CHICO STATE BASKETBALL

 A tough week-end for the Chico State basketball teams.  The Chico State women's team split their road trip with Cal Poly Pomona and San Bernadino, but still are in decent shape to grab a home game when the CCAA tournament starts next month.  Against Pomona, a couple of dry spells and the hot first half from the Bronco's Reyana Colson hurt in a 53-48 loss on Friday night.  Saturday night, Chico held Bernadino's top scorer Krystal Urzua scoreless until the final two minutes and grabbed a 61-51 win over the Coyotes.  Syncro Bull had a career night with 20 points and 3 steals. Taylor Lyden, Bull and Melissa Richardson all hit three's during a 2nd half burst that allowed the Wildcats to up their CCAA record to 9-6.  Over their past 5 games, the Wildcat defense has held their opponants to an average of 45 points per game.

Although playing pretty well, the Chico mens team dropped two close games at Pomona and San Bernadino. Friday, Chico made a late 15-6 run to cut a Pomona lead down to 1 point with under 4 minutes to play, but the Bronco's ran a flawless half court offense and forced Chico into some tough shots at the end to take a 69-61 win. Pomona is the defending national runner-up.  Saturday night, Chico came up just short in a 60-53 loss to CCAA co-leader San Bernadino. The Wildcats had a couple of great looks in the final couple of minutes that could have tied the game, but were unable to convert.  Roderick Hawkins led Chico with 19 points Saturday night.  The loss drops Chico to under 500 (8-9) in CCAA play for the first time this season.  The Wildcats start a run of 5 straight home games on Tuesday against Cal State Stanislaus.  Mike Baca has the play-by-play, starting at 5:05pm Tuesday evening. You'll be able to check out the games on the ESPN website. Look for the link on our home page.

CHICO STATE BASEBALL

The Chico State baseball team, ranked 22nd in the nation, got rained out this week-end and will kick-off CCAA play this week-end at home against Cal State East Bay. It's a 4-game series, starting Friday afternoon at 2pm.  The teams will play a Saturday double-header before wrapping up on Sunday. Join Mike Baca for the play-by-play of Friday's game on ESPN Radio.

Roadrunners Celebrate 2008 National Title

The Butte College football team finished their season at 8-3 after a 22-15 win over Sierra College at the Premiere West Bank Bowl in Rocklin. Defense and turnovers played the biggest parts in the Roadrunners third straight bowl game win.  Despite getting sacked 8 times, Butte quarterback Jordan Rodgers connected on 3 touchdown passes and was named the Offensive MVP of the game.  The Roadrunners first score came after Sierra's punter couldn't handle a snap and gave Butte the ball at the Sierra 14 yard line.  A couple of plays later, Rodgers hit Joe Brinkman in the end zone for the first score of the game.  Sierra got on the board in the second quarter by sacking Rodgers in the end zone for a safety.  It stayed that way until halftime.  A big part of that 7-2 lead was credited to the Butte defense. On two separate occassions, Sierra had a "first and goal" from inside the Butte 10 yard line, but were unable to put any points on the board.  After Sierra grabbed a third quarter lead on a 70 yard touchdown pass, the Roadrunners struck back.  After recovering a Sierra fumble near midfield, Rodgers found a streaking Rashad Ross open on a post pattern. Though the ball was underthrown, Ross outfought the defender for a 44 yard scoring toss.   After Sierra scored again early in the 4th quarter, the Roadrunners went to work again.  This time Rodgers found Marcus Preciado on a screen pass and the tailback, who also had 46 yards rushing, made a defender miss, got a nice block to get outside and scampered down the sideline for a 50 yard touchdown pass.   Defensively, in addition to their goal-line stops, held Sierra's best running threat, Deonte Williams to just 40 yards on 28 attempts (he averaged 95 yards per game) and sacked Sierra quarterback Jeff Nelson 4 times.

David Sims, a former Butte College running back and safety, intercepted a pass in the end zone to prevent a touchdown, and returned 4 kick-offs for nearly 22 yards per return to help Iowa State edge Minnesota 14-13 at the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Az.  The win gave the Cyclones a 7-6 record for the season.

ESPN 101.7 and am1340 will be paticipating in the Wings of Eagles Bowl-a-thon, today at AMF Orchard lanes in Chico. Get a team together and bowl with us or just come out and cheer on the ESPN team as we raise money for families of kids with life-threatening disease.  Keep it here for details.

On Sunday, Feb. 7th,  join Mike Wessels at the Graduate as we get set to watch the Colts and Saints battle it out for the NFL Crown.  Our Super Sunday Selebration starts at 1:30 at the Graduate.  Come by early and register for prizes, get a good seat and grab some grub with your friends and ESPN 101.7 and am 1340.