UTAH

BASEBALL: Utah freshman catcher and designated hitter C.J. Cron has been named to the Baseball America Freshman All-America team. Cron was selected as a second-team catcher.

The Baseball America squad is the third Freshman All-America team Cron has been named to this year. He was also selected as a second-team catcher by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and was named to the Collegiate Baseball team as a designated hitter.

The Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year, Cron hit .337 for the year and led the Utes in hits (83), doubles (19), home runs (11) and RBI (58).

UTAH STATE

GYMNASTICS Coach Jeff Richards announced Tuesday that Janet Anson has been hired as an assistant coach for the Aggies. Anson replaces Dayna Smart-Allen, who resigned to pursue other personal options.

Anson, a native of Kansas City, Mo., comes to USU after two years as a volunteer assistant coach at Iowa State, where she shared coaching responsibilities for floor and vault, along with planning floor workouts and endurance training.

"I'm very excited for her to be here. I think she brings a lot of experience to the table, both from her time competing and her coaching career, learning from Iowa State head coach Jay Ronayne," Richards said.

Last season, Anson helped guide the Cyclones to a No. 19 national ranking in the final Troester/GymInfo Women's Gymnastics Rankings. ISU finished third in the North Central Regional, the same regional that Utah State's five individuals competed. The Cyclones had three Big 12 individual champions, winning a share of the beam title, while winning the vault and bars individual crowns outright.

"She was a national competitor all four years she was at Iowa State, leading them to the Super Six two years. I think she'll bring out a great deal of experience from the high level competitive meets to help the girls mentally and physically in those late season big meets like conference championships, regional meets and hopefully soon, the NCAA championships," Richards said.

Richards is familiar with both Anson's competitiveness and coaching skills, having coached against her when he was an assistant at Iowa, and he's excited about them progressing from foes to allies.

Utah State finished the 2009 season 1-19 overall and 0-9 in Western Athletic Conference action, finishing sixth at the WAC Championships meet. While USU did not qualify as a team to the NCAA North Central Regional Gymnastics meet, the Aggies did send five individuals.

USU loses only one senior in Nicki Felley and the Aggies will return seven letterwinners. Utah State was ranked No. 47 in the final rankings.