull for the Au-

gustana Men. The game end-

ed in a 3-0 shutout victory for

the Trojans, as the Vikings

couldn't get all lines firing in

the offensive end of the rink.

The weekend series finds the

Augustana Men's hockey

team tied for 2nd in the

league with Sait, behind only

Nait whom the men have a

home and home with this

week. Wednesday Evening

will see a 7:30 puck drop fea-

turing a rematch of last

year’s ACAC finals between

Augustana and the Nait

Ooks. Come on out and sup-

port the team as playoffs are

just around the corner.

The Augustana Men's Hockey

team faced a tough weekend

series, with the always gritty

Sait Trojans. Friday night at

the Encana Arena was a barn

burner between the two skilled

hockey clubs. With the Vikings

down 4-2 going into the third

period, the men battled back to

tie the match late in the game.

With 30 seconds left in period

Scott Aucoin netted a power

play goal giving the home team

a 5-4 lead with only 30 seconds

left to play. However as fate

would have it the Trojans tied

the game with only 10 seconds

left on a seeing eye shot from

the blue line which hit the Au-

Page 3 Volume 1, Issue 9

This past week the Augustana Basketball teams faced off

against the Lakeland College Rustlers. For the women’s match up both teams had mo-

mentum coming off a win the previous weekend. On Friday

night, the women’s game started off very close with the

Vikings having a slight lead after the first quarter. The game was fast-paced and com-

petitive, but the Vikings wom-en came out extremely strong

to start the second half and

had a comfortable lead heading into the final quarter. Our en-

tire team contributed to finish to the game and we finished up on top winning 77-54. Rookie

guard, Hayley Story, earned the player of the game. On Sat-

urday night, we knew Lake-land would be ready to go right

away, so we were extremely focused on getting off to a good start. Our team was able to get

a great start holding Lakeland to only 6 points in the opening

quarter. This set the tone for

the entire game as the Vikings were again able

to win comfortably in a complete team effort with a final score of 77-

53. Second year guard, Richelle Wagner,

earned the player of the game award.

Women’s Basketball vs. Lakeland By Monique Jarrett

Page 4 Vikings Nation

The men’s team was up for a battle against a strong Lake-

land squad. Friday night’s game was intense as both teams were playing well and

kept the score very close. Lakeland had a slight lead to

enter half. Lakeland was able to extend their lead to

about 10 points as this high scoring battle continued. The Vikings men fought

back to tie the game with 3 minutes to go. Great defense

and clutch free throws by fourth year veteran, David

Shantz, helped Augustana

clinch a close 86-84 victory over the Rustlers. First year forward,

Cole Aikens, was awarded the player of the game. The Satur-day night game was just as ex-

citing as Game 1. Both teams were fighting hard and playing

some great basketball. The Vi-kings trailed by a bit at half

time, but the game was setting up to be another exciting finish. Unfortunately, the Vikings

could not hold on and lost this game 86-72. Rookie, Cole

Aikens, went 2 for 2 getting the player of the game once again.

Men’s Basketball vs. Lakeland By Monique Jarrett

Page 5 Volume 1, Issue 9

Up next for the Augustana

Basketball teams are the King’s University College Eagles

Photos of the Week By Pro Sports Photography Find more photos online! @ www.augustanavikingsgallery.com

Page 6 Vikings Nation

Page 7 Volume 1, Issue 9

Page 8 Vikings Nation

The past week I have gotten to briefly enjoy the Australian Open in-between homework and practice. The

first of the four major professional tennis championships and one of the two big hard court tournaments, it

is a great show of athleticism, skill and mental toughness. One of the defining aspects of this year’s tourna-

ment, as it usually is for most major tournaments, it has been the endurance of the participants. Some

matches last for 4-5 hours, in temperatures consistently above 30 Celsius. The players that have made it out

of those tough contests have shown great mental toughness, but have also demonstrated their incredible de-

votion to fitness.

It is not uncommon to coaches, trainers and teachers to stress fitness, but sometimes people do not realize

just how integral it is for an athlete to be in the best shape they can be. There are the benefits of being able to

jump higher and run faster, improve one’s ability to react quickly and improve in game aspects specific to

one’s sport, such as being able to spike a volleyball harder or shoot long range in basketball with less stress

to get the ball there. While some elite athletes can get away for a time without doing extra training because

of the gift of their genetic makeup, there is the other side of fitness, those separate elite athletes from their

counterparts. This comes mainly from a dreaded to some; cardio.

Aerobic training is needed for every sport. When you get into the late stages of competition, your muscles

need the energy to continue to function and need the experience of trying to fight through when there is

nothing left in the tank. The Aussie Open has had several extreme examples in the past couple weeks, but

there are two that have stood out. One was a fourth round match between 1st seed Novak Djokovic and

15th seed Stanislas Wawrinka in which Djokovic narrowly won 12-10 in the 5th set. The ESPN analysts

pointed out that one of the factors that helped Djokovic was that he had slightly more energy at the end of

the match than did Wawrinka. The second match was a quarter final between 10th seed Nicholas Almagro

and 4th seed David Ferrer. Almagro had experienced extreme cramps earlier in the tournament after a

match during the tournament’s warmest day and despite getting a 2 set lead on Ferrer, he could not quite

finish Ferrer off and went on to lose after his legs cramped up for good.

Some people reading this might be thinking, “tennis is dependent on being aerobically fit, what about a

sport like volleyball?” While volleyball tends to have more focus on anaerobic fitness, matches can still get

into 2 or more hours, as our men’s team can tell you first hand. When you get that far into competition,

sooner or later your aerobic capacity comes into play. When in a situation where you become fatigued, be-

ing aerobically fit will not only help prevent fatigue affecting your ability to make necessary movements but

it will also help prevent mental mistakes that come when you lose your ability to focus. This has been a sig-

nificant improvement for athletics overall at Augustana as I am sure every head coach would tell you their

team’s overall fitness is better than it has been for the past few years. As the push for the playoffs is upcom-

ing for most, that fitness will be even more important.

The Final Word By Josh Ryan