Despite having just two individual champions all weekend, the Tommies rallied from a third-place standing Friday to edge out Gustavus by 11 points and bring home the program’s seventh straight outdoor conference championship.

“We knew it was going to be a close one,” senior Raynee DeGrio said. “It was definitely an exciting meet.”

Freshman Emily Van Heel won the triple jump, senior Melissa Kuebler won the 100-meter and many second-place finishes added up for the Tommies. St. Thomas ended with six runner-up finishes and got points from 20 different athletes for a 143.5 winning total.

“It’s always been the strength of our team, in our numbers,” DeGrio said. “We don’t build around two or three good athletes; we build around everyone.”

Van Heel alone posted 26 points for the Tommies, adding on to her 110-meter win with second-place finishes in the 200- and 400-meter. Van Heel also ran on the fourth place 4-by-400-meter relay with senior Becky Theisen, Kuebler and freshman Erin Sheehan.

Other second-place contributions included senior Allie Metzler in the 10,000-meter, DeGrio in the steeplechase, sophomore Taylor Berg in the 1,500-meter and junior Amy Maas in the shot put.

“Those [second-place] points really add up,” DeGrio said.

Gustavus had finished third in the indoor championships in March and DeGrio said the Gusties were “knocking on the door.”

“We were worried about them trying to steal one from us on their home track,” she said. “We didn’t feel pressure from that necessarily but definitely excitement.”

DeGrio and her fellow graduating seniors finished their St. Thomas careers eight-for-eight in conference championships.

“Not a lot of people get to say that,” she said.

The men’s team, plagued by injuries to All-Americans Eyo Ekpo, Ben Sathre and Mike Hutton, failed to defend its outdoor title and finished sixth with 77 points.

The Tommies slid back from a third-place standing at the end of Friday’s events despite three top-three finishes Saturday. Junior Tyler Iverson took second in the steeplechase, senior Matt Griswold finished second in the 110-meter hurdles and senior Teddy Archer landed in third place in the triple jump.

St. Thomas had 10 other finishes of eighth place or better, but it wasn’t nearly enough to chase down first place St. John’s, which finished with 141 points.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.

This is News in :90 for Thursday, May 12, 2011.

Softball assistant coach Brad Horstman and senior Sydney Marquardt join senior reporter Jordan Osterman in The Locker Room.

USG President Greg Scharine and Executive Vice President Mike Orth joined TommieMedia senior reporter Jordan Osterman in the studio to talk about some of their goals for next year.

Exactly one month after the vernal equinox that marks the beginning of spring, snow is falling on St. Thomas.

The total daytime snow accumulation will be less than one inch, according to the National Weather Service, but there was plenty of white to be seen on campus Wednesday morning.

“I think it’s beautiful,” junior Kiana Williams said. “It’s not snowing too bad, so the way it sits on the trees is really beautiful.”

According to KARE 11, this year is the fourth snowiest winter on record, and about another three inches would move it into third place. Some students were not happy to see snow this late in the year.

“It sucks,” sophomore Justina Hausmann said. “It’s the middle of April. I shouldn’t have to wear my Uggs to walk across campus.”

Most activity on campus was unaffected by the odd weather. An Opus construction worker said crews planned to “just keep right on working.” Wednesday’s home baseball game against Augsburg was rescheduled to 2:30 p.m. Thursday at home due to the weather.

Junior Fritz Waldvogel of the football team said practice was still going to be held Wednesday night outside on the field.

“This is ridiculous,” he said.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.

Men’s baseball swept a doubleheader against Gustavus Sunday to raise its MIAC record to 6-4. The Tommies’ next conference matchup is April 20 at home against Augsburg.

Senior Kamal Mohamed’s new website, underbooks.com, provides students with price comparisons from their school’s bookstore as well as various online book distributors such as Amazon and Half.com.

Underbooks.com, a textbook website created by senior Kamal Mohamed, provides students with price comparisons from their school's bookstore as well as various online book distributors.

“The process is streamlined. All you need to know is your professor’s name,” Mohamed said. “It’s like a KAYAK.com for books.”

Mohamed said the website’s price comparison model is not the first, but his goal was to make the book-purchasing process as easy as possible for students.

“You can do it in a fraction of the time in comparison to other [price comparison] sites,” he said. “It’s so much faster.”

The site features every MIAC school except the College of Saint Benedict, but Mohamed said St. Ben’s will eventually be added as well. The site also includes the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota-Duluth and Concordia University in St. Paul.

When students click on their school, they are directed to majors, professors and eventually course book lists and prices. Mohamed said in the future he would consider expanding to other schools, but wanted to create an exclusive feel for Minnesota students to get the site off the ground.

“Something about it being exclusive creates a buzz,” he said. “I want other schools to want it, for it to be an event to come to their school.”

Mohammed said that with the development process complete and the site up and running, all the course book lists and prices will update in real time, including affiliate sites such as Amazon and Half.com. He said the site is an improvement on student book exchange sites, and that aspect is only a supplementary part of underbooks.com.

“[The book exchange] is like soft drinks at Chipotle,” Mohammed said. “You wouldn’t go just for that, but we have it on the side.”

Entrepreneurship professor Mark Spriggs said the nature of the used book market could make it difficult for Mohammed.

“There’s so many big players out there. There’s just so many competitors that it’s a tough business to run,” Spriggs said. “It’s pretty hard to differentiate yourself.”

But Spriggs said running a business as a student can be very valuable.

“A lot of these are just good learning experiences,” he said. “Learning what it is to be an entrepreneur and along will come a bigger idea that will become more sustainable.”

Mohammed said the website hasn’t started advertising yet and is mostly relying on word-of-mouth.

Some students said the site would be a helpful resource.

Senior Nick Bussa has been on the site and said he would have appreciated the services when he was a freshman or sophomore.

“It just gives students so many more tools when they’re trying to find textbooks,” he said. “It would have made it a lot cheaper for me to buy books.”

Bussa also said students could potentially use it to make decisions on which classes they take.

“You can tell even before you sign up for classes what books your class would need and how much it would cost,” he said.

Senior Tom Broich also said he would have liked to have the website available when he was a younger student and imagines current students will benefit from it.

“It’s one of those things that you just have to know about,” he said. “Once you know about it, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t use it to check prices.”

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.

This is News in :90 for Tuesday, April 12, 2011.

Political campaigning sucks.

Trust me, I know. I grew up with a mother who served as a state representative, and for much of my elementary, all my middle school, and part of my high school life, I was a first-hand witness to what a drag it truly is.

We pounded in so many lawn signs the smell of rebar still makes me nauseous. We wore holes in our Nikes walking streets and driveways dropping campaign fliers into front doors – never giving the feet a break by walking on the yard. No respectable representative’s campaigners would trample their constituents’ well-tended grass.

We were fast. We were efficient. We were good. Mostly because we did it so often. A state representative’s term lasts just two years, so by the time the session is over they have to turn right back around and start campaigning to keep their job. We used to joke that we spent more time campaigning to keep my mom in her representative’s office than she actually spent serving there, but it really wasn’t a joke. Even as a freshman in high school, I was able to clearly see there is something very wrong with this country’s campaign process.

Can you imagine any other career where you spend half the time actually doing your job, and the other half making direct appeals to your boss that you should be allowed to continue? It would be like 9-5 post office workers sorting mail until 1 p.m. every day and then spending the rest of the afternoon in their supervisors’ offices convincing them what a great job they did and that they should be allowed to come back the next morning and work from 9-1 again.

Now, I understand there is a bit more weight in choosing who is going to represent you than there is in who sorts your mail. Voters should have access to all the information they need to make informed decisions about who they want making legislation choices that affect all aspects of their lives.

But the process of getting that information to them is messed up.

On Sunday, an article in the New York Times described Chicago’s re-emergence as President Barack Obama’s headquarters while his “2012 campaign takes shape.” This coming less than 48 hours after the government nearly shuts down? Brutal.

It’s more than 19 months from election day next November and not even 27 months since Obama was sworn in as president. So barely halfway through his presidency, Obama and his team are gearing up for another presidential run. That’s ludicrous. And if it’s anything like 2008, the amount of money that is spent campaigning for the election will be mind-boggling.

A 2008 Politico article stated that between Obama and Republican candidate John McCain, more than $1 billion was spent campaigning. The article also says that figure is a 27 percent increase from the 2004 campaign. I’m pretty sure you can’t chalk that one up to inflation; it’s a runaway train.

Our state’s very own former governor Tim Pawlenty announced in March that he was launching an “exploratory committee” for a possible 2012 presidential candidacy. What is that? You’re either going to run for president or you’re not.

Things like an exploratory committee 20 months before an election only push the timetable further back to the point that candidates feel they have to start working to get elected. They might as well go to their future opponent’s office, point at them and yell out Achilles-style in “Troy” that they’re coming for them, and they had better get ready. Now.

It’s like Dr. Seuss’ “The Butter Battle Book,” where both sides continuously push each other to bigger and more dramatic action. Every election the campaign machines start revving up earlier and earlier, devouring more and more money. It’s not right. What could be a simple process has turned into a monster.

Candidates should look to answer the same simple questions many go through in any job interview: What have you done in the past that shows you are qualified for this position? What do you plan on doing if you are chosen for this position? How can you improve this organization?

It doesn’t take years and billions of dollars to answer those kinds of questions. With the incredible amounts of mass media platforms at candidates’ disposal, it should be easier than ever to get voters the information they need. Instead, it takes more time and more money every election to get it done, and more than a year-and-a-half from the 2012 election, there are already signs this election won’t reverse that trend. There’s something very wrong with that.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 382 students had responded that they were “attending” STAR’s Facebook event for ticket sales. There is a one-ticket limit placed on each student. STAR plans to sell about 200 total tickets to five games for $5 each using a new online ticket sales system.

“The system can process more purchases than the Box Office could,” said Matt Gustafson, STAR adviser and Campus Life associate director. “Some games will probably sell out faster than others.”

STAR can sell tickets cheaply because the organization is funded through student activity fees, said Kerri Roesner, Box Office manager.

“[The Box Office] sells [tickets] based on what we pay for them,” Roesner said. “STAR’s are only for students, and ours are for faculty, staff and students.”

Gustafson said STAR paid between $23 and $29 for tickets, which was the same price the Box Office sold its tickets for on Monday. The Box Office put a six-ticket limit on each person, but sophomore Adam Anderson said he doesn’t mind STAR’s one-ticket limit.

“I think that there are going to be a lot of people trying to get tickets,” he said. “It makes it easier for everyone who really wants to go to get one, so more people can get one rather than a few people buying up multiple tickets.”

Sophomore Jaycee Nelson was less enthused.

“It kind of stinks a little,” she said. “But I think that it can help more people get them.”

Gustafson said students who purchase tickets from STAR have to ride university-provided transportation and won’t get their tickets until the day of the game. Tickets will be sold for the April 10 game against the Oakland Athletics, April 26, 27 and 28 games against the Tampa Bay Rays, and the May 10 game against the Detroit Tigers, according to STAR.

Gina Dolski and Maggie Clemensen contributed to this report.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu