The fun starts today!

Another year of Augsburg athletics starts today, with competition in several sports. For your friendly AugBlog proprietor, it's the start of my 12th year as sports information director here ... which means that our incoming first-year student-athletes (the Class of 2012) were just starting first grade in elementary school when I began my work here at the corner of 23rd and Riverside ... does that mean I'm old?

Anyway, enough of the old guy's ramblings ... onto this weekend's stuff.

The women's soccer team will host Wisconsin-Stout and Northwestern-Roseville in a two-game homestand this weekend at Edor Nelson Field. Augsburg faces UW-Stout tonight (Friday 8/29) at 7 p.m., and Northwestern on Saturday (8/30) at 7 p.m. Augsburg returns seven starters and 12 letterwinners to a team that has reached the MIAC playoffs each of the last four seasons. Meanwhile, UW-Stout has nine starters back from last year's 6-12-0 season, and Northwestern also has nine starters back from a team that went 8-9-1 overall.

The men's soccer team is on the road this weekend for two games in Iowa, facing Simpson today at 3 p.m. and Central on Saturday at 4 p.m. There are high hopes for this year's Auggies, with six seniors and 18 letterwinners returning, along with one of the most impressive recruiting and transfer classes in several years. Today's game against Simpson will be an interesting one, as the Storm are hosting Augsburg on their old grass-surface field, instead of their current artificial turf stadium. The Storm finished 3-14-1 last season. Meanwhile, Central is coming off a very impressive 14-4-3 record and third-place finish in the Iowa Conference.

The volleyball team is also on the road for the Ripon (Wis.) Early Bird Invitational. Every year has been an improvement for head coach Jessica Rinehart's squad, and her fourth season with the Auggies shapes up to be another year of improvement. Augsburg faces host Ripon (Wis.) and the Milwaukee School of Engineering (Wis.) today, and Wisconsin-Superior and Beloit (Wis.) tomorrow. Ripon was picked to finish third in the Midwest Conference; MSOE is a young squad that finished fifth in the Northern Athletics Conference last season; UW-Superior is coming off a 21-13 record last year (the best record in school history) and have nine letterwinners back; and Beloit was tabbed to finish sixth in the Midwest Conference this season.

The Auggie men's and women's cross country squad wakes up early on Saturday for the annual home time trial with Bethel. Action starts at 9 a.m. in Riverside Park. It's a good chance to see the Auggies in action on the 5,000-meter course. Both the men's and women's squads have deep lineups this season and should contend for improvement in the MIAC and regional standings.

The women's golf team is in action this Saturday and Sunday at the Wisconsin-Eau Claire Blugold Invitational. All four regulars return to head coach Laura Patrick's squad, including Johanna Frykmark, who became the second Auggie women's golfer ever to earn All-MIAC honors, when she finished 10th at the 2007 conference meet.

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-- Don Stoner