Pack Adds Three to 2009 Volleyball Team

Reno, Nev. - University of Nevada head volleyball coach Devin Scruggs has added three recruits for the 2009 volleyball season in high school seniors Janelle Batista, Elissa Ji and Kelly Chang.

Batista is a 5-11 right side/middle blocker who played her prep volleyball at Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis, Ore. where she earned first-team all-state honors as a senior after leading the Raiders to an eighth place finish at the state tournament. She was named Mid-Willamette Conference co-MVP following her senior season and was a two-time first-team all-conference selection. As a sophomore she was named the all-conference second team. A three sport athlete she also competed in basketball where she earned first-team all-conference honors her junior year and was second team selection as a sophomore. She helped guide the CVHS basketball team to a fifth place finish at the state tournament her junior season. Twice she earned all-district honors competing in track & field her sophomore and junior seasons. She plays club volleyball for Northwest Juniors.

One of two players that will be joining the Wolf Pack next season from Honolulu, Hawaii is Ji, a 5-10 outside hitter who played her prep volleyball at Maryknoll High School where she earned second-team all-state honors the past three seasons. She was honored with the 2008 Senior Volleyball Invitational Impact Player Award. A four-year member of the Jammers Volleyball Club she along with Chang helped the team to a second place finish at the 2008 Junior Olympics in Dallas.

The second Hawaii player that will join the Pack next season is libero/defensive specialist Kelly Chang who played her prep volleyball at the Hawaii Baptist Academy. She earned first-team all-state and Interscholastic League of Hawaii honors her senior year. The team’s most valuable player she helped Hawaii Baptist to a pair of league titles and two state titles. A seven-year member of the Jammers Volleyball Club she along with Ji helped the team to a second place finish at the 2008 Junior Olympics in Dallas.

“I am very pleased with our class of 2009 recruits,” said Scruggs. “We have athleticism, volleyball IQ, and fantastic ball control all rolled into each of these players. Janelle Batista will bring athleticism and an energy that I am very excited to have the opportunity to coach. Both Elissa and Kelly come from a very strong club out of Hawaii. They have ball control and they know how to win.”

Name Pos. Ht. Yr. Hometown/Previous School/Club Team
Janelle Batista RS/MB 5’11” Fr. Corvallis, Ore./Crescent Valley HS/Northwest Juniors VBC
Elissa Ji OH 5’10” Fr. Honolulu, Hawai`i/Maryknoll HS/Jammers VBC
Kelly Chang L/DS 5’2” Fr. Honolulu, Hawai`i/Hawaii Baptist Academy/Jammers VBC

Nevada Volleyball Team To Host Spring Tournament This Weekend

Reno, Nev. - The University of Nevada will host a spring volleyball tournament at the Virginia Street Gym on Friday and Saturday. Chico State, Pacific, Sacramento State and The College of Southern Idaho along with the Wolf Pack will compete in the event. The tournament is free and open to the public.

The Pack will take on The College of Southern Idaho in the only match on Friday at 7:00 p.m. On Saturday two courts will be used to complete the 10 matches. All matches will be two games played to 25 points.

Nevada Spring Volleyball Tournament Schedule

Day Time Court 1 Court 2
Friday 7:00 p.m. Nevada vs. College of Southern Idaho
Saturday 9:30 a.m. Nevada vs. Sacramento State Chico State vs. Pacific
Saturday 10:30 a.m. Nevada vs. Pacific Sacramento State vs. College of Southern Idaho
Saturday 11:30 a.m. Nevada vs. Chico State College of Southern Idaho vs. Pacific
Saturday 1:00 p.m. Chico State vs. College of Southern Idaho Pacific vs. Sacramento State
Saturday 2:00 p.m. Nevada vs. College of Southern Idaho Sacramento State vs. Chico State

The Pack Shows its Bite at the Silver and Blue Scrimmage

Nevada Spring Football
By Randy Connors

Nevada fans watching the annual spring Silver and Blue scrimmage at Mackay Stadium had to be impressed by the Wolf Pack football team because even head coach Chris Ault, who is very demanding, was happy about his team’s performance.

“Today’s scrimmage put a great exclamation point on this spring. I thought it was a great scrimmage. There were bright signs on both sides of the ball. There was great hitting and some weaknesses we have got to work on. But I was very pleased. We went 84 plays. I thought defensively we played really well, we got around the ball. I thought the offense, once they got warmed up, started moving the ball better,” coach Ault said.

During the scrimmage the defense, ranked number three in the country against the run last year, held the country’s number two rushing offense to 91 yards and no touchdowns. The passing defense looked much improved as they knocked down three passes and nearly nabbed two for touchdowns. Ault said that the defense had performed well throughout the spring practice sessions.

The Wolf Pack offense that averaged almost 300 yards per game last season looked effective even without the WAC’s Offensive Player of the Year quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and last season’s backup, Nick Graziano, who transferred out of the Nevada program. Sophomores Luke Collis and Tyler Lantrip took turns running plays. The duo combined for 350 yards and four touchdowns passing. Kaepernick, dressed in sweats and nursing a sore ankle from the Humanitarian Bowl, relayed plays to Collis and Lantrip.

“I am really pleased with both quarterbacks. They are excellent quarterbacks. They made great strides every week and got tougher as the spring went on. I am excited about them,” Ault said.

Wolf Pack watchers have a lot to be excited about as the pistol offense continues to evolve. Offensive line coach and offensive coordinator Chris Klenakis says that the Pack worked on expanding the offense this spring.

“We made improvements. We want to be a better throwing team and I think we took strides forward this spring in doing that. We put a lot of emphasis on our play action game and we took some steps up in that direction. There are some things we liked and some things we maybe didn’t like. That’s the thing about spring, it all looks good when you draw it up on the board in winter - but until you run it full speed you don’t know,” Klenakis said.

Senior All-WAC offensive lineman Alanzo Durham is confident that the Pack will continue to be one of the nation’s top rushing and passing teams. “We are just going to keep doing the same thing we do every year and that is work harder and get better. With coach ‘K’ behind us, there is nothing we can’t achieve. All the guys are pumped. They are ready to follow-up on what we did last year,” Durham says.

The players know that hard work is necessary as the Wolf Pack looks forward to one of the most difficult schedules ever. Senior Running back Brandon Fragger scored a touchdown during the Saturday scrimmage. “We have one of the hardest spring programs and everyday we get better and better. That helps us prepare for the big games,” Fragger said.

Senior defensive tackle Chris Slack thought the spring training session went good for him and the team. “Everyone has a good attitude. We try to have some fun out here, get better and get ready for Notre Dame,” Slack said.

Safety Jonathan Amaya, one of the Pack’s fiercest tacklers and senior leaders has seen a lot of spring training sessions, yet his intensity and the focus of the spring sessions has not changed. “I think we prepared well. We worked overtime - we definitely put in a lot of overtime,” Amaya said.

After the final scrimmage the mood on the field was genuinely upbeat. The Wolf Pack football players finished a successful spring practice and were off for spring break. Coach Ault was smiling and had good words for his players. But as always, the coach held back from being completely satisfied.

“We have a ways to go. We want to compete at the championship level. That is what it is all about,” Ault said.

[Editors Note: Nevada’s 2009 non-conference games include Sept. 5 at Notre Dame, Sept. 19 at Colorado State, Sept. 26 vs. Missouri, and Oct. 10 vs. UNLV]

NEVADA FOOTBALL ANNOUNCES 17-PLAYER RECRUITING CLASS

RENO, NEV. — Head coach Chris Ault and the Nevada football team announced the signing of a 17 football recruits to National Letters of Intent.

The class features nine offensive players, seven players on defense and a kicker and it includes four players who have already enrolled at Nevada.

“This is a solid class and with it we met some immediate needs,” Ault said. “This class includes some incoming freshman who we believe will work into the depth chart this fall. We had a limited number of scholarships available so it was a very interesting and thorough process. We were able to disseminate information more effectively.”

There are five junior college transfers who should provide an immediate impact plus a sophomore transfer with three years of eligbility remaining. Two of the 11 freshman have already enrolled this semester as grayshirts while the other nine fresh-man will join the team in the fall.

“Our team is so young and much of that youth is already in the depth chart,” recruiting coordinator Jim Mastro said. “I think that shows the high level of the last few recruiting classes and I believe this class is in that category. We were able to be very selective this year with the caliber of the student-athletes we are bringing to the University of Nevada.”

Nevada went 7-6 in 2008 and made its fourth-straight bowl appearance. The Wolf Pack returns 15 starters from that team. Nevada will begin spring football on Feb. 20 with the annual spring scrimmage scheduled for March 14.

Nevada Basketball – Dario Hunt - Freshman Block Record Holder

New Kid on the Block
By Paul Klein
Sixty-Seven times this year Nevada’s Dario Hunt has given the crowd a reason to chant ‘you got swatted’. Sixty-Seven times this year Hunt’s made the opponent feel outright rejection, literally. Hunt became a shot-blocking force for the Wolf Pack this year as a freshman. That’s right, he’s only a freshman.
Hunt’s incredible 67 blocked shots this season has set Nevada’s freshman single-season record, shattering the 44 rejections that Wolf Pack great Nick Fazekas had in his rookie campaign in 2003-04.
Hunt led the WAC and ranks 43rd in the country with 2.03 blocks per game overall, while he also paced first in the WAC with 2.50 blocks per league game. From a basketball standpoint, Hunt’s got more blocks than Lego land.
Hunt blocked a career-best six shots in a January 31 win at Idaho, besting his previous high of five January 8 at New Mexico State and February 7 vs. New Mexico State. He has blocked at least one shot in 28 of 33 games this year, including 22 with two or more.
Hunt’s efforts helped Nevada lead the WAC and rank 32nd in the nation with 4.88 blocked shots per game with a season high of 12 December 9 vs. Sonoma State. In conference play, the Wolf Pack led the league with 5.25 blocks per game.
Being a dominant shot blocker isn’t a new thing for hunt, he walked into Lawlor with a strong history of shot blocking averaging 3.1 blocks per game at Charis Prep School in Goldsboro, N.C.
He was also named the team MVP, earned first-team all-league honors, and averaged a double-double with 16.1 points and 15.3 rebounds per game as a senior.
Hunt has already climbed into third on Nevada’s single-season block shot-chart trailing only Edgar Jones’ 96-block season in 1978 and JaVale McGee’s 92-block season in 2008.
When asked about his blocking performance Hunt responded, “It feels good. Blocks can lead to big momentum changes and easy scores on the other end.”
The 6-foot-8 forward also contributes as a Wolf Pack starter. In nearly 20 minutes per game, Hunt has shot 50 percent from the field with 3.6 points per game and 4.7 rebounds per game.
“I just want to keep on improving everyday,” he said. “And come back every year and get to the tournament and make something happen.”

Nevada Baseball Head Coach Gary Powers - Beating the Odds

Beating the Odds
BY JOE SANTORO

When Gary Powers took over as the head baseball coach at the University of Nevada in the summer of 1982, it was all about survival.

“We were more worried about whether or not we’d even have a program back then,” Powers said recently after a Pack practice at Peccole Park. “We just went to work everyday trying to save the program and then, after we did that, trying to prove that it was worth saving.”

Keeping the Wolf Pack baseball program alive in the 1980s was personal for Powers.

“The last thing I wanted was to see the program I played for get dropped on my watch,” said Powers, a Douglas High graduate who pitched for the Wolf Pack in 1970 and 1971.

Now, after 800 victories, four NCAA Regional appearances, 15 seasons of 30 victories or more, Wolf Pack baseball is and always will be personal for Powers.

“I don’t know how long I’ll continue to do this,” said Powers, now in his 27th season. “It’s still fun for me. I love being around the game and I love teaching young men.”

Powers, who has sent more than seven-dozen players to professional baseball, including 12 that made it to the major leagues, earned his 800th career victory in a 6-5 victory over Oregon last month. The numbers of victories on his resume, though, have nothing to do with the score on the scoreboard. Powers’ victories have always come from the success of his players after they leave the program.

“I never got into all that stuff about how many victories I have,” said Powers, who ranked 26th in career wins among active Division I coaches heading into the 2009 season. “It is always about being a positive influence on young men and giving the guidance they need to succeed in life.

“It’s about getting young men to work for the betterment of the group. I never looked at my success in terms of wins and losses. It’s about helping people become successful in life.”

The baseball program barely survived the 1980s. It took a $300,000 donation from William Peccole in 1987 to convince the athletic department to keep it alive. That money, along with considerable financial and manpower donations from local business people, funded the construction of Peccole Park in 1988. Powers then took the ball and ran with it.

“Once we got the support from the Peccole family that gave us a chance to build the program,” said Powers, whose team played its home games at worn-out Moana Stadium before moving to its on-campus facility. “Once we got our own field we could start to become successful.”

It didn’t take Powers long to build the Wolf Pack into one of the top baseball programs in the West. The Pack won 30 games for the first time (in the Powers’ era) in 1989. In 1992, when the team was between conferences, moving from the West Coast Conference to the Big West, the Pack was 43-11, including a perfect 29-0 at home.

A Big West Conference title and the first NCAA berth came in 1994, followed by NCAA appearances in 1997, 1999 and 2000. The 1994-2000 teams went 252-134 for an incredible winning percentage of .653 against some of the best competition in the nation in the Big West. And it all happened at a school that nearly dropped baseball a decade earlier.

“Once we got into the Big West it put us in position to develop a program,” Powers said. “We were able to play great teams all the time and recruit better athletes.”

The exposure the Wolf Pack received in Southern California, playing schools like Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Santa Barbara was invaluable for the program.

“Our name was in the Los Angeles Times everyday,” Powers said. “We were in the Orange County Register and the other newspapers in southern California every single day. We could go down there and recruit those kids because they knew all about us.”

The Pack moved to the Western Athletic Conference and, well, that all changed in an instant. The baseball program has remained competitive, winning 30 or more games in five of eight years, since going to the WAC for the start of the 2001 season. But the move to the WAC was almost like starting over. The Pack had to rethink its recruiting focus and it is still looking for its first league title and NCAA berth since accomplishing both in 2000 in the Big West.

“Moving to the WAC took our daily presence in southern California away from us,” Powers said. “Also, other programs have been added down in that area that have replaced us. The talent level down there has been spread out and diluted.”

Powers’ drive and motivation, though, doesn’t come from piling up numbers in the win column. That, he said, is only one reward for working hard and doing things the right way.

“You know, in baseball, if you win more games than you lose, it’s a successful year,” Powers said. “You don’t go 40-10 in baseball every year. Every game in baseball is a challenge. You want to win because that is a great teaching tool. Anybody can come out here and just play the game. That’s not why we’re out here, to just play. We’re out here to work hard, build character and do all of the things you need to do to win. It gives you a goal.

“But we’re really out here to build a work ethic in these kids and get them to develop a mental toughness. They have to learn how to be accountable to the team and how to compete everyday. Those are the skills you need in life. Going out and beating people that are better than you, that’s what it’s all about.”

Powers and the Pack baseball program have always been about beating the odds. When you start your first practice every year under the threat of snow and cold, well, the odds are always against you.

“We’re a cold-weather school trying to compete in a warm-weather sport in a warm-weather conference,” Powers said. “To play here in February, March and April you have to have a mental toughness or you will never succeed.”

Heartbreaker. Pack Loses in finals

Men’s Championship Game
Game Recap: Utah State beats Nevada 72-62 for WAC championship
No. 1 Utah State led the entire game en route to a 72-62 win over second-seeded Nevada. Tournament MVP Gary Wilkinson led the Aggies with a game-high 21 points and six rebounds.

All-Tournament Team
Luke Babbitt, Nevada
Armon Jones, Nevada
Jared Quayle, Utah State
Tai Wesley, Utah State
Gary Wilkinson, Utah State (MVP)

Women’s Championship Game
Top-seeded Fresno State repeated as tournament champion after a 56-49 win over third-seeded Nevada. Tournament MVP Jaleesa Ross led the Bulldogs with 22 points and nine rebounds in the championship game, becoming the only player in WAC history to earn the award in back-to-back years.

All-Tournament Team
Dellena Criner, Nevada
Shanavia Dowdell, Louisiana Tech
Joh-Teena Filipe, Fresno State
Shavon Moore, Nevada
Jaleesa Ross, Fresno State (MVP)

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