athletics Friday, August 17th, 2012
DAY 17 (Aug. 17): Baseball’s Talent Remains
2012 has seen an unprecedented amount of success for the Azusa Pacific baseball program and its alums. The team won the Golden State Athletic Conference and registered a 47-12 record and earning the right to host the GSAC postseason tournament and NAIA Opening Round.
At the professional ranks the Cougars saw Stephen Vogt and Kirk Nieuwenhuis make their MLB debuts for the Tampa Rays and New York Mets respectively. In the month of August a trio of Cougar hurlers (Brandon Sisk, Jason Ray, and Scott Hodsdon) has been lights out, giving up just a combined two earned runs in 36.1 innings. Sisk hasn’t given up a run since July 22, and has allowed just three hits to go with 13 strikeouts in his last eight innings, while Hodson is coming off a complete game shutout for the El Paso Diablos. There are currently four Azusa Pacific players sitting on the doorstep of the MLB on Triple-A rosters, and 10 Cougars on professional rosters.
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Tags: APUinMLB, Athletics, baseball
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athletics Thursday, August 16th, 2012
Day 16 (Aug. 16): Surrell, Soccer, and Senioritis
It’s going to be different, but they’re hoping the results are the same. This year the Azusa Pacific women’s soccer program enters the world of the PacWest after 19 years in the Golden State Athletic Conference. In that span the Cougars won 10 GSAC titles, with head coach Jason Surrell guiding them to nine championships in the last 12 seasons.
Last year Surrell made soccer history, becoming the fastest NAIA coach to reach the 200-win mark and leaving the NAIA as the winningest coach in its history (.858 winning percentage; min 10 years). Needless to say he is the perfect person to have at the helm during the transition from the NAIA into NCAA Div. II.
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Tags: Athletics, cougars, PacWest, Soccer
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athletics Wednesday, August 15th, 2012
DAY 15 (Aug. 15): Cougar Football Fears No Foe
Azusa Pacific’s 2012 football season not only brings the challenge of taking on a full 10-game NCAA Division II conference schedule, it also puts an NCAA Division I scholarship program on the Cougar slate for just the fourth time in program history.
The season opener is a Thursday night contest Aug. 30 at UC Davis, which competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of Division I. Like Azusa Pacific, which is entering its first year in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, UC Davis is also entering its first year in a new conference. The Aggies, who were 4-7 overall last year, start their inaugural season in the Big Sky Conference.
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Tags: Athletics, FCS, Football, ncaa
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athletics Tuesday, August 14th, 2012
DAY 14 (Aug. 14): Connecting With The @APUCougars
Twenty years ago, fans of Azusa Pacific Athletics needed to pick up the newspaper or the telephone the morning after a game to find out how the Cougars did. Over time, that process evolved into checking the Cougar Athletics website for the latest news and scores.
Today, Azusa Pacific continues to connect with fans through its rapidly-growing presence in social media. In January of 2009, Cougar Athletics sent out its first tweet:
First post (1/9/09): @APUCougars Twitter feed
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Tags: Athletics, Facebook, Instagram, Social Media, Twitter
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athletics Monday, August 13th, 2012
DAY 13 (Aug. 13): A Glance Behind The Scenes
It all begins in early August. The new athletics season starts again, and with it comes a tidal wave of new and returning student-athletes and an exhaustive amount of work to welcome them. They show up, ready to go through the process of re-acclimating to life as a student-athlete. The amount of man-hours it takes to help the athletes transition back to campus is almost immeasurable, although for the most part invisible. (more…)
Tags: Athletics, behind the scenes, Football, ncaa
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athletics Sunday, August 12th, 2012
DAY 12 (Aug. 12): Out With The Old, In With The New
The Azusa Pacific athletics summer facelift began when the Dillon Recreation Complex gave the football team a brand new, fully synthetic practice field to match the Cougars’ home playing surface at Citrus field. The installation of a brand new set of lights at the Cougar Soccer Complex, which make way for night time soccer matches for the first time in school history, marked the second step of the overall athletics facilities upgrade.
And the overhaul continues as the athletics department adds a fully renovated weight room and training center, highlighted by indoor turf for agility drills and state-of-the-art weight lifting equipment. Along with new mats, dumbbells, medicine balls, and racks, there are numerous upgraded stations and improved pieces of training equipment to help the athletes in their first year of competition in NCAA Div. II conferences.
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Tags: Athletics, weight room
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