Men's soccer earns preseason No. 1 ranking\nCollege Soccer News, which recently ranked the IU men's soccer incoming recruiting class at No. 14, has released its annual preseason rankings for the upcoming season. The defending national champion Hoosiers sit atop the rankings, earning the publication's preseason No. 1. The team the Hoosiers defeated in last year's College Cup for the championship, St. John's, is ranked No. 2.\n"The target on our back gets bigger every day," IU coach Mike Freitag said. "It is definitely an honor to be ranked No. 1 coming into the year. The ranking shows how highly thought of Indiana soccer is. I don't really think it changes anything other than people gunning for us, but that happens with every IU team. Obviously, we like the fact that we are preseason No. 1, but we would much rather be ranked there come the end of the season."\nWhile the rankings have the Hoosiers at the loftiest of positions, nine 2004 Hoosier opponents are either ranked in the top 30 in the country or received votes in the poll. \nCompounding the obstacle of a tough schedule, the Hoosiers will be without the only coach the program has ever known, the recently retired Jerry Yeagley. Yeagley left the Hoosier team stocked with talent and his former assistant Freitag is looking forward to continuing the IU soccer tradition that has seen the team win 10 Big Ten titles and six national championships.\nThe Hoosiers open the 2004 regular season hosting the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic. The Hoosiers play host to Boston University Sept. 3. Oregon State and Notre Dame round out the quartet of teams competing in the Classic, which will be played on Jerry Yeagley Field at Bill Armstrong Stadium.
Former Hoosier to represent Greece in Olympics\nFormer IU baseball star Vasili Spanos has been chosen to represent Greece in this summer's Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.\nSpanos, a former All-American while at IU, is currently playing for the Kane County Cougars, the Oakland Athletics single A affiliate. Despite missing the first month of the season due to injury, Spanos currently is tied for the team lead with 11 home runs and leads the Cougars in RBIs with 70.\nSpanos started at third base for the Hoosiers for four years and accumulated statistics ranking him among the best ever to play baseball at IU. His career batting average of .365 ranks among the top 10 in school history and his .673 career slugging percentage is the second best in IU history.\nSpanos earned first team All-Big Ten honors in both 2001 and 2002 and was selected an American Baseball Coaches' Association third team All-American as a junior and was a preseason All-American prior to 2003. During his senior year, he led the Big Ten in batting average (.434), home runs (8), on-base percentage (.525) and slugging percentage (.778), and earned first team honors for the second consecutive season. \nSpanos, a native of River Forest, Ill., was drafted in the 11th round of the 2003 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft and is scheduled to leave Kane County in early August to train with the national team and prepare for the Olympics.
