In this tournament, girls’ soccer teams from California, Florida and Texas meet in the Fort Worth area where the Bear’s first match is Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 against American Heritage – Delray, Florida. HSPNHS will report the scores as the matches finish throughout the weekend  

  ESPN Ride has released its 2011-1012 Powerade Fab 50 Girls Winter Soccer Rankings and the Bears earned an impressive top ten spot with a number 4 ranking.  Along with #18 American Heritage, they will face #19 Kingwood and #31 Flower Mound Marcus as well as Arlington Martin. 

     The junior varsity soccer team will also encounter stiff competition in the Hebron HS JV Tournament at Hebron.

         On the indoor court, the varsity basketball Bears, with a record of Overall, 13-12; District, 2-2, are looking forward to a rematch with the Bishop Lynch Lady Friars on Feb. 3 in Ft. Worth.  The Lady Friars defeated the varsity Bears 49-47 in a close game Jan. 10 in Neuhoff. The Bears fought tough from behind to take the lead in the fourth quarter to end up with the loss in the final two minutes of play.   While the junior varsity (Overall: 9-6, District:  2-1 with six games left) was also defeated by the Friars, the freshman team (Overall: 14-5, District: 2-0, with six games left) pulled off an impressive win.  Both teams will be playing in a District Round Robin Tournament on Feb. 11. 

    From the pitch, to the court and into the water, the academy’s swimming and diving team is counting down to the regional meet Feb. 3 and to the state meet Feb. 17-18 in a record-setting way.  Freshman Tiffany Futscher broke a 12-year record in the 100 backstroke, posting a time of 1:01:02.  Other highlights include defeating Hockaday, Nolan, Duchesne and Pearce in recent meets.  The swimming and diving Bears have won the regional meet for the last five years and won the state meet last year.   “We are hoping for a repeat,” said Coach Amanda Rieff. 

      In other sports news, the UA volleyball program announced this week the new head varsity volleyball coach is Wendy Munzel.  Coach Munzel will be returning after four seasons away. She was the Ursuline Varsity Coach from 2000-2008 and has an extensive background in volleyball as a player, coach and director of the Dallas Jr’s club volleyball program.  The athletic department said that they are excited to welcome Coach Munzel back to UA!

     Looking ahead, softball tryouts start Jan. 16,  and track and field practices begin the following day on Jan. 17.  While the times and places are yet to be set, one thing is for certain:  spring sports are not far behind.

According to the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, The Oklahoma Thunder pours in 1.3 million dollars in the local economy. Due to the season starting a month later than usually, this has bad consequences for Oklahoma. This year Oklahoma will only receive half of the revenue from their team, along with San Antonio who receives 95 million dollars in revenue from the Spurs. Even in an economic recession, people still seem to come to sports and businesses still thrive, but with the lack of games, this NBA season many businesses and local cities are getting half of their profit.

Around 30 percent of employees have been laid off and forced to look for other jobs due to the NBA lockout. In New York City, a sport’s bar located three blocks away from the famous Madison Square Garden had 140 workers to keep up with the influx of people. That was last year. This coming year this same bar has fired 40 workers and struggling to keep the 100 remaining that they have.

The workers who are behind the counter to give fans sodas, popcorn or any other sort of refreshment are the ones that are affected the most. Due to the fact that the post season and the regular season didn’t start on time and have been pushed back, many concession workers have been out of a job for an average of five months.  Their paychecks, not like the NBA players whose money goes to numerous homes, jets and other forms of luxury; goes to the electricity bill, sending their kids to college, or putting food on the table.

Scott Gold, whose job is supervising the ushers who work for the New Jersey Nets at the Prudential Center said,  “When the Nets were here, they helped me pay bills with whatever money I earned, especially around the holiday season.”

With the seasons starting with five games on Christmas Day, including the rematch of the NBA finals last year; the Mavericks will be able to raise the banner for their first ever championship, the seats will be filled to full capacity, and the crowd will roar for their reigning champions. But the concession workers who get paid only 11 dollars an hour are just happy to be at work.

“I am thrilled to attend Columbia as it offers an outstanding academic curriculum, competitive golf with a fantastic coach and team, and the unrivaled experience of living in New York City,” she said.

Lilette will graduate this spring with honors, along with recognition for her community service.  She, along with her sister Lelesse ’13 have spent hours establishing relationships with families of children battling cancer, offering parents free time while entertaining the children and their siblings in a fun environment.

Lilette invited Ursuline staff and teachers to her signing reception Nov. 16.  They all congratulated her on a “remarkable achievement.”

     Kathleen B. ’12 signed a letter of intent to row crew at the University of Alabama in the fall. Another senior, Talia C., also signed a letter of intent to play golf at the University of Notre Dame.

     Kathleen has been rowing for the past four years, beginning her freshman year with the Ursuline crew team.  Prior to her junior year, she was invited to attend the U.S. Junior National Team Sculling Development Camp in New Milford, Ct. where she trained and competed with the Junior National coaches.

     “We placed first and second at the prestigious Independence Day Regatta,” she said.

     After training with the USJNT Scullers, Kathleen returned to Dallas and joined the Dallas Rowing Club Juniors team under Coach Jules Slim.

     “With this team, I have won the Texas State Championships in my Varsity 4x and earned a bid to compete at the U.S. Rowing Youth Nationals,” she said.

     Kathleen will follow a pre-med track and major in biology at Alabama. 

     Talia is currently the 11^th ranked player nationally for the class of 2012 and the #1 ranked player in the state of Texas in the American Junior Golf Association Polo Ranking.  She is the two-time defending state golf champion in the TAPPS 5A division.  Ursuline is in quest for its fourth consecutive State Championship Title this year.

     This summer, Talia advanced to the quarterfinals in the U. S. Girls Junior Championship at Olympia Fields, Il. and to match play at the U. S. Women’s Amateur in Barington, RI.  Additionally, she placed fifth in the prestigious Kathy Whitworth Invitational.

     Last month, Talia, who maintains a 4.0 GPA and has received national athletic scholastic honors as well, was selected to the 2011 Rolex Junior All-American Honorable Mention Team.

     “We are very proud of these two girls,” Mike Jensen, UA athletic director, said.  Jensen said he expects additional signings in other sports later in the year.

     The new additions to the team, aside from the novices, are coaches Erin Sullivan and Cait Pennington. Erin Sullivan, alum of Ursuline Academy, was a fellow rowing Bear. Cait Pennington was a rower at ESD. Their experience with rowing shows these new coaches know what it takes to be successful rowers.

     “I love them,” Mary H. ’14 said, who has been with the crew team for two years. “The hard conditioning that they do is helping everyone improve.”

     Since the new coaches came to Ursuline the rowers have been very successful, especially in their recent regatta in Oklahoma. The varsity quad placed 2^nd in the finals, the JV quad placed 1^st in the Petite finals, and Junior Olivia W. placed 2^nd in her single+.

     “The coaches are easy to talk to and very nice, which is great,” Mary said.

     The crew team has a busy schedule with an upcoming regatta called Pumpkinhead, and many more in the schedule, but if the outcome of the last regatta is an indicator, they are sure to do really well in all of the tournaments to come.

      On Thursday, October 13^th the Cross Country bears competed in a 7 a.m. district meet at Fort Worth’s Trinity Park hosted by Nolan High School.

     This meet was one of the most challenging yet with hilly terrain and twisting paths but the UA team still kept their composure, competing against their district rivals, Bishop Lynch, Bishop Dunne and Nolan.

     UA won district varsity and JV titles. The top UA varsity runner was Kennedi H. ’13, who placed second to Nolan. There were lots of cheers when UA victors were announced, as it allowed them to attend the State meet.

     State was October 22 in Waco where the top UA varsity team competed with many schools across Texas. The cross country team had a good overall performance even though there were few afternoon practices due to extreme heat.  

      Ursuline took second place, in the Class 5A meet in Waco. Teams that participated were district rivals San Antonio Antonionans Apaches and Fort Worth Nolan.

     In this meet, Freshman Jordan E. ’14 was Ursuline’s top finisher in sixth place.   She had a time of 12:25.4 over a 3,200 meter race course. Others were Natalie M. ’13 who finished tenth and Kennedi H. ’13 who placed eleventh.

     Ursuline lost to the Apaches of Antonian College Prep in San Antonio by only two points. This was a great improvement from last season where on the same course the Bears lost by 45 points. “With Antonians graduating their third, fourth, and fifth varsity runners & the Bears losing Allison G. ’12 and Becca K. ’12, the future looks bright for the Running bears, looking once again to end the Apache’s reign in the 2012 season,” said Coach Moody.

They have never won a playoff series.

They have only ever won one playoff game—it was on the road, not at home.

But, this year, the Texas Rangers are a completely different team, or so it seems.

With players like Michael Young, Nelson Cruz, Elvis Andrus, Ian Kinsler, and Vladamir Guerrero all on the active roster, why wouldn’t the Rangers be able to win a few playoff games? Maybe even go to the World Series?

Let’s not forget our pitching greats C.J. Wilson, closer Neftali Feliz, and superstar Cliff Lee to back up the rest of the team on the mound. And just because Josh Hamilton may be out right now with an injury, hardly means he won’t be back and ready to capture that MVP trophy in the playoffs.  The word “playoffs” are almost unheard of to the Texas Rangers. Maybe that’s because they’ve only ever been three times—1996, 1998, and 1999. Or maybe it’s be-cause almost every year when the Rangers look hopeful, the All-Star Game comes around, and they just form a slump and lose their playoff wishes. Not this year. This year, the Rangers seem like a top-tier baseball franchise right now they are even leading the American League West Division by eight games.

“Cliff was the number one guy on our board that we wanted to acquire,” Daniels said. “We wanted a high-impact player.”He definitely got one.

And what’s up with Josh Hamilton?

After additional x-rays, the verdict is still a bruised rib cage with no structural damage. Although it’s a good thing that nothing was broken during his leaping grab that resulted in his injury, it doesn’t appear that Josh will be back until around late September or playoff time.

“Right now, I’m day-to-day. I might wake up in a day or two and feel good enough. I’ll know when it happens. I don’t want to have any setbacks,” said Hamilton.

But, although they don’t have one of their best players out on the field right now, the Rangers have gained back two more players recently who have been on the disabled list for quite some time—Nelson Cruz and Ian Kinsler. This is a very good thing, because the Rangers needed back some of their go-to guys now that Hamilton is out.

Finally, completely sweeping the New York Yankees the weekend of September 10 was an important turning point to the season. If our Rangers can beat a team like the Yankees, who are coming off a pennant win, then who’s to say we can’t win a pennant ourselves?

So, get out your claws and your antlers because the Rangers are coming and they might not be stopped!