Scholarship deadline approaching for Hispanic engineers
Scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 are available for aspiring Hispanic engineers through the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
The deadline for the Advancing Hispanic Excellence in Technology, Engineering, Math and Science scholarships is Apr. 1 and undergraduate and graduate students interested are encouraged to complete applications available on SHPE’s website.
Students awarded the scholarship money can use it for a variety of education expenses, such as books or tuition, said Rafaela Schwan, director of programs for AHETEMS.
[The scholarship] is twofold because it gives money to students in need of financial help and it’s a great way to encourage Hispanic students to pursue a career in engineering, Schwan said.
Aside from a general AHETEMS scholarship, several other scholarships are available to Hispanic students. Companies such as Verizon Wireless, Kellogg and Exxon Mobile sponsor the various scholarships. Students may apply to any or all with the same application, however the requirements for each are different.
In addition to applying online, students must also provide a letter of recommendation and transcript. The scholarships require students to maintain a 3.0 GPA in science, engineering, technology or math majors.
Maintaining this GPA and financially supporting their education is difficult for engineers, especially for lower-income students, said Eric Uribe, fifth-year senior mechanical engineering major and co-vice president of Chicano and Latino Engineers and Scientists Society (CALESS).
Working and engineering can be difficult, Uribe said. Engineers have to take a lot of units, so it’s nice to have one less thing to worry about, and it motivates students to keep above 3.0.
The scholarship addresses the issue of minorities not graduating from four-year universities at the same rate as Caucasians. A recent UC Davis study found that although the amount of Latino and African American students entering colleges has increased significantly, the amount of students that completes their education is still quite low due to the low income prevalent in minority groups.
Scholarships that reduce the cost of attending college and provide academic support for students can be effective ways to keep students in college and provide the types of supports necessary for students to see through their degree objectives, said Michal Kurleander, assistant professor of education and director of the study in an e-mail interview.
Hispanics comprise the fastest growing population in the United States, but only 5.5 percent of the science and engineering workforce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The lack of representation in this field has led programs such as SHPE to encourage minorities to diversify the work force. The task is important, said Veronica Coleman, a first-year chemical engineering major.
Jobs in engineering need many different people looking at these problems, she said. All things with engineering are a team project so Latinos from poorer backgrounds can represent the perspective of having financial burdens.
The application on AHETEMS website can be used for all or some of the scholarships. Visit www.ahetems.org for more information or for internship opportunities.
LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.
Aggies break out brooms for early spring cleaning
Last weekend the 10th-ranked UC Davis women’s water polo team opened an 11-game homestand, which will encompass the rest of the regular season.
After a Friday afternoon win over Brown, UC Davis completed the sweep with Saturday wins over Hartwick and UC Santa Cruz.
Friday – UC Davis 12, Brown 7
After having a long two-week break for finals and spring break, the Aggies came out still on vacation against a weaker Brown opponent.
We played like we had not played a game in two weeks, said head coach Jamey Wright.
UC Davis would fight back after its slow start.
Paced by senior Casie Mota’s first half hat trick, the Aggies reversed an early 2-1 deficit to defeat Brown on Friday afternoon, 12-7.
Mota got us going, Wright said. She was a key, she had a good first half, offensively. We needed that.
Mota got help from senior Laura Uribe and redshirt freshman Rachelle Smith, each contributing two goals in the victory.
Saturday – UC Davis 4, No. 14 Hartwick 3
Seniors Ashley Greenwood and Christie Raycraft compounded a couple 6-on-5 goals in the second half to push UC Davis past No. 14 Hartwick, 4-3.
The Aggies hunted down the Hawks’ 2-1 halftime lead with skilled 6-on-5 play.
There was a really big difference in our 6-on-5 play said Wright, We have really been working on it
Although only two of the UC Davis’ goals were contributed to man-up exclusions, Mary Lowe’s goal in the third quarter immediately followed the 20-second exclusion period.
Led by Raycraft’s two key field blocks, the Aggies fought off two 6-on-5 attempts by Hartwick in the final minutes of the contest.
It’s a lot like basketball, Wright said. If you play good defense and make free throws (6-on-5s), then most of the time you will win. And we did both of those against Hartwick.
Saturday – UC Davis 20, UC Santa Cruz 7
For anyone who has yet to realize that UC Davis’ strength derives from their depth as a team, this game made it very clear.
Thirteen different players scored as the Aggies sunk the Slugs, 20-7.
It’s really nice to see that people who have not gotten the experience go out and play well when the opportunity arises, Wright said.
The second group was led by redshirt freshman center Lauren Seidemann, whose four strikes Saturday matched her previous season total of four goals.
Senior Madeline Stephenson also tallied her first hat trick of the season to help the Aggies bring out the broom for the weekend sweep.
UC Davis returns to Schaal Aquatics Center on Apr. 4 for a matchup with Colorado State.
Sammy Brasch can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.
Orozco advances, loses on second day at NCAA Championships
Going into the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships this year, head coach Lennie Zalesky knew it was going to be tough.
UC Davis was only able to send three wrestlers – juniors Marcos Orozco, Nexi Delgado and Tyler Bernacchi – to the national tournament Mar. 20 to 22 at the Scottsdale Center in St. Louis, Mo.
But Zalesky was still optimistic, especially about one particular wrestler. I think we can surprise some people with Marcos, he said.
And that’s exactly what Orozco did.
The Vacaville, Calif. product started off the tournament losing to the No. 2 seed Jayson Ness of Minnesota, but rebounded with two huge victories to finish off the day 2-1 on the national stage.
The first victory came against Columbia‘s Brandon Kinney in a 5-2 decision and his second wrestleback win came against Iowa State’s Tyler Clark in a 4-2 decision.
With the pair of wins, Orozco advanced to the second day of the national tournament for his second consecutive year.
On the second day, Orozco drew Mark McKnight of Penn State who would later go on to place fourth in the tournament.
Orozco was down early, as McKnight scored two takedowns in the first two periods. A reversal in the second period sealed up the 6-2 victory for McKnight.
Both Delgado and Bernacchi were knocked out of the tournament after the first day of competition – both losing their first two matches.
Delgado couldn’t have drawn a worse seed in first career national tournament match.
The Livermore High School product went toe-to-toe with All-American No. 8 J Jaggers of Ohio State, who would be crowned the national champion of the 141-pound division.
After falling early in the first to Jaggers 3-7, Delgado scored a pair of takedowns on the national champ, but it wasn’t enough as Jaggers took home a 13-8 victory.
In his second national tournament appearance, the 174-pound Bernacchi drew No. 3 Brandon Sinnott of Central Michigan. Bernacchi would lose the match in a 5-1 decision, and Sinnott would later go on to take home fifth place in the tournament.
The second match was kept close throughout, but ultimately Bernacchi came up short, losing 3-2 to No. 12 Nick Hayes of Northwestern.
We drew some really tough seeds, Zalesky said. Nexi really gave the national champ a run for his money. Tyler had really close matches, and Marcos did well until he lost to the guy who wound up placing fourth in the tournament.
You know, they’ll all be back next year. They all have experience now and we’ll have four returning national qualifiers next year – the most ever for our program. It bodes really well for our future and hopefully next year we’ll be able to put it all together.
Iowa clinched its 21st national team championship and its first since 2000. The team scored a total of 109.5 points and had three individual national finalists.
MATT MILLER can be reached at sports@calforniaaggie.com.
Women’s Golf Preview
Event: Regional Preview
Host: Sacramento State
Where: Lincoln Hills Golf Club – Lincoln, Calif.
When: Today and Tuesday, all day
Who to watch: At the Oregon Duck Invitational on Mar. 24 and 25, freshman Chelsea Stelzmiller led the way for the Aggies with a fourth-place finish.
The Placerville, Calif. native has placed in the top 10 in five of her last six tournaments and is averaging a team-best 73.6 strokes per round this season.
Did you know? Besides Stelzmiller, UC Davis has another freshman sensation in Katie Sisler who also placed fourth last week in Oregon. According to the Freshman Impact Ranking at Golfstat.com, the Aggie freshman duo rank 15th in nation with their 75.3 combined average.
Preview: The UC Davis women’s golf team wanted to get off to a great start this season.
Five top-5 performances in its first seven tournaments – that will work.
Today the Aggies look to build off of that strong start in a competitive 19-team field that includes four top-50 teams: No. 10 Denver, No. 44 Oregon, No. 45 San Francisco and No. 48 Washington State.
Facing top-flight competition, however, will not be the only benefit from the two-day, 54-hole tournament. From May 8 to 10, the 5,819-yard Lincoln Hills golf course will also serve as host for the NCAA West Regional Tournament.
In their most recent tournament at Oregon, the Aggies finished second with the help of the fourth-place finishes by the freshman pair and a ninth-place performance by junior Bryana Gregory.
Gregory carded a tournament-best 74 in the final round of play after shooting a pair of 76s in the previous two rounds.
Senior Sydney Roughton finished with a total score of 223, good for 23rd place in the tournament.
Aggies ousted by Bulldogs in WNIT
Competing in its first Division I season, the UC Davis women’s basketball team was enjoying an impressive campaign.
The Aggies won 19 games – the most the program has seen since the 2001-2002 season – locked up second-place honors in the Big West Conference and earned a bid to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
And within a 40-minute span, that all became a memory.
Playing in the first round of the WNIT on Mar. 20, UC Davis fell to host Gonzaga, 81-60, to close the book on a storied 2007-2008 season.
[Gonzaga] played terrific tonight on both sides of the ball, said head coach Sandy Simpson. We struggled to shoot the ball early. The few good open looks we got in the first half we didn’t knock down. And when you’re playing a team that’s playing as well defensively as that team is, you have to take advantage of the openings when you get them and we really didn’t in the first half.
The Bulldogs (25-8) held the Aggies (19-12) to 31.8 percent shooting in the first half. UC Davis went 14-for-28 from the floor in the second, but it wasn’t enough to battle back from a 33-19 halftime deficit.
It’s hard for the season to end in a loss, but unless you win the NCAA Tournament or the WNIT, that’s what’s going to happen, Simpson said. It’s discouraging not to play as well as we had been, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that we played well to get ourselves into this position.
The Aggies and Bulldogs got a regular-season look at each other back on Dec. 6 at the Pavilion. UC Davis was able to force 30 Gonzaga turnovers, but the Bulldogs prevailed, 71-58.
We kept forcing turnovers, but we didn’t take advantage of them, Simpson said. We didn’t make them pay on the other side. We gave them a window to get back into the game.
The Aggies didn’t have that same advantage against the Bulldogs in the WNIT, however, forcing 17 turnovers while committing 26 of their own.
The turnovers really fueled their transition game, Simpson said. They played an active, trapping zone that really pressured us.
Playing in her final game for UC Davis, senior wing Jessica Campbell netted a game-high 23 points on 9-for-12 shooting. Fellow senior Heather Bates went for a double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) while sophomore guard Anna Harp added 13 points.
The Bulldogs had four players finish in double figures, including senior guard Michelle Elliott’s team-high 19 points. After netting 23 points and pulling down 12 boards in the two teams’ first meeting, West Coast Conference Player of the Year Heather Bowman was held to 12 points and two rebounds.
With the win, Gonzaga advanced to the second round of the WNIT, where it was eliminated by Colorado, 82-68.
UC Davis’ final game may have been a loss, but the season cannot be classified as anything other than a success.
Very few teams go from never having a postseason experience to something like a trip to the Final Four, Simpson said. You have to have had that experience to use it to your advantage, and this team has nudged open those doors.
ADAM LOBERSTEIN can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.
UC Davis goes 0-2 in Fresno
The UC Davis men’s tennis team gave new meaning to the phrase break point as they returned to play this past weekend.
The Aggies not only returned after a three-week break, but their hopes of victory were broken as they first fell to DePaul 5-2 on Friday and were later swept 7-0 by No. 52 Fresno State.
Friday – DePaul 5, UC Davis 2
The Aggies saw their hot play turn ice cold against the Blue Demons, falling 5-2 to end a two-match winning streak.
Against DePaul I felt like I was a little bit slow, I wasn’t really playing at the top of my game, said senior No. 3 Justin Garcia. We were just a bit sluggish.
The afternoon began with DePaul laying claim to the doubles point, capturing wins at the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles positions.
Entering singles play with a 1-0 lead, DePaul continued its winning ways as No. 1 singles player senior Henri Landes fell to Jose Moncada 6-1, 6-2.
To add to Landes’ loss, the Aggies also dropped the 2, 4 and 5 spots, losing all in straight sets.
Still, the Aggie lowerclassmen did their part.
First, freshman No. 3 Nick Lopez held off Vanja Grgec in a tough three-set match to win 6-4,4-6,1-0 (10-7).
Not to be outdone, sophomore No. 6 Hunter Lee also posted an come-from-behind victory, defeating Bartosz Jozwiak 1-6,7-6, 1-0 (10-7).
I felt like Nick and Hunter fought really well and had impressive victories, Garcia said.
Saturday – Fresno State 7, UC Davis 0
It shouldn’t be surprising that the Bulldogs pack a vicious bite.
Just ask the Aggies, who were swept 7-0 Friday at the Wathen Tennis Center in Fresno.
We knew we had to play our hearts out against them and everyone played really well, Garcia said. But they were just too much for us to handle.
No. 52 Fresno State started things out by capturing the doubles point, but not before the Aggies earned their sole victory of the afternoon.
At the No. 2 doubles spot, senior Daniel Elefant and junior Michael Reiser ousted the duo of AJ Kerin and Taylor Leiby, 9-8 (1).
Despite the close victory of Elefant and Reiser, the Aggies dropped doubles matches at the No. 1 and 3 spots to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead going into singles play.
UC Davis failed to capture a set in all six singles matches, but came close as both Landes and Lee dropped first set tiebreakers.
Saturday’s win moved the Bulldogs to 13-7 while the Aggies dropped to 8-8 on the season.
UC Davis will return to Big West Conference play Saturday when it hits the road to face UC Santa Barbara.
NIRVAIR KELLEY can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.
A to Z
Spring break is over, and I return to Davis having recognized one thing: My grandparents are extremely well-versed in separate areas of knowledge.
My grandma, Adriana Monteforte, knows marinara sauce, while my grandpa, Vincenzo Monteforte, knows politics.
But as knowledgeable as they are in their respective areas, whenever the topic of UC Davis athletics comes up, the room gets quiet as if I just name-dropped Mussolini.
This reaction is similar to what you find on campus. Other than that the school has unofficial ownership of Stanford and is now Division I, many students don’t have much to say about UC Davis and its 26 sports.
Well, it’s time to do some spring cleaning. It’s time to separate the gap between students and my foreigner grandparents who mistakenly call UC Davis Camp Davis as if it were a correctional facility.
So here you have it: This is UC Davis athletics from A to Z.
Aggie: An agricultural college, or a student who attends an agricultural college.
Bob Biggs: Football head coach in his 15th year; second-winningest coach in program history. Helped Aggies to first of 37 straight winning seasons as a quarterback in 1970.
Colby E. Babe Slater:A 1917 UC Davis graduate who starred in baseball, basketball, football and rugby. Won a gold medal in rugby in the 1920 Olympic Games.
Dante Ross: Men’s basketball program’s all-time steals leader; set a school record with 166 assists in Aggies’ 1998 NCAA Division II National Championship season.
Eddie Gamboa: Senior ace of the UC Davis baseball team; 4-0 on season with a 2.00 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and 27 Ks in 36 innings.
Free: The price of admission to each of the school’s sporting events with a student registration card.
Gunrock: School mascot since 2003; a blue mustang named after the thoroughbred that was brought to the university farm in the 1920s to supply high-quality stock for the U.S. Army Calvary.
Holmes, Jamie: UC Davis’ newest head coach; succeeds Steve Walker and joins Aggie volleyball after serving as a top assistant at Ohio State.
Irvin F. Toomey: Namesake of Toomey Field. Was a UC Davis coach and athletic director from 1928-1961.
Jessica Campbell: Senior wing for the women’s basketball team; finished first in the Big West Conference in free throw percentage (88.9), second in scoring (15.3 points per game) and field goal percentage (53.9).
Katie McMahon: Fierce senior midfielder for the women’s lacrosse team; leads the Aggies with 40 goals and 11 assists in 11 games.
Lida Gehlen: Sophomore gymnast who regularly dominates the uneven bars; scored a 9.900 in Friday’s conference championships. Has a name eerily similar to that of my mother, Linda Gehlken.
Mark Grieb: Former Aggie quarterback currently in the Arena Football League; has led the San Jose SaberCats to ArenaBowl titles in 2004 and 2007.
NCAA Division I Postseason: Two teams have experienced this so far in the first year of the Division I era. The men’s soccer team advanced to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid, while the women’s basketball team earned an automatic bid to the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.
O’Sullivan, J.T.: Current San Francisco 49ers quarterback/Mike Martz’s boy. UC Davis’ all-time passing leader and a member of the school’s 2008 Hall of Fame class.
Pavilion, The: Home of Aggie basketball, gymnastics, volleyball and wrestling.
Quincy Amarikwa: The reason opposing soccer players tape their ankles; lightning-quick junior forward who teamed up with fellow junior Sule Anibaba to make the Aggies the ninth-highest scoring team in the country.
Rice, Brandon: Physical 6-foot-4 wide receiver who led Aggies with 59 receptions, 870 yards and 10 touchdowns; has worked out with such NFL stars as Chad Johnson.
Sacramento State: UC Davis’ sports rival and recent loser of the Causeway Cup – a competition between the two schools’ 18 common sports teams.
Tube Sock Madness: When balls of tube socks are thrown or cannoned to fans in attendance of an Aggie sporting event.
Undefeated: The 2007 men’s water polo team in regular season conference play (13-0).
Vince Oliver: Guard who has led the men’s basketball team in total points in each of the last two seasons. Member of the 1,000-point club despite only three years on the team.
Warzecka, Greg: UC Davis’ athletic director who sports a thick mustache.
Xerus: An African ground squirrel with very short ears and a long tail. (What? Can you think of anything related to UC Davis athletics that starts with the letter X?)
Yoder, Karen: Third-year softball head coach under whom the program has seen a complete turnaround. Team finished 31-27-1 in 2007 to follow a 15-39 campaign.
Zalesky, Lennie: Seventh-year wrestling head coach who has developed such stars as Urijah The California Kid Faber and Derek Moore, UC Davis’ first ever NCAA Division I national champion
MICHAEL GEHLKEN misses the marinara sauce already, and he can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.