Tyler Grant '17

Athlete of the Week: Emma Chow '15

Women’s tennis captain Emma Chow ’15 shined at last weekend’s Intercollegiate Tennis Association New England Regional Championship, capturing second place and a qualification for the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships in South Carolina with her partner Tess Trinka ’18. The pair will participate in the tournament from October 9 through October 12.
This marks the first time the team will be represented at this event. The pair opened the Regional Championship seeded second, which surprised members of the team seeing as Chow and Trinka had only played together for a couple practices before the event.
“In the end, we actually lived up to our seeding,” Chow said. “I honestly don’t know how they came up with those. The team that beat us should have been seeded much higher as well.”
Head Coach Hobie Holbach is known for frequently mixing and matching his doubles line-ups, and he highly doubts that Chow and Trinka will play together in the spring.
“It’s great when [Chow] gets to play with a first-year,” Holbach said. “She can teach [her] along the way, by example and with words.”
Chow and Trinka’s path to the finals took them past the No. 1 pairs from Wesleyan and Amherst, as well as the No. 3 team from Williams. They escaped some close matches on the way, including a 9-8 (7-5) tiebreaker win and an 8-6 win.
“It was really about keeping our mental poise,” Chow said. “We had a few tight matches we could have lost.”
Chow said that she believes she and Trinka can win in South Carolina. Holbach said that competition in the Northeast region, where four of the nation’s top 10 teams reside, is comparable to what they should expect to see at nationals. Chow did note that Emory, last year’s national champion, would likely earn a spot in the tournament as well.
Chow received a tennis racket for her fourth birthday and began her tennis career shortly after. Until coming to Bowdoin, her father was the only coach she ever had.
Through playing in doubles leagues as a child, she developed an appreciation for the game and is now an experienced doubles player with a mastery of positioning and an aggressive net game.
“She knows what she’s supposed to do,” Holbach said. “She understands the doubles game and in terms of understanding situations, she’s outstanding.”
Holbach also played a large part in developing Chow’s much improved net game.“She goes to the net a lot because that’s what she’s best at,” he said. “I try to develop what they’re best at and avoid what they’re not so good at. Her whole game is structured around getting to the net… She probably does that more than anybody that she plays.”
This year, Chow has been developing a kick serve that reaches returners over their left shoulder, forcing right-handed players to hit a difficult backhand. In the past she tried to slice her serve down the “T” where the two services boxes meet. She still employs this technique on her approaches.
“She mostly slices,” sophomore Pilar Giffenig said. “On her forehand, she does hit topspin sometimes, but she mostly slices. It’s very low but it bounces deep so it’s hard to judge where it’s going to go. It makes it harder for the other person to attack.”
Sam Stalder ’17 mentioned that Chow’s height gives her an added advantage, especially with her new style of play.
“For me, I can’t go to the net right away because they’ll lob it right over me,” the 5’2” sophomore said. “But she’s much taller and stronger and very intimidating at the net”.
“She’s very consistent,” Giffenig added. “But she also hits it hard enough to put it away.”Chow is the only senior on the roster, and with junior captain Tiffany Cheng abroad this fall, she has been responsible for leading the particularly young team to its hot start.
“[Junior Tiffany Cheng] is gone so all I’ve got is a bunch of freshman and sophomores,” Holbach said. “They call her Mama Chow.”

Athlete of the Week: Colleen Finnerty '15

Field Hockey

Colleen Finnerty ’15 scored three goals on penalty corners in the field hockey team’s 9-1 win over Connecticut College on Saturday and added an assist in Tuesday’s 7-1 win over Rhodes. The Polar Bears allowed only four shots in its victory Tuesday.
Finnerty, a defender and team captain, has scored four goals in three games and commands the left side of a defensive unit that has allowed just five goals in 13 games. Connecticut College’s lone goal in the game came just as time expired after the Bowdoin starting defense had been pulled.
Finnerty has taken penalty corners all season for the team, and she believes the team’s 34-goal scoring streak over five games results partially from conversions on these set plays. Penalty corners are widely considered a team’s best chance of scoring, and Finnerty estimated that as many as four of the five goals scored against Williams, and about five of seven scored against Southern Maine, were scored off of corners.
“She’s the quarterback of the corner,” captain Pam Herter ’15 said. “She’s involved in every single goal we score off of the corner, regardless of whether she’s the one who puts the ball in the back of the net.”
Rhodes’ goal on Tuesday also represented the first time Bowdoin’s starters had allowed a goal off of a penalty corner.
“I don’t think this is a stat you could look up, but if you could, you’d see how many defensive saves she had.” Herter said. “She’s really robbed a lot of teams of their goals.”
While Finnerty is the oldest of Bowdoin’s nearly impenetrable defensive line, she has arguably the least experience at the position, and perhaps at the game itself. An ice hockey player first, she picked up field hockey in high school when she was required to fill her fall season. Field hockey was an obvious choice. “If it has anything to do with hockey, you play it,” she said.
Finnerty came to Bowdoin to play ice hockey and walked on to the field hockey team, though Head Coach Nicky Pearson was already aware of her. Finnerty’s high school coach is a Bowdoin Field Hockey alumna and was eager to refer a potential Polar Bear for recruitment. Pearson has been tremendously successful at developing ice hockey players to excell at field hockey, despite their comparatively limited experience with the game. Such players are often able to leverage the athleticism they gain from ice hockey to create advantages for themselves, and Finnerty is no exception.
“She pops up where you have no idea how she got there or where she came from,” Kim Kahnweiler ’16 said.
Pearson also acknowledges that Finnerty’s experience playing ice hockey can be seen when playing field hockey.
“She’s always had a great stick and good hands,” she said. “She stops the ball cleanly and handles the ball well.”
A forward on the ice, she started as a field hockey midfielder before transitioning to defense her junior year so she could help fill the holes created by graduated seniors.
An offensive-minded player by nature, Finnerty worried about this transition to defense, but was told she could roam up the field as long as she could get back to play defense. In addition, Pearson teaches the entire team to move forward and backward with the ball, so the defense can move as far up the field as the offensive 25-yard-line.
“I had to learn how to play defense last year,” Finnerty said. “It’s a different set of skills that you have to learn to use all of the time.”
“At this point I’ve stopped worrying about whether she’s going to get back,” Kahnweiler said. “There were times when we were still learning that I would get a little nervous. Now I wouldn’t give it a second thought. “
“She’s key in our transition game and also a scoring threat.” added Pearson. “She truly has an impact all over the field.”

Athlete of the Week

Football

Alex Vasile

Orient Staff

October 17, 2014

Running back Tyler Grant ’17 rushed a school record 43 times for 208 yards and scored all four of Bowdoin’s touchdowns in their October 4th win against Tufts.

He followed the effort on Saturday with 29 more carries and two touchdowns in the team’s victory over Hamilton. After four games, Grant’s 118 total carries lead the NESCAC by 29—over a game’s worth of rushes.

In addition to winning the NESCAC player of the week award, Grant became the first Bowdoin player since 1998 to win the New England Football Writers’ Association Division II/III Gold Helmet, which he was awarded two weeks ago. He is currently second in the NESCAC in yards per game, averaging 112.2.

Grant started playing football in fifth grade as a quarterback but was moved to running back a year later because of his height. He always planned on playing in college. Grant’s father and brother also played at the collegiate level.

“I’ve always loved football,” said Grant. “I could think about how my life would be without it—the camaraderie, the contact, everything.”

Grant, who went to high school in New Hampshire, also added that he always wanted to go to a NESCAC school, noting the academic reputation and ability to connect quickly with the team and its coaches.

During his first season, Grant and Zach Donnarumma ’14 stepped into prominent roles when Trey Brown ’16 became injured. Grant played in five games and tallied 67 carries.

This season, now that Donnarumma has graduated and Brown is still injured, Grant’s position in the starting lineup has been secure.

“It’s kind of funny when you look at it, but after last year, Ty’s our most senior running back,” said captain and tight end Matt Perlow ’15.

Quarterback Mac Caputi ’15 estimates that Grant is in the backfield 90 to 95 percent of the time, including passing downs. Caputi considers him a legitimate threat catching the ball out of the backfield. Grant has also proven a capable blocker out of the backfield as well.

“He’s just a workhorse,” Perlow said. “As an o-line unit, if we can open any seam, he can hit it. He can do it all.”

Both Caputi and Perlow agree that the running game was essential to the team’s success in both of their wins this season.

“We established ourselves pretty early on the ground,” said Caputi. “It makes it easier. You’re saying you’re more physical than the other person. That’s what football boils down to.”

“If we find something that’s working, we’ll stick with it,” said Perlow of Grant’s 43-carry game. “We’ll run power 40 times”

A bit undersized for his position at 5’10” and 168 pounds, Grant has succeeded largely as a straight-ahead runner, forcing his way through the line and trying to make a safety miss at the second level. His number of carries shows that he can handle a large workload in any game, and he has converted his six touchdowns from all over the field—proving his versatility.

Grant remains in the game in short-yardage situations and has scored two touchdowns from the one-yard line. In addition, his touchdown runs of 42 and 39 yards against Tufts and Hamilton, respectively, sealed the win for the team by putting the lead out of reach.
“By the end of the game, we’ve been pounding and pounding it and then I get out to the outside and beat them with speed,” said Grant. “Our fullback Jack Donovan [’15] is having an incredible year. He’s really been the key to my success, along with the line.”

Bowdoin football faces undefeated teams in its next two games, and Grant’s success finding holes in the defense will certainly affect the outcomes of those games if Bowdoin continues with their run-heavy attack going forward.

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