Sport Briefs

VCU Women’s Basketball faced Old Dominion Friday evening in Norfolk, Va. and lost 73-56. Despite senior Kristine Austgulen’s 19 points on the evening, the Rams (6-9, 3-3 CAA) fell to the 6-0 CAA (9-6 overall) Monarchs.

Austgulen went 6-of-15 during the game to lead VCU while also earning seven rebounds. Freshman Maria Giovannetti shot 6-of-6 to earn a team-second 14 points. Senior center Candice Phelps led the Rams with nine rebounds while also earning six points.

Junior guard Max Nhassengo led ODU with 23 points, while also earning eight rebounds. Nhassengo went 9-14, while shooting 5-6 in free throws. Coming in second in points for ODU was junior Monique Coker, who earned 16 points and eight rebounds. Also scoring in the double digits for ODU was senior Okeisha Howard who had 13 points.

VCU played a close game for the first half, going into the locker room down by only two points, 37-39. However, the Rams would see a dry spell in the second half, only earning 19 points to the Monarch’s 34, which lead to the final 73-56 score.

VCU Women’s Basketball Head Coach David Glass is resigning. The coach announced his resignation, which will be effective at the close of the 2002-03 season, last Monday at the ALLTEL Pavilion at the Siegel Center. Associate Head Coach Beth Cunningham will take the position of head coach once Glass departs.

Glass has an 89-95 record at VCU in his six and a half years of service and a career record of 116-149 in nine and a half years as head coach. While head coach at VCU Glass led the team to three seasons with 15 wins. Glass also led the team to its best finish ever last year when VCU placed third with a conference record of 11-7.

Glass spent a total of 11 and a half years at VCU. He spent five as the first full-time assistant coach in the history of the program from 1983-88. In 1988, Glass made a move away from VCU but would return for the 1996-97 season as head coach.

Cunningham was promoted from assistant coach to associate head coach after her first season with the Rams. Formerly Beth Morgan, Cunningham graduated from Notre Dame. She started for her team four years with the school and finished her career there as the school’s all- time leading scorer with 2,322 points. She was also named an honorable mention All-American by the Associated Press and Kodak her junior and senior year. Aside from being the first women’s basketball player to reach 2,000 points,Cunningham started 115 games and was team captain for two years.

After graduating from Notre Dame, Cunningham was selected in the second round of the American Basketball League draft by the Richmond Rage. She followed the team to Philadelphia and continued to play with them until the ABL folded during the 1998-99 season. Afterwards Cunningham signed with the Washington Mystics and played in the WNBA for the 2000 season. Cunningham’s father is Bob Morgan, head baseball coach at Indiana University.

VCU Men’s Tennis had two 5-0 wins at the VCU 4-1 Men’s Tennis Invitational. Partners senior Florian Marquardt and sophomore Julien Lousao defeated conference rival Delaware’s Adam Liebman and Josh Ditman 6-2 and 6-4. Senior Mats Norin had a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Dustin Lewis.

The Rams showed similar performance against the Naval Academy. Marquardt defeated his opponent 6-1, 6-4. Senior Daniel Casquero earned a 6-3,6-2 win and the doubles team of Marton Ott and Norin defeated their opponenets 6-2, 6-4.

East Tennessee State also participated in the invitational, defeating Delaware 5-0 and Norfolk State 4-1. Norfolk State had a 3-2 win against James Madison. Radford beat the Naval Academy 3-2.