HUNTINGTON — Perhaps Jeff Waggoner should have gotten a degree in meteorology.

Maybe it would help him maximize the precious few hours his Marshall baseball team is able to get outside to prepare for the season.

“We’ve been on the football field, taking ground balls, doing as much as we can, but there’s something about actually playing scrimmage games before you get out there for real that can’t be replicated,” the Thundering Herd’s seventh-year head coach said.

“That’s a big part of why we’ve traditionally gotten off to slow starts, and it’s why we’re scheduling to get in as many games as possible before Conference USA play starts so we can get all that stuff worked out.”

HUNTINGTON — For Marshall tennis Coach John Mercer, the recently completed fall schedule provided a fitting tuneup for a promising, yet challenging, spring.

“The main thing you notice about our fall season is the level of competition we were playing,” Mercer said. “You have one of the three major college tournaments of the year in the All-America Tournament in California. We played in tournaments at Virginia, William and Mary, and North Carolina, and we did very well at our Atlantic Regional event at Virginia Tech.”

In the college tennis world, the fall season features individual play in singles and doubles rather than team competition, and Marshall’s fall schedule allowed the Herd to match up with many of the nation’s best players.

“The ACC is widely regarded as the best conference in women’s tennis and we were facing all these ACC players all throughout the fall,” Mercer said. “The fact that we won more than our fair share of the matches speaks well of how we played.”

Mercer, who has been at Marshall since 1994 and is in his 10th season as the team’s head coach, needed to see a strong fall to prepare for a spring schedule(see Page 25) that is dotted liberally with competition from the SEC, ACC and Big Ten.

That’s because there is no regular-season play against Conference USA teams, only a C-USA Tournament at the end of the year. Marshall’s No. 1 doubles team of Dominika Zaprazna and Maria Voscekova led the way with several wins over highly ranked teams in the fall campaign, with the team of Ellie Ball and Kara Kucin showing impressively as well.

The highlight of the fall was the ITA Atlantic Regional event at Virginia Tech, where Marshall was one of just two schools (along with Virginia) to advance all three of its doubles teams to the round of 16. “I was really happy with how we played and we showed great improvement after our first couple tournaments,” Mercer said. “That was exciting to see how the team had come along. Up and down the entire lineup we had players advancing through the tournament, which speaks very well of our depth.

“Dominika and Maria lost a heartbreaker in the semifinals to a team that eventually won the consolation draw at the national championships. Ellie and Kara lost in the round of 16, after holding a 5-2 lead, to the team that made it to the finals in the national tournament.

“Dominika and Maria won two matches against high quality teams out there, which basically puts them in the top 28 doubles teams in the country.”

With all but one player returning from last year’s Marshall squad, Mercer has a veteran team featuring maturity and an extensive knowledge of the game.

“What I’ve taken out of the fall is that our team has really improved in the overall understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish on the court,” he said. “Our doubles teams have done really well. They’re working together and knowing what they want to do and how they want to do it.

“We’re at the point with a team with so many upperclassmen that the experience and knowledge factor should be a big advantage for us most of the time.”

Having that experience was a factor in Mercer’s willingness to assemble possibly the most aggressive spring schedule in school history. Beginning Feb. 1, Marshall loaded up with a monthlong stretch of eight straight matches at home against top level competition.

“We have a murderer’s row, but it’s a strong home schedule,” Mercer said. “We’re playing Kentucky, Purdue, Indiana, Penn State.

Purdue won the Big Ten last season, Indiana is always an NCAA Tournament team.

“Miami of Ohio has actually beaten us the last two years. We’ve split with Winthrop the last two years. That stretch is as strong as we’ve faced ever. It’ll be a tough month and we need to take advantage of playing it all at home.”

After competing as individuals in the fall, the players enjoy the team that comes with the spring semester.

“There’s a little more sense of urgency in the players when you’re out there playing for a team win,” Mercer said. “Of course they always want to win whenever they take the court, so in that sense it’s not that much different when you’re playing in fall tournaments where it’s for yourself and for ranking purposes or when it’s as a team event in the spring.

“But there is something different about playing as a team and the players like the team matches in the spring better. They like seeing that team win go up on the board.

“It’s really exciting when it comes to that last match and everybody else is there cheering you on.”

This intermission between the fall and spring seasons, though, makes for a stressful holiday season for the coach.

“We played all these tournaments in the fall and they’re going great, then we had Thanksgiving break,” Mercer said. “Now they come back, but the rules really limit the amount of practice time at this time of year. You have final exams, then they go home for a few weeks. “So you basically have two months where you only have eight days to do something with them, then when they come back to start the spring semester and four days later we’re playing two matches in one day.”

As the team returns to Huntington for the first day of classes Jan. 14, Marshall not only hosts Eastern Michigan on the morning of Jan. 18, it then drives to Morehead State for another match that night.

“I’m not sure what the coach was thinking when he decided that was a good idea,” laughed Mercer. “But that’s the way it is, and it’s that way for other schools, too. Hopefully that’s where our greater experience this year pays off. They’ve done this before and realize how important it is to play and keep their fitness and conditioning up as much as they can over the break.”

This all fits into Mercer’s plan that, because there is no regular season play within Conference USA, he doesn’t want all of his eggs in the basket known as the C-USA Tournament.

“Our goal is obviously to win the Conference USA Tournament at the end of the year and get the league’s automatic bid,” he said. “But when you don’t play those teams during the year and don’t control your destiny in it, you don’t want things to come down to one weekend and having to win three or four matches in that many days.

“One little thing goes wrong, one person gets hurt, and that’s over. So what we’re aiming to do with the strong schedule we’ve put together is to build a resume for an at large bid. That’s the opportunity we have with the schedule we have.

“If we do well, we have a shot to be one of the top 40 teams in the country, which should get us into the NCAA Tournament regardless of whether we win that conference tournament.”

HUNTINGTON — Thanks to a few ceremonial turns of dirt with some kelly green-handled shovels, construction on Marshall’s Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex is ready to begin. The $8 million project was boosted with a groundbreaking ceremony last Friday.

“I don’t think I have the words to express what will happen with this complex,” said former Marshall quarterback Chad Pennington, co-chairman (with Marshall alumnus and Los Angeles Lakers Coach Mike D’Antoni) of the Vision Campaign fundraising effort. “This is something that the Tri-State has never seen and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

Pennington took part in Friday’s event with several other speakers, including the Marshall President, Dr. Stephen Kopp, and Athletic Director Mike Hamrick.

Others who are excited for the project include Thundering Herd soccer coaches Bob Gray and Kevin Long.

“This facility will rank up there as one of the best in the conference (USA),” said Gray, coach of the Marshall men’s team. “And you’re talking about a league that includes South Carolina and Kentucky, so that’s SEC money, and while we won’t have the biggest facility, it’s right there as the nicest.”

The 12,000 square-foot structure, scheduled to be completed next August in time for the 2013 season at the site of the former Veterans Memorial Field House, will include a synthetic turf playing surface and a grandstand with a permanent seating capacity of 1,000.

“We could have gone with a much larger grandstand, but we went with more of an MLS mindset,” Gray said. “They purposely built facilities that seat about 20,000 people because they didn’t want crowds of 20,000 to look small in an 80,000-seat facility.

“We’ll be able to fill this stadium every single game and if there’s an overflow and people are standing on the rails, that adds to the atmosphere. If it becomes apparent that we needed to expand it at some point, we can.”

Marshall women’s Coach Kevin Long said the Herd programs already have “used” the complex.

“We’ve been talking to our current players about this facility as they’ve been recruited,” Long said. “It has been a positive in recruiting already, but it’s just going to be that much more effective when we actually walk them through it and they see the facility itself rather than pictures of what it will be in the future.”

While the complex might be first and foremost on the soccer coaches’ minds, Long is just as excited about the rest of what is coming via the Vision Campaign.

“The soccer complex itself is just step one in the process,” he said. “When you look at the current economy, not a lot of places are building too much. Yet Marshall is saying, ‘Look at the soccer complex we’re building. Look at the indoor practice facility we’re building. Look at the academic center, the sports medicine center, the Hall of Fame we’re building.’

“All of these things are beneficial for what they are, and it also shows how important Marshall thinks the athletic facilities are.”

Of course, the soccer complex will be a boon specifically for Long’s and Gray’s programs.

“No longer do we have a locker room that we have to clear out when we have a home football game,” Gray said of the  Edwards Stadium room that also serves as the locker room for visiting football teams. “No longer will we have to schedule our practice time around and among other sports trying to use the same field.

“We’ll train, practice, watch video and have our offices all in one facility. You can’t ask for any more than that.”

The new complex will enable both programs to make more efficient use of their time. Both coaching staffs currently have offices in the Henderson Center, which also houses the women’s locker room. With practices and games at Edwards Stadium or Sam Hood Field, many man hours are spent simply moving people back and forth among facilities.

“Having all of our resources at one site – coaches’ offices, locker rooms, field, meeting space – this gives us the opportunity to do more things in training that we are currently more stretched to try to accomplish,” Long said.

“It will be one-stop shopping for Marshall soccer. We will be able to fit a lot more into our day. We’ll have immediate access from leaving the field to going to watch video, for instance, instead of spending that 10 minutes moving the team from the stadium back to the locker room and meeting areas.”

Long also pointed out how the new complex will wipe out some competitive disadvantages the Marshall teams have faced in the past. “We will be practicing on the same playing surface as we play on, which hasn’t been the case as we’ve practiced at Edwards Stadium and then played at other places,” he said. “People probably don’t realize, but because the stadium is tapered (crowned), in games we have to chase balls into the corners that would run into the wall at the stadium.

“That’s not a small thing – it really is a big deal in our preparation. And we’ve been training 120 days per year on turf, then playing our ten home games on grass.

“Now we’ll be practicing and playing on the turf, which will hopefully be a home field advantage for us since most teams in the conference play and practice on grass.”

The project is just one more step in Marshall’s growth spurt. “This is part of the bigger plan for Marshall,” Gray said. “We’ve been moving in a great direction ever since they built the student recreation center and put the new dorms in a couple years ago.

“Marshall, in the last few years, has made huge strides in becoming an outstanding institution with the student experience we offer. Kudos goes to the leadership from Dr. Kopp and Mike Hamrick to everyone who is participating and making this possible. These changes are going to make us the envy of Conference USA in terms of sports facilities.”

The Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex will also be utilized for more than just Marshall.

“The soccer associations in the community are already calling, wanting to know if they’re going to be able to rent the space,” Long said. “Absolutely, there will be a plan for that.

“We can picture state championship matches, adult league championships, all of the biggest soccer events that want to play at a great facility with a quality surface. Spectators will have a great view and be close to the action. This is going to be the great place to play in this region.”

That should be a boon for the entire university.

“When people set foot on campus for an event, Marshall sells itself,” Long said. “As young people come to events at our complex, more and more of them, whether they become college student-athletes themselves, will end up being students at Marshall.”

HUNTINGTON — For Nigel Spikes, last season was bittersweet. He appreciated being a part of a Marshall basketball team that advanced to its first title game at the Conference USA Tournament and received the school’s first NIT bid since 1988, but also found it discouraging that a preseason knee injury slowed him all year long.

“It was frustrating,” said the 6-foot-10 senior from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “It’s so hard when you know that you have the ability to do something, but your body won’t let you do it.

“I just wanted to do what I could, and we had a really good season, but I also thought that if I’d have been fully healthy I could have helped more. We could have done better and that’s what we plan to do this year: better.”

As a sophomore, Spiked averaged five points and six rebounds per game, including a career best 19-rebound performance against Ohio in the season finale. Instead of taking the next step forward as he hoped, Spikes’ averages fell to four points and five rebounds per contest last season.

“I came back and tried to get on the court and help the team as soon as possible,” Spikes said. “But even though I did rehab, it was never the way it would be during the offseason when you go slow and build the strength all the way back up.

“It hurt, but the pain wasn’t the worst part of it. The bad part was that I just never had the strength I needed to be at my best.” Spikes said he believes an offseason of hard work has him back to
full speed.

“Last year there were a lot of things I couldn’t do. I wasn’t in game shape and I never really had good strength in my legs. I feel like I’m back to 100 percent now and it feels like I’m an entirely different player.

"Along with getting back complete healthy in the offseason, I also worked to get stronger. I spent a lot of time improving my offensive game.”

Toward that end, Spikes worked on both the physical and mental side of becoming a more consistent offensive threat.

“I really worked on being more patient on offense,” he said. “In the past when I’d get the ball in the post I would move too fast and not let things develop.

“I’ve worked on my post moves and on being patient with them, not rushing and hurrying as soon as I touch the ball. Plus, I think my shot is a lot better, too. When you put that together, I should be much more effective on offense.”

Spikes’ strength has always been on the other end of the floor, and he hopes to be better than ever defensively, too.

“I think the big difference on defense will be my strength from all that time in the weight room,” he said. “Sometimes you have to defend big, strong guys in the post and I should be able to guard that better.

“Plus, I’ve learned more and worked to improve my footwork and just the way to need to guard the post, the things that come with more experience.”

Experience should be a plus for Spikes in all aspects of his game, considering that he’s the only member of this year’s Herd who actually played for Donnie Jones before Tom Herrion became Marshall’s head coach. Last season, he was one of four who could say that.

“Shaq Johnson, Damier Pitts and Dago Pena did a lot for this team over the last four years, both with what they did on the court and also as leaders the last couple years,” Spikes said. “It’s my time to do that, to step up and do those kinds of things now that I’m one of the veterans. I’ve been here the longest and I have tried to learn from all the veterans before me.”

Spikes plans to accomplish that with -- as much as anything -- his demeanor.

“I can show leadership by coming every day with a great, positive attitude,” he said. “Never get down, never hang your head, always keep it positive.

"We have a lot of new guys and younger players, and when you’re learning as much as they are you can have tough days. When I see that, I try to go talk with them, cheer them up and build the positive back up. Even when they’ve had a bad day, they need to come back and make the next one a good day.”

While Spikes knows the newcomers will need a pick-me-up every now and then, he believes the talent that has been added to the roster will be noteworthy to all who watch this year’s team.

“We have a lot of really versatile guys who’ve come onto the team,” he said. “We can mix and match with about any type of team we’ll see, I think, and we should hopefully be a matchup nightmare for opponents.

“When we want to go big, wow, we can get really big. One thing I know is that teams had better be ready to box out when they play us. We’ll have to see what Coach Herrion wants to do when the season gets here, but I think we have big guys who are versatile enough that we could put several of us out there together in different matchups and make it tough for teams to get many rebounds.”

That’s saying a lot, especially since Marshall out-rebounded its opposition by a plus-7.0 per game margin last season, the 10th-best number among the 344 teams playing Division I basketball. Still, Spikes doesn’t back off the prediction one iota.

“We were good at it last year and we should be even better this year,” he said. “There’s no doubt I should be able to do more this year. We have guys who’ve been here another year and have moreexperience and they should be better, too, and we have newcomers who can rebound.

“We have high fliers and we attack the boards. That should be a major strength for us. Plus, we work hard at it every single day, so we should keep getting better.”

If things work out as Spikes hopes, he would become the first Thundering Herd player in history to play in four postseason tournaments.

“I want to see big things happen this year,” he said. “This team has been growing and getting better my whole career here, and all of us want to keep taking that next step.

“It won’t be easy for us, though, because we’re not catching anybody by surprise in Conference USA any more. That was already the case, but it’ll be even more with what we did in the tournament last year.

“We did some good things, making it to the tournament championship game and making it to the NIT, but we need to keep taking the next step.”