Roadrunner Sports
Athlete Spotlight: Fabiola Arriaga
Fabiola Arriaga has a mean putter, a meaner driver,
and a driving will to win. The first player in UTSA golf team history to
be named Southland Conference Freshman of the Year, the 20-year-old
from Mexico “is a diamond in the rough with a lot of natural talent” who
only now is beginning “to realize just how great she can be,” said golf
coach Carrie Parnaby.
Despite being just out of her teens, the native of Torreon last year held
the team’s second-lowest stroke average, 76.25, on her way to becoming
only the second freshman in university history named to the Southland
Conference first team.
Arriaga dropped ballet and first picked up golf clubs at age 9, about
the time that her twin brother decided he was no longer interested.
“I didn’t like it very much at first, but for my dad’s sake, I kept at it.
What I really got to enjoy was the competition, which really motivated
me to do my best,” she said.
Although she loves to dance, visit friends in Austin and Dallas,
and listen to music—“anything except ranchera”—she doesn’t
have much free time.
A second-year communications major on full scholarship, Arriaga
has played in each of the team’s tournaments since joining
the team in 2010. The avowed vegan was on the Mexican
National team in 2009 and 2010 and competed in the National
Athletic Olympics in 2010 after winning the U.S.
Girls’ Qualifier in 2009.
“The strongest part of my game is the mental side,” Arriaga
noted. “If I am ‘there’ mentally, I will do well. So for
me, the major part is the preparation, getting into my respiration
routine and getting over the jitters, getting calm and
prepared for what I need to do.”
Parnaby said that Arriaga “has a great mental approach and
has the capability to be one of the best players in college golf.”
Arriaga’s goal is simple: “Win all the tournaments that I can. I want
our team to get strong and become a Top 25 nationally ranked team,
which we are capable of doing.”
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Sport Briefs
An artist's rendering of the newly designed athletics field complex. Courtesy of HKS Sports & Entertainment Group
Athletics
HKS Sports & Entertainment
group was selected
to design UTSA’s new
athletics complex, which
will be located at the
125-acre-UTSA Park West
Campus (approximately
two miles west of Main
Campus). The work will
include soccer and track
and field stadiums, as
well as the initial utilities,
road and parking infrastructure.
The project will
be completed in multiple
phases with the first
including the design and
construction of a 1,000-seat-soccer stadium,
1,000-seat-track and field
stadium and 500-space-surface parking lot. The
facilities will be used for
public events, as well as
serving as home base
for Roadrunners sports
teams.
Men’s Basketball
UTSA finished the 2011–12 campaign with an
18–14 overall record and
earned the No. 5 seed for
the Southland Conference
Tournament with a
10–6 league ledger, the
program’s most league
wins since 2004–05. The
Roadrunners now have
registered 76 victories
in the last four seasons
under sixth-year-head
coach Brooks Thompson,
an average of 18 per
year. A trio of players was
honored by the Southland,
as sophomore forward
Jeromie Hill and junior
guard Melvin Johnson III
were named second-and-third-team all-conference-,
respectively, while junior
guard Kannon Burrage
picked up honorable mention
accolades.
Women’s Basketball
Sophomore Judy Jones
earned honorable mention
all-Southland-Conference
accolades for the
UTSA women’s basketball
team this past season.
The Monroe, LA., native
averaged 10.1 points
and a team–leading 7.0
rebounds per game for
the Roadrunners. In
league play, she upped
those averages to a team best
11.6 ppg and 8.5
rpg. Jones closed the
campaign with a career high
29 points and 11
rebounds against UT
Arlington.
Men’s Golf
Sophomore Ryan Werre
was named February’s
Southland Conference
player of the month after
registering a 71.67 stroke
average and a pair of
top-15-finishes, including
tying for fourth with a
career-best three–underpar-213 at the Rice intercollegiate.
The Redcliff,
Alberta, native opened
his spring season with
four consecutive top-15-showings.
Women’s Golf
The Roadrunners won
February’s Islanders Classic
by 40 strokes, giving
the program multiple victories
in a season for the
first time in program history
(UTSA won the Alamo
Invitational Title in November).
Senior Summer
Batiste and sophomore
Taylor Newlin claimed the
top spot on the individual
leader board and Batiste
was honored as February’s
Southland Conference
player of the month following
the event.
Men’s Tennis
The Roadrunners
achieved the program’s
first–ever national ranking
in February, and
that came on the heels
of a 4–3 upset victory
at No. 36 Rice on Feb.
11. it was UTSA’s first
win against a ranked
opponent since March 3,
2007, when the Roadrunners
defeated No. 75
San Francisco.
Men’s Track & Field
Head Coach Aaron Fox
led UTSA to an unprecedented
seventh
consecutive Southland
Conference Indoor
Championship in February.
Led by a league record-tying-six individual
champions, UTSA
scored 134 points,
which was the second highest
total in school
history. The victory
broke the Roadrunners’s
tie with Lamar, which
won six crowns in a row
from 1980–85, and the
half dozen gold medals
pushed the program’s
all–time total to 62, of
which 38 have come
during Fox’s 10–year
tenure.
UTSA sophomore track team member, Kerry Thompson, participates in the Trinity University Tiger Relays track and field meet in March.
—UTSA Athletics Communications
