It the first big rivalry day of the 2010-2011 athletic season! The Aggie volleyball team hosts I-10 rival UTEP while the Aggie soccer team travels to hostile territory to face Rio Grande rival New Mexico. It's the first ever meeting between the Aggies and Lobos on the pitch.

UNM is 3-0-1 on the season and already have a victory over a Top 25 team, that coming last weekend against No. 23 Marquette on the road.

The Lobos are led offensively by Jennifer Williams who has three goals and two assists. She's taken the most shots for the Lobos with 12. Zaneta Wyne and Rachel Fields each have two goals for UNM.

The Aggies' leading goal scorer is Yollie McMillion who has scored five goals this season. The Lobos will undoubtedly make it a point to stop both McMillion and fellow classmate Crystal Burns who despite not having scored a goal this season, is still a major threat to not only score but distribute to her teammates. As Coach Needham mentioned a couple of games ago, he's talked to Burns and the team telling them that an assist is just as good as a goal.

Defensively the Lobos' goal keeper Kelli Cornell have allowed just one goal this season and has made a total of 22 saves. The Aggies' goal keepers Mikaela Bitner and Erin Wosick have been nearly as solid as they've given up just two goals in three games, though both of those goals came very early in the match. Coach Needham indicated in this week's interview that the team has been working on that aspect of their defense and that he feels that the back four (defenders) are starting to come together. He also mentioned that the early goals they have given up are correctable mistakes by the Aggies.

It should be an all out battle, Coach Needham expects an up-tempo back and forth game tonight. The game starts at 7:00 p.m. MT and streaming video will be available via the UNM All-Access site. Live Stats will also be available for tonight's matchup. We will also be providing Twitter updates (follow us: @AgsBleedCrimson)

As for the other rivalry battle tonight, it's the Aggies and Miners on the volleyball court in the Pan Am. Last season the Miners took the Aggies to five sets in Las Cruces but the Aggies were able to prevail 3-2. Down in El Paso it was a little less suspenseful as the Aggies won 3-1. Those two victories last season pushed the Aggies' winning streak in the series to 11 matches.

This season UTEP is off to a 4-1 start with their lone loss coming last weekend to Elon. The Aggies are 3-1 with their lone loss coming at the hands of Florida State.

Offensively the Miners are hitting .316 on the season and are led by outside hitter Melissa Toth who is averaging 4.45 kills per set. Miner senior setter Patty Jarmoc has also been offensively minded this season with 27 kills and is converting at a .535 clip.

For the Aggies, we expect a big night from middle hitter Kelsey Brennan. The Aggies almost always seem to have huge success from their middles against UTEP. Last season Brennan notched a career-high 18 kills and hit .577 in the match in Las Cruces and then followed that up with a 10 kill, .600 hitting percentage performance down in El Paso.

Tonight's match is scheduled for a 7:00 p.m. MT first serve and will be broadcast on AggieVision and it will also be the ESPN3.com debut for AggieVision volleyball. Streaming video will also be available via Aggie Access (subscription required). We will also post updates via Twitter (follow us: @AgsBleedCrimson).

News New Mexico discussed Aggie sports this morning on their radio show from 7:35 to 7:50 and 7:50 to 8:00 this morning. You can listen to the feed here (those times we listed should give you a good idea where to fast forward to on the podcast).

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

Happy College Football Day Aggie fans! College football is back but more on that in a second.

Convincing win by the Aggie volleyball team last night in their home opener. The Aggies crushed CSU-Bakersfield winning by scores of 25-13, 25-14 and 25-11. Kelsey Brennan was the offensive star of the night with nine kills on 11 swings with just one hitting error for a ridiculous .727 hitting percentage. So far on the season, Brennan is hitting a crisp .470 with 38 kills on 66 swings with just seven attack errors in four matches. Kayleigh Giddens has also started the season strong and has recorded a team-high 62 kills and is hitting .277 and has already posted an 18-kill and 19-kill match.

Be sure to check out the photos from last night's match.

The Aggies are back at it tomorrow night when they host I-10 rival UTEP. That match is an AggieVision produced match and will also be streamed live on ESPN3.com.

The UTEP Miners have released the non-conference portion of their men's basketball schedule and the annual home-and-home rivalry games between the Aggies and Miners will be played on November 23rd in El Paso and November 30th in Las Cruces. Mark your calendars.

Back to college football. As you all know, BYU announced their independence yesterday in football with all their other sports going to the West Coast Conference. It's a tough blow to the WAC who in less than a month's time has gone from perhaps one of the greatest mid-major coups in wrangling BYU's non-football sports from the Mountain West to searching high and low for the next two, three, four, five whatever number of teams to add to the league to replace Boise State, Fresno State and Nevada.

However, it's not all gloom and doom (at least not yet). The WAC was able to secure a two-year scheduling agreement with the freshly minted independent BYU. As a result of this agreement, the Aggies will play in Provo next season and are also one of the teams to get a return game from the Cougars who will invade Aggie Memorial Stadium in 2012.

If you were following our Twitter feed (@AgsBleedCrimson) yesterday, we listed the Aggies' 2011 schedule. It's going to be one heck of a tough schedule, perhaps the toughest in Aggie football history. The Aggies' 2011 schedule will look something like this (in no particular date order): home vs. Ohio, at Minnesota, at New Mexico, at Georgia, home versus UTEP, at BYU, at Hawai'i, at San Jose State, at Louisiana Tech, home vs. Fresno State, home vs. Nevada, home vs. Utah State and home vs. Idaho.

But that's next year, this year the Aggies have their hands full as well with no bye weeks during their 12-game schedule and the Aggies' season gets underway next Saturday (Sept. 11th).

And here's our Happy College Football Day gift to you, a little something to get you pumped for college football season (as if you really needed any help).

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

We've posted our previews for the Aggie men's and women's cross country teams. Both squads return virtually every runner from last year's banner season and both squads should be counted among the favorites to take home the WAC title this fall.

The job that coaches Paul and Meaghan Harkins have done with the cross country program is nothing short of remarkable. As we mentioned in the men's previews, the Aggies were an afterthought not just in the conference (never expected to finish better than last) but in their own program as well with just six members on the men's side out of a possible full complement of 20. Just three short years later, the Aggies are maxed out roster-wise and they are poised to win the crown this season.

The women's side has been just about as remarkable, though maybe not quite as dramatic. The women went from sixth in 2007, to fourth in 2008 (a disappointing finish for the squad) to top of the mountain last season. This season they're back to defend their crown and are aiming for a spot at the national meet.

One major thing to note here about both programs is that they also compete in one of, if not the toughest region in the NCAA, the Mountain Region so the renaissance of the Aggie cross country program should not be discounted as perhaps coming against weaker competition.

We have at least one or two more articles on tap regarding the cross country program as well so keep checking back for those.

The Aggie volleyball team opens up the 2010 home slate tonight when they take on CSU-Bakersfield. The Roadrunners are still searching for their first victory this season after going 0-3 in North Dakota.

The Roadrunners are led by outside hitter Lindy DeGeare who has tallied 38 kills through three matches and is averaging 3.45 kills per set. However, she's only hitting .088 and has 27 attack errors. Percentage-wise middle blocker Alysia Baker has the highest hitting percentage at .281 and is averaging 2.81 kills per set.

Defensively, Lauren Holderman leads the way with 55 digs and Chelcy Motes has 11 total blocks.

There are a couple of things working against the Roadrunners tonight (good news for Aggie fans, yes?). The Aggies are opening up at home and are 6-1 in home openers in the past six season (the loss came against Florida State last season). Second, the Aggies should have PLENTY of scouting material on the Roadrunners. CSUB faced a pair of former Aggie assistants in North Dakota when they played Drake and North Dakota. No doubt head coach Mike Jordan was on the phone with both coaches and probably has plenty of game film on the Roadrunners.

If you read yesterday's Daily Aggie, you'd also know that we issued a challenge to Aggie volleyball fans to get out and support the Aggies (read yesterday's entry to find out why we issued the challenge).

Also, be sure to check out the latest entry from Ellen Miks in her Aggie Volleyball Diary.

Tonight's match is set for a 7:00 p.m. first serve and can be heard on the radio on KSNM AM 570. Streaming audio and video will also be available via Aggie Access (subscription required).

Finally, the not-so-good news. As you probably already know, BYU will be announcing today that they are going independent in football and sending the rest of their sports to the West Coast Conference (home of Gonzaga, St. Mary's, San Diego, Pepperdine, etc.)

It's not a huge surprise that they made this decision, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less for the WAC. It really dampens the chances that the WAC will be able to invite any FBS level football programs into the WAC (ala the rumored UTEP, North Texas, SMU type teams that were mentioned in The Project). Add into that Fresno State and Nevada's departure, it also means that there will be no UTEP-for-Louisiana Tech swap. The WAC can no longer afford to lose any of the remaining six members as they would fail the "continuity" clause for a conference to be considered Division I (stipulating that there must be six core members who have been together at least five years).

There is, however, some potentially good news out of this. We've heard rumblings that BYU and the WAC will move forward with the football scheduling pact (if the '11 schedule remains in place, the Aggies will play in Provo next season). It's a move that makes sense because with Boise State departing after this season, all remaining eight (assuming Fresno State and Nevada aren't let off the hook) will be looking for a game to fill the vacancy left by Boise State.

Additionally, the West Coast Conference does not sponsor softball, swimming and diving or men's track and field. BYU fields all three of those sports and those sports could likely end up in the WAC. It's not unprecedented for only a single sport to be associated with a conference. The WAC already has Sacramento State in baseball and Northern Arizona in swimming and diving, those are both teams whose sole participation is in that one sport.

BYU will be holding a press conference at noon MT and you can watch the presser online (free) by registering here (we're not responsible for any solicitation e-mails that the LDS may send you after you give them your e-mail address).

Following a mere two hours after that, WAC Commissioner Karl Benson will address the media at 2:00 p.m. MT. That press conference is not publicly available though we suspect there will be a rebroadcast via WACSports.com later as there was with his press conference a couple weeks ago to address the Nevada/Fresno State departures.

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

We were only half right on yesterday's WAC Player of the Week predictions, luckily we were right when it came to Yollie McMillion. She was named the WAC's Offensive Player of the Week for her four goal performance this past weekend in the Aggies' first home soccer tournament.

McMillion (who we're still searching for a cool nickname for given her penchant for scoring game-changing goals), not only leads her team in goals with five, but leads the league in goals with five, three more than teammates Heather Goldberg and Baili Foutz (who each scored two against Prairie View A&M and are now tied for second in the league) and a host of other with two goals. She also leads the league in points (players get two points for a goal, one for an assists) with 10, that's twice as many points and the next player on the list.

The Aggies will have their work cut out for them this weekend as they take on New Mexico and Northern Arizona, both very strong programs and both teams that will defend the goal a little better than Prairie View A&M did.

Aggie volleyball opens up the home schedule tomorrow night against CSU-Bakersfield. We'll Ellen Miks' latest entry in her Aggie Volleyball Diary posted later today.

We also have a new challenge for Aggie volleyball fans. The Aggies have been in the Top 15 in attendance with regularity over the past few seasons, however, after the first weekend of NCAA volleyball our rival, UNM, is THIRD in the nation in home attendance. The Lobos packed Johnson Gym this past weekend averaging 2,371 fans per match including 3,831 fans against Stanford on Sunday.

So, our challenge to you Aggie fans is to get your butts out to the Pan Am tomorrow night and Saturday night (and for the rest of the season) and show everyone which school has the best volleyball fans in the state of New Mexico.

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggie soccer team trounced Prairie View A&M on Sunday afternoon scoring a school record eight goals. Among the eight goals was a hat trick by sophomore forward Yolanda McMillion who now has a team-high five goals through three games this season. McMillion should get serious consideration for WAC Offensive Player of the Week as she scored four goals this weekend, including the game winner against Jacksonville State on Friday evening.

Be sure to check out the photos from yesterday's game as well.

Up next for the Aggies is their first trip to Albuquerque to face in-state rival New Mexico. The Lobos are 3-0-1 on the season and defeated No. 23 Marquette yesterday and could be ranked when the Aggies travel to the UNM Soccer Complex on Friday. The Aggies and Lobos have one common opponent this season and that is Montana. The Lobos destroyed the Grizzlies 7-0 in their season opener while the Aggies tied Montana 1-1 in double overtime.

The Aggie volleyball team heads into week two of their season as this week they'll host Cal State-Bakersfield and I-10 rival UTEP. The Roadrunners are 0-3 on the season losing to former Aggie assistants Phil McDaniel (Drake University) and Ashley Hardee (University of North Dakota) in 3-0 sweeps and then battling but losing a five-set match to Gonzaga at the UND Tournament this past weekend.

Kayleigh Giddens had a very strong open to the season posting matches of 18, 14 and 19 kills. Her 19 kill effort on Saturday against Florida A&M was one of, if not the best performance she's had offensively as an Aggie as she finished the match hitting .536. Her performance will get her consideration for WAC Hitter of the Week but we suspect that honor will go to Kanani Danielson of Hawai'i whose team won their opening tournament. Danielson finished the weekend with 52 kills and 35 digs and hit .316, .394 and .369 in her three matches.

Overall it was a good opening weekend for WAC volleyball. No. 5 Hawai'i had wins over No. 22 San Diego and No. 16 UCLA, the Aggies notched victories over Florida International and Florida A&M, Idaho swept Washington State and Utah State defeated Utah in Salt Lake City for the first time in 20 years.

And last but certainly not least. Welcome Back Football. The 2010 college football season gets underway this week and while the Aggies aren't in action (they open up on the 11th), Hawai'i and Idaho kick things off on Thursday night. The Warriors host USC and Idaho hosts North Dakota. The big game in the WAC's first week will take place next Monday night when Boise State travels to Washington D.C. to take on Virginia Tech and puts their national title hopes on the line.

The Aggies named team captains for the 2010 season and they are QB Matt Christian and DB Davon House.

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggie volleyball team completed their first weekend of play with a sweep of Florida A&M on Saturday afternoon. The Aggies wrapped up the FSU Invitational with a 2-1 record, good enough for a second place finish in the tournament behind No. 15 Florida State's 3-0 record.

Kayleigh Giddens had a big match for the Aggies finishing with 19 kills and a whopping .536 hitting percentage. Kelsey Brennan also had a good day for the Aggies finishing with 10 kills and a .500 hitting percentage. A pair of freshmen, Desiree Scott and Rocio Gutierrez combined for nine kills, Scott with five and Gutierrez with four.

The Aggies hit .386 as a team while holding FAMU to .060. We were reminded by Kyle Doperalski, Aggie play-by-play man for the volleyball team, that this is a Florida A&M program that went into Lincoln, NE in 2004 and stopped the Huskers' lengthy home winning streak which is no small feat. The Huskers didn't lose again at home until 2009. The Aggies' two victories this weekend, despite not coming against common household name teams in Florida International and Florida A&M, were two solid victories to start off the season with.

The Aggies return to action on Wednesday night when they open up the home slate against Cal State-Bakersfield.

On a volleyball related note, the battle of former Aggie volleyball assistants went Phil McDaniel and Drake as they defeated Ashley Hardee and the North Dakota Fighting Sioux on Saturday night in five sets to win the North Dakota Classic. Hardee and the Sioux will get a chance to return the favor when they travel to Des Moines, IA to take on Drake in their home tournament.

The Aggie soccer team is back in action today as they take the field against Prairie View A&M. The Aggies will be looking to improve to 2-0-1 today. Prairie View lost 6-0 to North Texas on Friday afternoon to fall to 0-2-1 and will be looking to notch their first victory of the season.

Today's match is set for a 1:30 p.m. MT start can be heard on the radio in Las Cruces on KSNM AM 570 with Kyle Doperalski calling the action. Streaming audio and video will also be available via Aggie Access (subscription required).

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggie volleyball team split a pair of matches in the FSU Invite on Friday afternoon defeating a very good Florida International team 3-1 before falling 3-1 to No. 15 Florida State.

The Aggies' best play during the two matches came in set three against Florida International and set two against Florida State. The Aggies hit .368 in the third set against the Panthers, "We played a really efficient game three, very few errors there and we saw glimpses of how good we're going to be down the road," said Coach Jordan. In the match against Florida State the Aggies had a lot of trouble passing serve receive except for the second set, which not coincidentally, they won. ""[The difference in passing] It's confidence. FSU didn't really do anything different at the service line," said Coach Jordan. "They hit a ton of great serves. Five of their six servers hit great serves. We got on a roll and got some confidence going for a while and it was great."

"I'm confident we'll learn from it, I've got confidence in this group that they'll make the adjustments they need to make and part of it is not making mistakes in bunches, being a little bit tougher and bouncing back from mistakes better," said Coach Jordan. "The one game we passed pretty well [second set], we wound up winning it. We were in it competing the whole time but the rest of the time they out-served us and out-passed us and put a ton of pressure on it."

In the fourth set against Florida State, in which they fell 25-10, Coach Jordan was able to get some other players some playing time which he believes will benefit the team in the long run. "Just to get them some experience was good. Twelve of our thirteen players saw action and I think we're going to benefit from playing a great time like this. Losing in four is not fun but they're a great team and we've just got to improve."

The Aggies will take on Florida A&M today at 3:00 p.m. MT. "I expect them to be a foreign loaded team, they win their conference every year and we're playing them on their home court. They're going to be tough." Florida A&M lost in four sets to Florida International last night winning set one 31-29 before losing the final three 25-18, 25-16 and 25-15.

We're not sure about live stats for today's game when we find out, we'll post the link on Twitter @AgsBleedCrimson

The Aggie soccer team broke the seal on the win column just two matches into the season as they came from behind to defeat Jacksonville State last night at Aggie Memorial Stadium. The Aggies allowed a goal in the second minute but then shut out the Gamecocks over the final 88 minutes of play. Head coach Michael Needham was really excited about his team's play (outside the incredibly early goal). "We played the best soccer we've played as a program to this point and that's exciting," said Coach Needham. He was also impressed by the play on the field by both teams. "The soccer was pretty good. There was some creative flair through the whole game."

He was also happy to get the first victory this early in the season (the Aggies also got in the win column early last year winning their fourth match). "We're 1-0-1 right now and I'm happy with that," said Coach Needham. "I think we had good chances against Montana but I also think Montana had good chances against us. I think 1-1 was a fair result. I'm very happy with where we're at. We've got to take care of it on Sunday and try get ourselves to 2-0-1 going into UNM."

Coach Needham also mentioned that he will try to get true freshman goal keeper Erin Wosick some playing time in the next couple matches, "It's going to be important that we have two [goalkeepers] that can go if need be."

One of the other aspects of the team that Coach Needham has been happy with is his team's depth. "We're deeper and I didn't even get to use our depth tonight. Sunday [against Montana] I think we went 17 or 18 deep and tonight we only went 16 deep. We've got to get more players more minutes but at the same time my job is to make sure I put players in in situations where they can succeed," said Coach Needham. "We've got a bunch of players who are real capable of getting the job done and I look forward to seeing each one of them." One of those players who really impressed coach Needham last night was sophomore defender Megan Hendler who transferred in from the University of Dubuque (IA). "Tonight Megan was big-time for us. She was really good. She was one who came on as an outside back and went on and played forward for us and I thought was pretty good tonight."

The Aggies will wrap up the home tournament with a match against Prairie View A&M on Sunday afternoon.

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

It's just under an half an hour until the Aggie volleyball team will take the court for the first time in the 2010 season. New Mexico State plays Florida International at 10:00 a.m. MT at the FSU Invitational. They'll be facing Florida State later today at 5:00 p.m. MT.

FIU's setter, Natalia Valentin, was named the Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year yesterday and today's match will showcase two very very good setters with Preseason All-Conference setter Jennah DeVries manning the duties for the Aggies. Valentin averaged 11.87 assists per set last season.

Offensively, FIU's main weapon is FIU sophomore outside hitter Jovana Bjelica who was also named to the All-Sun Belt Conference Preseason squad and was named the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year last season. Bjelica averaged 3.34 kills per set last season which was second most on the team and she hit .261. She also averaged 2.42 digs per set.

As a team FIU hit .254 last season while holding opponents to a .180 hitting percentage. FIU's setter, Valentin, was also the leader in digs per set at 2.93.

There are no live stats available for this morning's game versus FIU but we spoke with the NMSU SID who is with the Aggies and they are hoping to tweet some scoring updates on their twitter page @NMStateAggies and we'll retweet those updates on our page @AgsBleedCrimson.

Tonight's match against No. 15 Florida State will have live stats and will also be streamed online via Seminoles.com All-Access (subscription required).

The Aggie soccer team returns to the pitch tonight as they face Jacksonville State. We promised an interview with Coach Needham but his schedule did not allow us to connect yesterday.

This is the first home tournament in the Aggie soccer program's history. Jacksonville State is 0-2 on the season after posting a pair of losses last weekend losing 2-0 to Gardner-Webb and 3-2 to Georgia State in double overtime.

The Aggies are 0-0-1 after tying Montana 1-1 last weekend. Yolanda McMillion has scored the lone goal for the Aggies this season while Mikaela Bitner has been pretty solid at goalkeeper for the Aggies.

Tonight's match is set for a 6:00 p.m. start with streaming video available via Aggie Access (subscription required).

Finally, The Sporting News has released their 2010-11 Preseason Polls and they've picked New Mexico State to finish second behind Utah State. They also named Wendell McKines and Troy Gillenwater to their Preseason All-WAC teams. (H/T Parsing The WAC and Jon Wilner/Mercury News)

Jason Groves of the Las Cruces Sun-News reports on his blog that Remi Barry has enrolled at NM State.

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggie Volleyball team left this morning for Tallahassee where they'll open up the season tomorrow at noon ET against Florida International. The team was scheduled to leave the Pan Am Center around 4:00 a.m. this morning (in case you thought traveling was all fun and games!)

Be sure to check out this week's interview with head coach Mike Jordan as well as Ellen Miks' second entry in her Aggie Volleyball Diary.

Also good news for Aggie volleyball fans is that all AggieVision produced matches will be streamed on ESPN3.com this season. This is a huge deal for AggieVision and Aggie volleyball. There isn't a lot of non-football/baseball/basketball content at the college level that is streamed on ESPN3.com so for Aggie volleyball to have their televised matches also streamed on ESPN3.com is a huge huge coup for them and the guys at AggieVision.

And speaking of streaming online matches, the Aggies' match against Florida State tomorrow night will be streamed on the Seminoles.com All-Access site (subscription required). The Aggies' match versus Florida State is just one of five matches that FSU is streaming live this season.

The Aggie soccer team is getting ready to kick off their first home tournament tomorrow. We'll be talking with Coach Needham later today and we'll have that interview posted this afternoon so be sure to come back and check for that.

Lost in the conference shuffle/rearrangement is the impact on the Olympic sports in the WAC. Dave at The WAC Softball Blog took a look at the top 15 regular season crowds last season and two of the Aggies' games against Fresno State, both in Fresno, were among the top five. The second largest crowd of 1,700 was April 24th meeting (likely a combined attendance for the doubleheader) which the Aggies lost 7-6 and 3-1 and the fourth largest crowd last season was the Aggies' game the previous day against Fresno State which they lost 4-3 in extra innings. The Fresno State vs. New Mexico State has been a budding rivalry and has produced some of the most exciting games in WAC play and it will be a shame to lose those games after Fresno State leaves to join the Mountain West after the 2012 season.

On to todays links...  Continue Reading This Post >>

Be sure to check out the latest entry in Ellen Miks' Aggie Volleyball Diary. Ellen shares a couple of humorous stories from Aggie practice in this week's entry.

Also be sure to check out this week's interview with Aggie head volleyball coach Mike Jordan in case you missed it yesterday.

The big news of the day came from Aggie football as head coach DeWayne Walker named Matt Christian as the Aggies' starting quarterback. Christian transfered from Palomar Junior College.

The Aggies open up the 2010 season on September 11th at home against San Diego State.

KRWG has a pair of e-mails sent to NMSU faculty and staff yesterday by Dr. Boston and President Couture.

Also, the Salt Lake Tribune has obtained the text of the resolution that was passed on August 13th (the one that has the $5 million buyout clause).

Video of a potential Aggie recruit after the jump...

On to today's links...  Continue Reading This Post >>