Radio

What happened to the radio station?

The school has an excellent Media Studies program, which appears to have abandoned the station totally.

The radio station was forced to move from a physical location that met all of its needs, to a tiny and inadequate facility at the Pryzbyla. What idiot designed the rooms of the radio station with such a tiny number of electrical outlets? Hello! A radio station needs a lot of power!

What idiot designed the housing for the radio station without first asking the question: How big is the physical library of music, and how much is that likely to grow? Literally thousands of dollars of materials will have to be thrown into a dumpster because some idiot failed to address this issue: there is nowhere near enough storage in the Pryzbyla to house the music collection. Totally irreplaceable music will be lost FOREVER, just because someone was callous or lazy.

Engineering Challenge

A challenge to Engineering faculty and students:

Design an economical version of the following, ideally with materials at hand:

A device to allow a lecucturer to get instantaneous feedback on how well the audience is receiving the information.

A professor may be able to gauge how well the lecture is going by blank stares. Then again, maybe not. How many times has a professor been surprised or disappointed in test results? Why wait until it it too late? Imagine if a professor could look at a bar chart on a screen within the lectern. One bar indicates: "You are wasting time, I already understand that concept" The next bar indicates how many students are saying "Just right" and the third bar indicates what percentage of the class is saying "I am totally confused".

i saw you

you: Baseball leftfielder running smack into the fence, at full speed while attempting to catch a fly ball.

me: The rest of the baseball team. We love you.

Cardinal Profile: Kathleen McGlynn

Women's volleyball is off to another outstanding season with 13 wins and just four losses. Not only that, but eight of those wins have come in three straight set for the Cardinals. That's pretty good, but according to senior mid-hitter Kathleen McGlynn, they're only going to get better.
"We have a team that gets better with experience," said McGlynn. "We are all learning from our mistakes and intensifying our teamwork and it is really working this year."
If she's right, I'd hate to be any of the teams that play the Cards in November. I'd also hate to be any of the players standing across from McGlynn when she fires down one of her eight kills that she is averaging per match this season. She is looking toward her third straight NCAA tournament, but she prefers to take this season one game at a time.
"The NCAA's is definitely a goal for us, but we can't focus on that until we get through our conference games," said McGlynn.
McGlynn, a senior co-captain this year, has been playing volleyball ever since the seventh grade. At Leon High School in her hometown of Tallahassee, Fla. she played all four years and she also participated in a club league.
All that playing has helped her to become the superstar she is here at CUA. McGlynn has been improving each year the more experience she has, and she is also a starting forward on the women's basketball team leading the team in rebounds last year. Out of all her sports highlights, there is one that sticks out in her mind.
"In my sophomore year we went to the NCAA's and made it to the Sweet 16," said McGlynn. "That was definitely the best thing that's happened as far as sports go."
Outside of athletics she is the president of the Students for Life program and she is also involved in the President's Society.
Asked about how things are going with the volleyball team this season, McGlynn expressed a lot of confidence in their potential.
"It's kind of a unique year because we have seven veteran players and seven rookies, but I think we've come a long way already since the beginning of the season," said McGlynn.
Kathleen feels that one the major reasons for this is her coach, Nagy Abdelrazek. According to her, he is responsible for teaching the team the "dynamics of teamwork."
The Cardinals have lost four times this season, which can seem like a lot to a team that had less than 20 losses in the 123 games of their last three seasons. McGlynn isn't fazed by this as she feels that at least two of those losses should not have happened and came from teams that weren't as good as the Cards.
"We had a couple of games that we shouldn't have lost, but we used those as wake-up calls to improve our game," said McGlynn. "As for the other losses, I know that though those teams are very good we can beat them on any given day."

Field Hockey, Volleyball Lose Close Conferenece Match Ups

Field Hockey -

The CUA Field Hockey team fell to conference foe Mary Washington Wednesday. The loss leaves the Cardinals with a 1-3 record overall, 0-2 in the Capital Athletic Conference.

After a scoreless opening 27 minutes, Mary Washington took a 1-0 lead with a goal from Taylor Vietor on a penalty corner. Sophomore Jamie Punyko tied the game with 5:41 left in the second half.

With a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation, the teams reduced the number of players to seven on each side and competed in sudden death overtime. The Cards kept the pressure on the opposing goal, but weren't able to break the tie.

Eagle Brynn Maguire scored with nine minutes remaining in the period, winning the game for Mary Washington, 2-1. Goalies CUA Junior Erin Swift and MWC Robyn Lankford tallied seven saves each.

Aside from field play, the game saw injuries sustained by both Roselle and Senior Tricia Hines as well as a fan ejection.

Catholic plays Sunday, September 28th, when they will host Christopher Newport in a non-conference game at 1 pm.

Volleyball -

Volleyball lost their first game since late August against Mary Washington in a Capital Athletic Conference match on Wednesday. This is the first CAC loss in the regular season since September 2001.

The Cardinals won the first set, but Mary Washington pulled away in the next three to win the match. The sets were very close as the Cards lost by less than four in each one. Senior middle-hitter Kathleen McGlynn led team with 12 kills followed by senior outside-hitter Anji Wall who made 10. Junior setter Emily Mott recorded 27 assists and 11 digs in the game.

This loss snaps a 12-game winning streak for women's volleyball as they head into the CUA hosted Guetle Invitational Tournaments with Widener, Gettysburg, and Randolph-Macon this weekend.

Cardinal Profile: Patrick Hennessy

Every good team needs a leader. A leader keeps a team working together in games and in practice. A leader can see when a team is struggling, and it takes a leader to get a team going again when things look bleak. Patrick Hennessy, senior midfielder and co-captain for the men's soccer team is determined to be this kind of leader.

The 2003 season has not been what the team hoped for as they have a current record of 0-3-2 overall and 0-1 in the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC). Men's soccer lost a lot of key players from last year, and they are currently only starting two seniors.

"We have a much younger team this year than what we're used to," said Hennessy. "Keith [Cappo] and I are trying to take leadership positions and motivate some of the younger players, but some kids that were freshmen last year are going to have to step up a lot earlier than usual."

Hennessy was named co-captain of the team at the end of last year for his clutch play in the 2002 season. He was responsible for almost half of the team's nine victories last year with four game winning goals. Things haven't been easy for Hennessy as ankle injuries have plagued his CUA career ever since his third game freshman year.

Originally from Poolesville, Md. and Poolesville High School, Hennessy came to Catholic U. after he was recruited by head coach Scott Racek. As a freshman he started his first two games and then sustained a season-ending ankle injury in his third game that year. In his sophomore year he played a limited number of games as he was still recovering, but managed seven goals toward the end of the season.

This season, Hennessy hopes to be at the peak of his game as he looks to help his team rebound from a very shaky start. He is well aware, however, that it is going to take more than his individual play to stabilize the team. Racek is currently in the process of implementing a "second" preseason according to Hennessy, and Pat believes that the extra practice and conditioning will not only help the individual players but also the team's overall unity. Hennessy does feel that there is a time for individual work in order to improve his game.

"To be a successful player you have to do a lot of extra work on your own outside of the season and the practices," said Hennessy. "In order to be a successful team you need people that will step it up and be leaders, and you also need maturity among the rest of the team.

Cardinal Profile: Stephanie Hare

Junior soccer star, Stephanie Hare is into service both on and off the field. Off the field she helps manage Habitat for Humanity and is constantly involved in campus ministry here at CUA. On the field she serves up goals and assists, and so far she is leading her team in goals with six this season. She's been nearly unstoppable helping women's soccer to an impressive 5-2 start.

Stephanie transferred to Catholic University before her sophomore year. She had previously attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, but came here because of the big city and the reputation the school has in campus ministry. She started playing soccer last year, and exploded on the scene with three goals in her debut at the forward position. She was part of a breakthrough team last year that ended up with a 12-5 record, the first winning season for women's soccer.

Hailing from Norcross, GA, Stephanie attended Norcross High School, and played soccer all four years. In addition she was involved in her youth group, an academic service group and sat on student council as the community service chairperson. On the athletic side, she also played basketball, and ran cross-country. She stuck with soccer because tough competition in high school made her significantly improve her game.

"My team struggled, but in a way it was better because facing stronger opponents allowed me to build my skills and play better," said Hare.

At CUA, Stephanie doesn't have to worry as much about struggling teammates. According to her, this is the best team women's soccer has ever seen.

"The freshmen and the upper-class are clicking a lot easier this year," said Hare. "It hasn't taken us very long to find out each other's playing styles, and that has helped a lot with teamwork so far."

The soccer team practices two to three hours every day to prepare for games, but as Stephanie points out, it's not just hard work that motivates her and her teammates to play hard. "We have a good time, and we joke around a lot. Then of course there's Wild Bill."

As Stephanie explains, Wild Bill is a cardboard cutout of a cowboy brought to all of the games by a friend of the team. It's a good luck charm, and it seems to be working for Stephanie and the rest of the team so far.

Mi Casa

Finally, after 430 games, 3,870 innings, and 11,610 outs, the Major League Baseball Playoffs are only 90 games, 810 innings, and 2,430 outs away (warning: numbers are entirely unreliable and only in the column to make me feel witty -very sad, I know).

This year the playoffs are going to be worth watching. That's because the most exciting team in baseball, the Boston Red Sox will be playing if they win one of their last four games this season. Don't worry by the way, if they didn't beat the Orioles last night, Pedro will make Tampa Bay look silly tonight. So let's just assume the Red Sox will be in the postseason this year, just like the countless Boston fans who assumed a three run lead in the ninth inning was good enough for a championship in '86 (oh yeah, and the little leaguers who assumed a professional baseball player could field a routine grounder to first, but I'm not bitter).

So if the Sox enter the playoffs their first series is against the Oakland Athletics. The A's have the season series over the BoSox by one game, and with a consistent pitching staff they look pretty intimidating heading into the postseason. Regardless, Boston will pull this one out. I know I'm not the king of calls right now with the Eagles 0-2 on the season, but I have a much better feeling on the Sox topping the A's in the first round of the playoffs this year (either that or the A's beat the sox and go all the way).

After Oakland, the Sox are on their own. I can't make any calls against the Yankees as much as I would really like to. All I can do is the same thing every other self-respecting Bostonian can do, which is hope someone decides to dig up Babe Ruth's remains, cryogenically freeze whatever is left, if anything, bring him back to life using some kind of warped and twisted science, and give him a nice big apology. We could even show him the really cool HBO special they did about him, and maybe he would like us again.

Another team making this year's playoffs interesting, though they pale in comparison to the Red Sox, are the Chicago Cubs. This team, like the Red Sox, has a lot of fans that are at the end of their ropes waiting for some kind of success in the playoffs.

Its been quite a year for the Cubs as their star Sammy Sosa took a while to get going, and was also suspended earlier this season for corking his bat (even though he really didn't mean to get his bat specially injected with a substance that he believed would make it easier for him to hit homers). Now they find themselves in first place in the National League central division.

The funny thing about the Cubs is they could still choke in the remaining games and not make it to the playoffs. Both Chicago and the Houston Astros, who are just one game behind them in the division have easy schedules for the last three games. If Pittsburgh can step it up against the Cubs and pull out a couple of wins, the Astros will be headed to the postseason instead of Dusty Baker, Corky Romano, and the rest of the Cubs.

A big difference between the Cubs and the Red Sox is that Chicago will most likely lose in the first round.

Once again, the Yankees are going to the playoffs, but this year the pressure is on. There is talk that if the Bronx Bombers don't come up with a World Series victory, manager Joe Torre might get the boot. Well if such a thing should happen, I hope Joe knows that there will always be a job for him at Fenway. Word around the league is Torre's real good at selling hot-dogs.

Anyway, I think it's time we pause for a moment and take a look at the team pictured below. I think I see a spot for Nomar on the where the guy in the bow-tie is standing. I see Manny standing on the far right where the big guy in the black pants is. In fact, I see a place for all the Sox this year, even Damien Jackson. So, let's bring home another, guys.

Soccer on a Roll Heading Into DC Classic Tourney

Women's soccer had a successful week as they defeated Ferrum College and St. Mary's University. These victories improve their record to 5-2 overall and 1-1 in the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC).

The Cardinals dominated Ferrum on both sides of the field last Sunday in a non-conference match up. By the end of the game the score was 6-0 in favor of the Cards, and a huge defensive stand held the opposition to no recorded shots.

Junior forward Aubrey Maki opened the scoring early for the Cardinals off of a pass from junior forward Jenny Aspinwall. It wasn't long before Maki assisted Aspinwall, whose shot found the back of the net to put the Cards up 2-0. Aspinwall added another goal, this time unassisted, to make the score 3-0 heading into halftime.

The offense didn't slow down after the break, nor did the defense let up. Senior midfielder Brianne Palmieri scored and unassisted goal late in the game that led to a late game onslaught that ran the score up on the helpless Ferrum defense. Aspinwall put in her third goal of the day, scoring from an assist by freshman midfielder Erin Crowley. Junior forward Stephanie Hare added the last goal setting the score at 6-0. Freshman goalie Kate Milazzo was not shot upon by the opposition and recorded her second shutout game of the season.

Women's soccer faced a much tougher opponent Tuesday as they squared off against St. Mary's in their second CAC game this year. The resilient defense was key in stopping a late scoring drive by the opposition as the Cardinals went on to win 3-2.

Hare scored two goals early in the first half assisted by Aspinwall. The Cardinals defense and senior goalkeeper Meghan Baroody allowed no goals in the first 30 minutes, and senior midfielder Lia Degisi tacked on the third goal for the Cards.

The Seahawks got on the board shortly after, making the score 3-1. Later in the second half they found the Cardinals' net again, and with time to spare they were down by just one goal. The Cards defense shut down the Seahawks in the final 20 minutes along with Baroody who finished with 11 saves.

Women's soccer continues action this weekend at the CUA DC Classic held at DuFour Field. Gallaudet, Columbia Union, and Trinity are the teams the teams that will battle it out with CUA.

Football Loses Third Straight

Statistically, football had their best game of the year last Saturday against Shenandoah. Unfortunately, their efforts couldn't get them a win as they fell 14-7 after late fourth quarter drive by the Hornets.

The Cardinals fell to 0-3 on the season with this loss, but they had not done nearly as well in passing and rushing production in the first two games. The Cards gained a season-high 398 total yards on offense, 272 came in the air on the arm of new starting quarterback junior Pat Truxillo. Junior running back Ed Smith had his best game of the year as well, rushing for 85 yards on 16 carries. Despite giving up a pair of touchdowns, the Cardinal's defense played solid against the pass allowing Shenandoah just 94 yards.

The Cards missed an early opportunity to take the lead in the first quarter when sophomore Chris Waechter came up short on a 36-yard field goal attempt after Truxillo connected deep on a pass to junior wide receiver Nick Bublavi for a pickup of 46-yards. The drive stalled after the Cardinals had marched down from their own seven-yard line. Neither team entered the end zone until late in the second quarter when Truxillo connected with Bublavi for a 16-yard touchdown pass. Bublavi had eight receptions for 149 yards on the day.

The Hornets responded right before halftime with a 32-yard tocuhdown pass, but failed to convert the extra point when freshman wide receiver Max Perkins blocked the kick. The Cards headed into the break with a 7-6 advantage over Shenandoah.

In the second half, it was a battle of the defenses as both teams failed to score in the third quarter. Junior linebackers Bobby Stutz and Dave Beety both finished the game with 11 tackles apiece while senior linebacker John Blattner finished the game with 10 tackles. Stutz put forth a solid individual effort with four tackles for losses, two sacks and his first interception of the season.

The Cards failed to capitalize on two turnovers in the third quarter. A fumble recovery by Beety resulted in an interception on the following drive, and Truxillo fumbled the ball deep in Hornet territory after the interception by Stutz.

The Cardinals held on to the lead heading into the fourth quarter, but a 57-yard bomb by the Hornets gave them a first down on the Cardinal's seven-yard line. The following play put the Hornets up for good with the final score, 14-7.

Stutz was named Old Dominion Athletic Conference defensive player of the week after his performance against Shenandoah. The Cardinals are still looking for their first win of the season, and their next game is at home against Randolph-Macon. This is their first ODAC game of the year. Kick-off is Saturday 1 p.m. at Dufour Field.

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