The Bowdoin Orient

After outscoring its regular season opponents by nearly 800 points over the last two seasons, the Bowdoin women’s rugby team chose to leave the New England Small College Rugby Conference (NESCRC) in favor of a more challenging schedule.

“It’s what we’ve wanted, and it’s really what we’ve needed,” Head Coach Marybeth Mathews said. “The past two years were very challenging because there wasn’t much of a challenge, which made it hard for us in the postseason to go up against tougher teams without having experienced much competition in the regular season.”

This season the Bowdoin Women’s Rugby Team will play an independent schedule against primarily other Division II varsity teams from the Northeast. The teams that Bowdoin played in the NESCRC were all club teams, so this season the team expects higher levels of organization and skill from its opponents.

“I think the level of play should be increased and improved from last season. These teams are going to have solid, stable coaching staffs and the skill level of the teams will be higher,” Mathews said.

“We’re excited to play more competitive teams,” captain Cristina Lima ’17 said. “It’s definitely going to be a bigger challenge and we’re embracing that.”

Despite the expectation of tougher competition, the team is using the same methods of preparation that they’ve used in previous seasons.

“The way that our practices are set up and the way that we are preparing for our opponents is exactly the same,” captain Samantha Hoegle ’17 said. “However, because of the higher levels of competition, I think what our coaches are teaching us in practice will be more immediately applicable in a game situation, rather than having to wait two months to use it in a national tournament.”

A large portion of the team is new to rugby, which presents another challenge as it enters a more competitive season.

“In a way this is an interesting year to leave the conference because we are younger and we are less experienced than we have been in probably 15 to 20 years,” Mathews said.

“It’s actually kind of nice having a young team; we get to see the program grow right in front of us,” Hoegle said.

Bowdoin had its first scrimmage against Brown, a Division I varsity team, this past weekend. Despite losing 39-14, it was a productive day for the Polar Bears and a great learning experience  to compete against a higher-level program.

“Brown arrived here in the morning, we practiced together, had lunch together and then went back on to the field and had a scrimmage afterwards. That day really shows what is so perfect about the rugby culture—you have fierce competition on the field but great camaraderie off it,” Mathews said.

The team also has a strong senior presence. Motivated by the team’s great run of success in recent seasons, the class hopes to enhance the rugby culture at Bowdoin.

“The seniors really want to leave a legacy for the women that are joining the team,” Mathews said. “They want future classes to know what an honor and a privilege it is to wear the jersey and play rugby here, and that’s really special.”

The team opens the regular season at Molloy College in New York on September 24 at 11 a.m.

The men’s track and field team dominated in its first meet of the outdoor season this past weekend. Bowdoin finished with 317 points, 240 more than the second place finisher, UMaine-Farmington (77 points). Colby (76 points) placed third, Husson (68 points) finished fourth and St. Joseph’s (21 points) fifth.

“I think in general it was just a really strong race,” captain Nick Walker ’16 said. “Usually when you start outdoor track people usually don’t hit their personal records, but in general this was a really good meet all around.”

The win should come as little surprise, as the team posted many impressive results throughout its indoor season. The most notable include a second place finish out of 50 schools at the ECAC Meet and first place at the Maine State Meet.

“I’ve just been blown away by how hard everyone on the team has been working every single day,” Walker said.

Walker cited middle- and long-distance races as the team’s biggest improvement compared to past seasons.

“In terms of the state meet, last year and in past years it always seems like we narrowly lose to Bates,” he said. “This year we were finally able to edge them out and I think the thing that really changed was that the distance runners are consistently performing at a high level, which is in large part because of a really strong freshman class.”

The team won 14 events overall on Saturday. Latif Armiyaw ’18 won the 100 meters (11.76 seconds), Harrison Porter ’19 won the 400 meters (51.76 seconds), John Kennealy ’18 in the 800 meters (1:59.29) and Matt Jacobson in the 1500 (3:59.40). The relay team of Andrew Murowchick ’16, Jibrail Coy ’16, Porter and Armiyah took the 4x100 meter relay (44.20 seconds) and the relay team of Porter, Liam Nicoll ’18, Seamus Power ’16 and Jacob Ellis ’16 won the 4x400 meter relay (3:37.16).

Sprinting, jumping and throwing have been consistently strong over the past couple of years, and that has continued this year. Saturday was no exception, as Brian Greenberg ’18 took the long jump (6.59 meters) and triple jump (13.81 meters), Joseph Staudt ’19 won the high jump (1.80 meters) and 110 meter hurdles (15.42 seconds), John Pietro ’18 won the hammer (46.28 meters) and shot put (13.89 meters), and Thomas Rehnquist ’16 won the discus (39.20 meters).

 “Past years we’ve had certain individuals or teams or relays that were really strong, but we haven’t had a team that was this strong across the board in my entire time at Bowdoin,” Walker said.

According to Walker, another factor that differentiates this team from past seasons and has contributed to their elevated level of play has been the inclusiveness of the team.

“I’ve noticed in past years that event groups usually just hang out together,” Walker said. “There isn’t a lot of intermingling. This year I see people interacting across those boundaries a lot more. It just seems like a much more relaxed atmosphere, so that’s been maybe the nicest part of the track season for me so far and has maybe helped us get some of our good results.”

In the next three weeks, the team has two of its biggest meets: the outdoor Maine State Meet, which will take place on April 23 at Colby, and the NESCAC Championship meet, which will take place April 30 at Amherst.

“States is just kind of a personal pride thing for our team,” Walker said. “Bates, Colby and USM are usually our biggest competitors there and if we can win it just means a lot for our team and pride.”

Walker noted that the NESCAC Championship Meet is also important in rallying the team toward a common goal.

“Something about missing the Saturday of Ivies creates almost an extra commitment that people bring to that meet,” he said.

The team will look to continue its recent successes as they travel to Middlebury this weekend to compete in the Middlebury Invitational on Saturday, April 16 at 11 a.m.

Over the last two winters, Gabriel Renaud ’16 has made a flawless transition from ice hockey to ice cross downhill, a winter extreme sport that consists of high speed downhill skating on a course similar to the luge, but with obstacles. Renaud has raced in nine different countries in front of crowds that often reach 50,000 people.

The objective of the sport is simple: make it to the finish line the fastest. However, unlike many winter sports, the riders do not race individually in an attempt to record the fastest time. Instead, they are released simultaneously in typically heats of four, and have to jockey for position at 40 mph over jumps, waves, sharp turns, and vertical drops. To make matters worse, the ice is often patchy at the later stages of many multi-race events.

“What makes the sport really challenging for me is the ice conditions,” Renaud said. “It’s not like skating on a rink. A lot of people will see us on TV and they think we can’t really skate because we’re off balance, but this isn’t like anything else. You only have 10 centimeters of steel touching the ice and one small move can throw everything off.”

Sixty-four riders compete in each event, and the top two riders in each heat make it to the next round until the final round, where the top rider wins the title. Skaters have been clocked at a top speed of  51 mph, and the longest recorded jump was an estimated 27 meters long. Courses are anywhere between 300 to 600 meters long, and each race is over in a thirty to sixty second long blur in which riders can wipe out in any number of wild ways.

“I was racing in Munich and the course was so fast I ended up doing a totally out of control 720 without even trying,” Renaud said. Other times, though, he hasn’t been so lucky.

“My hardest wipeout was probably in Finland this year. I came into a turn at 35 mph and the ice was so chewed up I just lost an edge and went straight into the boards.”

Still, Renaud has caught on quickly to the new sport, and currently ranks 43rd in the world. Part of his rapid rise has been his strong background in different styles of skating. Renaud began playing ice hockey when he was four, and he and most of the other top riders in the world can attribute their success, in part, to a background in hockey.

“Almost everyone in this sport has a hockey base, because you need to know how to skate,” Renaud said. Red Bull created the sport only a little over fifteen years ago, which makes everyone on tour older than the sport itself.

Since the top riders compete in and travel to so many events together, the group has developed strong ties despite fierce competition on the course.

“There are like 10 races over the year and they’re pretty much all with the same guys. Most of those races take place in a six week period in Europe in the middle of the season, and in between those races I’m just hanging out with them so we’ve  become really good friends and there is a good camaraderie off the track,” he said.

Red Bull sponsors each large event, builds each track and pays the athletes after the races. According to Renaud, each track alone costs between $750,000 and two million dollars. Each Red Bull event—the entirety of Red Bull events are known as the Crashed Ice World Championship Series, Crashed Ice for short—usually requires the closure of city streets for a few weeks.

“All the courses are built of scaffolding, and then they put down these freezing tubes which are filled with glycol,” Renaud said. “When this freezes, it creates cooling mats and they just hose it down with water on top, which forms the ice. It’s a huge marketing expense for Red Bull, and all tickets are free.”

These events, which all take place in urban settings and feature the 64 best riders in the world, routinely draw crowds of up to 50,000 people. Even in Belfast last year, when Red Bull charged 11 Euros per ticket, over 40,000 people attended the event.  

One of the frequent locations for Crashed Ice is Renaud’s hometown of Quebec City. The city has hosted an event almost every year since 2006, and Renaud frequently attended and marveled at the spectacle when he was younger.

“I always knew I wanted to try it out,” he said. “It was one of my dreams.”

When Renaud arrived at Bowdoin, he enjoyed a successful first season on the ice hockey team, and played in 28 of 29 games. However, by the end of the season he had started to become disenchanted with the sport he had played for so long, and felt a pull to branch out into unfamiliar territory.

“Sophomore year I tried to qualify for Crashed Ice and didn’t make it so I trained like crazy over that summer and won the Chicago qualifier. Then I went to St. Paul, MN and went on to do well at the World Championship,” he said. 

St. Paul is also where Renaud travelled this past weekend for the last event of the season. He came into the weekend ranked 36th in the world, but unfortunately tripped over the waves and was eliminated in the round of 64, which bumped him down to 43rd in the world.

On his public Facebook page, Renaud explained that rollers (waves) were his weakness this season, and laid out his goals to practice waves over the summer and work on improving his balance in the air.

One of the toughest elements for Renaud has been balancing the travel schedule with being a full time student.

“I almost took this semester off—I was really close,” he said. “However, when my schedule came out I was so glad because I knew that I would be able to graduate on time.

Renaud’s first race this year was over Thanksgiving Break, and though he was still traveling across Europe for a week after the current semester began, he was able to arrange with his professors a way to get caught up with classes.

In terms of the future of ice cross downhill, there is a chance that it may become an Olympic spectator sport by 2018, and Renaud hopes to still be racing when it happens.  

“I’ve been doing the sport for two years, and I’m still young compared to most riders,” he said. “The average age is like 25 or 26. I know that I can still improve a lot more.

“I think one of my favorite parts about these events is when you’re up at the top of a track, about to start a race, and you see so many people cheering, the music is so loud and the lights are all around you. Just an awesome feeling."

In addition to working tirelessly to improve his own skills on the track, Renaud has also spent recent summers bringing the sport to young kids back home. He is also working to bring an event to New England, which he hopes will materialize in the coming years.

For the third straight season, the Bowdoin women’s soccer team will host Tufts during the first weekend of the NESCAC championship tournament for a quarterfinal match. It’s also the second time the teams will face off this week, with the Polar Bears defeating the Jumbos on the road in their last regular season game by a score of 3-2 this past Tuesday. With the win, Bowdoin (10-4-1, 7-3-0 NESCAC) clinched the second seed, while Tufts (6-7-2, 4-5-1) is seeded seventh for the tournament.

“The fact that we’re playing them twice in the same week presents an interesting dilemma for us,” captain Bridget McCarthy ’16 said. “It’s obviously tough to beat a team twice in a row in the same week.”

The home field advantage should be an important factor in Saturday’s game, as the Polar Bears will not have to travel and also get the luxury of playing on a larger pitch than the one played on Tuesday. Bowdoin’s field has larger dimensions, and according to McCarthy, these are better suited to the Polar Bears’ slower, more calculated build-up play.

“Their field is really small and bumpy and narrow, and we’re a more possession-based team,” McCarthy said. “Our field is one of the nicer fields in the NESCAC and huge compared to theirs, so it kind of lets us play our style of game instead of theirs, which is much more direct and kind of kick and run.”

The teams come into the match seeded the same as last season. Bowdoin won the first round last year, 4-0, to snap a four-game winless playoff streak against the Jumbos. They had also played Tufts earlier that week and won 3-1.

“It’s an interesting situation,” McCarthy said. “But we [beat them twice] last year, and we’re going to do it again this year.”

McCarthy has high expectations for the Polar Bears, who have been to the NCAA championships every year she’s been on the team.  But if the Polar Bears can beat the Jumbos on Saturday, they will have to face even higher-seeded opponents in the following rounds. In the semifinals, they will most likely be facing third-seed Amherst and then top-seed Williams if the Polar Bears were to emerge victorious. Williams will be facing the eighth-seed Hamilton in the first round, and Amherst will face the sixth-seed Middlebury.

The Polar Bears played both Williams and Amherst in September and lost 2-1 and 2-0, respectively. However, this was before the Polar Bears hit their stride. The team has won five games in a row heading into the playoffs.

“We had trouble scoring in the beginning of the season,” McCarthy said. “But now we’re scoring a lot of goals, so it’s looking good for us heading into the playoffs.”

A big part of the Polar Bears’ recent offensive tear has been the strong play of Maggie Godley ’16 and Jamie Hofstetter ’16. Both players have scored four goals over the past five games, which has helped turn the Polar Bears into a serious offensive threat right before postseason play.

“We’ve definitely been upward-trending throughout the season,” McCarthy said. “In the beginning of the year, we were just not finishing our opportunities, and games were much closer. Now we’re maybe letting up a few more goals, but we’re scoring a lot more goals.”

“Tufts is a very tough, physical team,” Head Coach Brianne Weaver said. “But we’re ready. We’re excited to be playing them for the second time in five days. ”

The team will hope to build on its recent playoff success starting tomorrow against the Jumbos at 1:30 p.m. on Pickard Field.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I decided to like sports, but I’m pretty sure I was a Mets fan long before then. After all, my dad and cousins and uncle all rooted for the Mets, and my mom’s side didn’t really seem to root for anyone. So it had to be orange and blue. Later, I would learn that my grandpa had been president of the company that built Shea Stadium, and even later I would learn that perhaps that wasn’t really the reason why we became Mets fans in the first place.

It hasn’t always been easy rooting for the Mets, ’06 through ’08—the years where I was still disillusioned enough to think that I myself could make it to the pros—were definitely the toughest. I remember going outside on a cold, rainy October night and tossing a baseball through tears with my dad after Beltran left the bat on his shoulder in ’06. I remember those agonizing weeks at the end of September the next year, when I watched our seven-game lead evaporate to none. I was there for that last game in ’07, when the collapse was complete, and I was there the next year for Shea’s last game in ’08, where they let another season slip away.

When they tore the stadium down that winter, I wondered if I could now be free from it all. After all, we were only fans because of grandpa, right? I don’t seriously have to keep putting myself through this every year?

Really, I wasn’t fooling anyone. After all, these were surface level questions, perhaps, I thought, not unlike the reason why my family became Mets fans in the first place. That felt more like a corporate, suit-and-tie, Yankee fan reason to like a team, and I still can’t understand how anyone with a soul can seriously feel an attachment to the Yankees. It’s like rooting for Tywin Lannister. Nobody really stands up and cheers when he does his job well (although he certainly has the “Re2pect” of all of Westeros).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that what may look like a superficial reason to be a Mets fan—my grandpa’s company getting the Shea job—is actually quite a personal one. In fact, when I bitterly tried to make a futile attempt at escaping Mets fanhood after ’08 by pointing this out to my dad, he told me that he didn’t remember any changes in his household while the Stadium was being built. Instead, he remembers going to the games in the early years, like when the team went 40-120 in ’62, and falling in love with them anyway. He remembers having trouble scoring the games during those years because we would invent new ways to lose. We were bad and we knew it, but things were fun. Then he remembers watching them become a pitching juggernaut in ’69, and winning it all out of nowhere.

But being a Mets fan, for me, is about more than a championship. It’s about pain and patience, shock, pleasant surprise and absolute pure joy. I know I shouldn’t care this much, but being a Mets fan isn’t that much different from anything you care strongly about. Yes, of course you want to win one, and what the team is doing right now is crazy, what with our three young flamethrowers and Murphy being unstoppable. We’re four wins from a World Series Championship, and somehow I wish we could just stay this close forever.

The Mets play Game One against the Royals tonight. Maybe we’ll win it all, and maybe not. Either way, this team is built for the future. Right now, though, I don’t want to think about what’s to come or what’s in the past. I’m just going to appreciate this special team for a little while longer.

The Bowdoin Men’s Golf team placed fifth of 12 at the Husson Invitational in late September, then came back the next week and tied for last place out of ten teams at the NESCAC Fall Qualifier. This inconsistent play characterized the team’s season.

“I would say this year we probably didn’t perform as well as expected,” captain Thomas Spagnola ’17 said. “Part of that is our inexperience, we’re a very young team. Not a lot of our players had seen the courses that we played on.”

Six of the 11 golfers are either first years or sophomores.

“In some ways [the team’s youth] was a weakness, but it was also a strength as well,” Spagnola said. “The young players definitely improved a lot over the course of the season, and I see them improving a lot in the future.”

“I think right away the four first years bought into our system, both on and off the course. We really got along well as a team. Even though we are graduating three players this year, our first years will be able to step into those roles,” he added.

The week after the NESCAC Qualifier, Bowdoin finished second of three teams at the CBB Championship, losing to Bates by six strokes and defeating Colby by 16. Bowdoin had defeated both teams at the Husson Invitational, but had finished behind Bates and tied for last with Colby at the NESCAC Qualifier. At the USM Invitational, the team’s final tournament of the year, Bowdoin finished sixth out of eight.

“I think despite our poor performance at NESCACs, we rebounded and played well in our last couple tournaments of the year,” Spagnola said.

One area where the team improved throughout the season was in course management—understanding how to play a round given the features of a particular course—an important part of tournament golf.

“It’s about knowing when you can take a risk, and knowing when to play it safe,” Spagnola said. “That’s something that our coaches really emphasized. When you’re out there, one mistake can lead to another, so we just worked hard on course management and minimizing those mistakes.”

Another good aspect of the team’s play was ball-striking ability, though the short game was a real struggle throughout the year.

“I would say we are very good drivers of the ball and have strong iron play, but we are notoriously bad putters, so that is something that we definitely need to work on in the off-season,” Spagnola said.

However, Maine winters make practicing golf in the off-season a difficult proposition, as cold and windy conditions quickly take over.

“I think we would improve more if we got better conditions for longer, but that’s just kind of the nature of New England golf and New England winters,” Spagnola said.

Despite the uneven season, Spagnola has high hopes for next year.

“Even though our results didn’t show it, we had a solid year. And we have a bright future-next year we’re hoping to make some noise.”

The women’s golf team played in five tournaments this year, beginning with three tournaments in which they finished behind rival Bates. However, the Polar Bears progressed in the final two tournaments and finished ahead of Bates in both.

“One of our goals is to always beat Bates,” captain Maddy Fulton ’16 said. “We’re always pretty even in play, so it was a good accomplishment for us to be able to beat them in the last two.”Captain Meredith Sullivan ’16 noted that one of the strengths of the team was that players were able to adjust their game between the first day and the second day of a tournament.

“A lot of our players were dropping shots at every course,” Sullivan said. “We were able to take what we saw from the first day and use it to score better on the second.”

One example of this came when Diya Chopra ’18, shot an 80 in the second round of the Middlebury Invitational on October 4 after shooting an 89 in the first round.

“Dropping nine strokes from the first to the second day is unbelievable,” Sullivan said. “The girls from Williams were shooting like 77-78 so that was an unbelievable score and was really great to see.”

Williams finished first in the tournament, with an overall two-day score of 642, while Bowdoin finished ninth of 12 teams with a score of 778. However, Chopra’s nine-shot drop proved to be essential, as Bowdoin finished ahead of Bates by only seven strokes.

According to Sullivan, hitting a greater percentage of fairways on the drive also contributed to the team’s late-season improvement.

“We definitely got a lot more consistent off the tees,” Sullivan said. “During the beginning of the year, it was kind of a toss-up on tee shots, but towards the end, I know all of us were able to consistently hit a first shot that put us in a position to play a much stronger hole.”

One of the team’s weaknesses was its lack of experience, as two of six members had not yet seen the courses where the team played its tournaments. The team consisted of four sophomores, Sullivan and Fulton. Chopra and Karen Chan ’18 were new to the team this season.

Still, Fulton and Sullivan see the Polar Bears improving next year after having at least this year of experience under their belts.

“We’re going to be an upward trending team in the future,” Fulton said. “We were pretty young this year and we’re hopefully getting some good new first years as well.”

“Next year, more of us will be familiar with the courses where we play tournaments,” Sullivan said. “These are really hard courses, so it will be a huge advantage next year to have a bunch of veterans coming back.”

Bowdoin’s final tournament of the year was the NESCAC Championship, the first ever in NESCAC women’s golf history. The tournament took place this past Sunday. Bowdoin shot a 384 the first day, which was good for fifth of sixth and eight strokes ahead of Bates. The next day, the Polar Bears and the Wildcats both shot a 380, giving Bowdoin the finish ahead of its rival.

“We beat Bates but lost to everyone else. Hopefully in the future as the team grows, we will be able to climb up the rankings,” Fulton said. “I had a great time this season. I’m sad to be leaving after this year. I learned a lot and had some great coaches and great teammates. It was a good year.”

College sailing spans the course of two seasons, opening in September and closing in November before kicking back off in March and going as late as June. Most teams focus the majority of their efforts on the spring season, which features larger regattas and Nationals. Don’t tell that to Bowdoin’s sailors, though. The team opened their fall season red-hot by finishing in the top three of all four competitions they participated in last weekend.

The team raced all over New England last weekend, sending boats to Maine Maritime, where they sailed in the Penobscot Bay Open (PBO) and the Harman Cup. Two more teams competed in the FJ Invitational at Harvard University, and another competed at the Women’s Toni Deutsch Regatta at MIT.

Racing in the PBO were Matt Lyons ’17 and Dana Bloch ’17 in one boat, and Courtney Koos ’16 and Olivia Diserio ’16 in the other. The team finished third out of fifteen. Harrison Hawk ’18, Jack McGuire ’17, Louis Frumer ’18 and Sydney Jacques ’18 took on the Harman Cup. Despite tough conditions on Saturday, the team raced well enough on Sunday to nab a third place finish. In doing so, the Polar Bears qualified for the New England Sloop Championships for the first time since 2004. The Championships will be hosted by Salve Regina on October 17-18.

Meanwhile, Alex Vasiliou ’18, Nora Cullen ’18, Louisa Lindgren ’19, Matt Kaplan ’19, Jake Griffin ’18, Phil Koch ’16, Ellis Price ’18, and Emily Salitan ’16 competed at Harvard. The team placed first and second overall out of fifteen. 

Also sailing on the Charles River were Erin Mullins ’16, Julia Rew ’16, Mimi Paz ’17 and Martie Ogle ’18, at the Toni Deutsch Regatta. The Polar Bears won this event, too, finishing first overall out of fifteen teams.

The success hasn’t affected Head Coach Frank Pizzo’s long-term approach to this year’s campaign, however.

“You know, our seasons are pretty long—we have a long fall season and then a bit of a break and then a long spring season—so I’m not really that worried about results right now,” said Pizzo. “I’m just trying to get our team to improve technique and find out who works well with who—those kind of things”

Nonetheless, the Polar Bears have showed a promising start to the season, with the end goal of returning to the national championships for the third straight year. With a lot of returners from last year’s Nationals team, Pizzo thinks the team has a strong chance of making it to Nationals again.

“We have a couple really good first years that have come in with a lot of enthusiasm,” Pizzo said. “All they want to do is learn from the more experienced people on our team. That’s been great.”

This year’s team features eleven first years and only twenty returners. Getting the new class integrated is one of the early challenges the team faces this season.

“We know it’s not going to be perfect,” Pizzo said. “Obviously we’re getting used to getting new people up to speed and used to practicing at our facility. We know it’s a process, but I would say so far, so good.”

The Polar Bears will continue their season next weekend with regattas at Connecticut College, MIT and UVM.

“It’s a busy time of year for sailing,” Pizzo said. “But we try to give lots of opportunities to race in September when the weather is still nice and maybe the workload is a little less.”

Bowdoin dropped the last two games in a three-game series against Trinity (12-12 overall, 5-5 NESCAC) last weekend before blowing out Thomas, 10-4, in a rain-shortened game on Tuesday. The results brought Bowdoin’s record to 11-16 on the season, and 3-5 within the NESCAC. One of the highlights in the Trinity series was senior captain Henry Van Zant’s quality start in the opener. Van Zant did not allow a hit until the sixth inning and completed the game with seven strikeouts. Trinity mounted a rally in the final frame and pushed a run across the plate, but Van Zant retired the final two batters to preserve a 3-1 victory for the Polar Bears. The win improved Van Zant’s record to 5-1 on the year and brought his ERA down to 1.26. Bowdoin got all the offense it would need for the victory in the first inning with RBI singles from Chad Martin ’16 and Bjorn Hansen ’17. Martin also hit an RBI triple in the third inning to give the Polar Bears a 3-0 lead. Bowdoin opened up the doubleheader on Saturday with a 1-0 defeat to the Bantams. Pitchers on both teams went for a complete game. Despite the loss, captain Erik Jacobsen ’15 struck out two and gave up four hits with no walks in a stellar outing. The lone run in the game came in the fourth inning when Trinity tallied three consecutive two-out singles.

In the last game of the series, both teams were locked at 2-2 from the third until the final inning. Captain Aaron Rosen ’15 launched a solo home run down the left field line in the third inning to even up the score. It was Rosen’s fourth home run of the year—which ties him with Martin for a team high. Trinity’s bats came alive in the final frame, and the Bantams crossed the plate four times. Bowdoin got one run back in the bottom half of the inning, as Tom Wells ’15 drove in Martin.  After losing the conference series at home, Bowdoin won handily against Thomas on Tuesday despite making five errors. Michael Staes ’16 got the start for Bowdoin and struck out seven over five innings while only giving up two runs on two hits. The Polar Bears took advantage of several wild pitches by the Terriers in the first inning, when they tallied four runs. The Polar Bears scored five more in the fifth, three of which came on a bases-clearing double from Stephen Girolamo ’16. The game was called short in the sixth due to rain, with Bowdoin already ahead by six runs. The Polar Bears will return to action at home against Colby today at 3 p.m. 

After playing 13 games in 11 days, the baseball team returned from its annual trip to Florida on March 20 with a 5-8 record. The trip was defined by three distinct stretches. The team went 1-4 in its first five games. It then seemed to find its form, going 4-1 over a four-day stretch before dropping its last three games in Florida.

“In the middle games we started to hit our stride and we got used to playing outside,” Captain Aaron Rosen ’15 said. “Guys were getting healthier and things were starting to pick up, but then by the end of the trip things started to drag a little. Thirteen games in 11 days is a lot, so there’s an expected drop in energy level.”

“I hate to make excuses,” he continued, “but when we got down there we hadn’t even practiced on an actual baseball field yet. We also lost a couple of key guys due to injuries in the first couple games so we were battling from the start.”

Despite the difficulties in the early games, Rosen said that younger players did a great job stepping in for injured players. 

“Guys who really weren’t expected to play have filled in and done a great job,” he said. “Evann Dumont-Lapointe ’17 and Nick Sadler ’18 have been awesome, and so have a bunch of other guys. It’s kind of been a seamless transition.”

Over the course of the 13 games, first baseman Chad Martin ’16 batted .340 with a team-leading 15 RBIs and three home runs. Third baseman Cole DiRoberto ’15 hit .367, infielder Sean Mullaney ’17 hit .378, and Rosen—who plays shortstop—hit .375 with two home runs.

On the mound, captain Henry Van Zant ’15 went 1-1 with 20 strikeouts in 14 innings pitched and passed a 2.57 ERA. Michael Staes ’16 went 1-0 in two starts with a 1.64 ERA and 11 strikeouts in 10 innings. Harry Ridge ’16 went 1-1 with a 4.00 ERA in three starts, and captain Erik Jacobsen ’15 went 1-2 with a 4.71 ERA.

One of the highlights of the trip was Bowdoin’s 5-1 win over Endicott on March 16. Harry Ridge ’16 pitched six shutout innings against the Gulls, who have gone to the NCAA Regional Championship and won over thirty games in each of the last two seasons. The last time the two teams played, Endicott won 11-3.

“They’re a phenomenal team,” Rosen said. “They always play us tough and usually beat us, but Harry went out there and just shut them down. I think in general there were a lot of games where we didn’t roll over and die. We came up with a lot of late rallies, and I think that just speaks to the character of the team overall.”

Bowdoin has always placed a strong emphasis on pitching, though Rosen says that the hitters this year are better than in years past. This was evident in offensive onslaughts in victories against Roger Williams (18-3) and Babson (16-9). Against Roger Williams, Martin went 5-5 with seven RBI, and four extra base hits including two home runs.

“It’s weird because this is the worst record at this point in the seasonin my four years here,” Rosen said, “but I’m 100 percent confident that this is the best team we have had talent-wise.”

The Polar bears will look to get their season back on track in a three game series against Tufts this weekend at the New England Baseball Complex in Northboro, Mass.

Last weekend, the men’s hockey team wrapped up a two-game road trip with a 2-2 tie against Middlebury and a 5-2 loss to Williams. On Wednesday, they responded with a 6-1 win over the University of Southern Maine (USM).

At Middlebury, the Polar Bears found themselves down 2-1 late in the third period. With the goalie pulled, Jason Nawrocki ’18 scored his first career Bowdoin goal with 1:22 remaining in the game to tie the score at two.

“That was an all-around team effort on Friday night. It was a good battle,” said captain Danny Palumbo ’15. “Coming back after being 2-1 down late in the third showed a lot of resiliency. We put it all on the line and got the job done.”

Earlier in the season, Bowdoin defeated Middlebury 6-0. However, the Panthers have improved markedly since then.

“They were coming off road wins against two of the top five teams in the country,” Palumbo said. “So they were definitely a different team—especially at home too.” 

Still, Bowdoin made enough plays to come away with a point against Middlebury. Against Williams, however, the Polar Bears were not so lucky.

“We worked hard from start to finish against Williams,” said Palumbo. “But we kind of dug ourselves into a hole after the first period and allowed three goals. I think our lines were clicking and we had pretty sustained pressure in the offensive zone, but other than that the three goal deficit in the first period definitely hurt us.”

Earlier in the season, the two teams played to a 3-3 draw. Bowdoin outshot Williams 36-30 in that game. Despite outshooting Williams again last weekend, 29-27, Bowdoin was unable to hit the back of the net as effectively as the Ephs. Connor Quinn ’15 and Spencer Antunez ’18 scored the two goals for the Polar Bears.

“We had four or five scoring chances that we didn’t capitalize on, so that was a game changer for us,” added Palumbo.

Bowdoin dropped to 9-5-3 (4-5-3 NESCAC) following the loss, while Williams improved to 11-3-2 (7-2-1 NESCAC).

Bowdoin returned to action with Wednesday’s 6-1 victory over USM. Zach Kokosa ’17 netted a scrum goal in the first period to kick off the scoring. 

Daniel McMullan ’18 scored next with less than a minute to play in the first. Mitch Barrington ’17 gave the Polar Bears a three-goal lead with a power play goal early in the second period before pushing the lead to four with his second soon after. Antunez and Camil Blanchet ’18 each tallied one goal in the third to give the Polar Bears a total of six goals.

Bowdoin gets this weekend off and will next face Hamilton at home on February 6 at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, men’s soccer suffered a season-ending 1-0 loss to Brandeis in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The team defeated The College at Brockport 3-2 in overtime the day before, to advance past the first round.

It was the first time the team had made an appearance in the NCAA tournament since 2010, when they advanced to the semi-finals before a loss to Lynchburg College knocked them out of the tournament.

“We always had high expectations for ourselves at the beginning of the season,” captain Thomas Henshall ’15 said. “Our goal was to win a NESCAC championship and by doing that make an NCAA appearance. I always thought that we had the ability to do that and we are very pleased with that overall.”

Against Brockport, Bowdoin fell behind twice before moving ahead for good. The Ellsworths took the lead in the 5th minute when leading scorer Peter DiLorenzo ’17 scored off a cross on the game’s first shot.

 “I think DiLorenzo is as good as a forward as we have played all season long,” Head Coach Scott Wiercinski said.

Bowdoin struck back in the 41st minute when Henshall hit a hard shot that deflected off a Brockport player and into the back of the net to tie the game at 1-1.  Brockport regained the lead in the 59th minute when a corner kick went directly into the goal. Bowdoin equalized in the 70th minute when Nabil Odulate ’16 headed in a corner from  Sam Ward ’18. The Ellsworths dominated the first few minutes of overtime until Hunter Miller ’16 stole the ball at midfield, dribbled his way through several defenders, then passed the ball into the lower-right corner of the net for game winning goal, which doubled as his first goal of the year.“To go down twice in a game and still win shows a lot out of the team and kind of represented our whole season,” captain Eric Goitia ’15.

Brockport led 13-12 in shots, and 5-4 on corner kicks. Both teams had 4 shots on goal.“I thought the guys were really mature and really mentally tough to come back from some of the mistakes that we were making,” said Wiercinski. “So in that way it was really rewarding to come away with a win because we made things difficult for ourselves at a couple of points.”In the second round, Bowdoin was locked in a scoreless tie with Brandeis at the end of the first half, despite the Judges’ controlling play. They outshot Bowdoin 9-0 in the first half. The Polar Bears nearly had a goal in the 4th minute, though, off the head of Matt Dias Costa ’17, who was ruled offsides.

 “I think Brandeis is skilled in a lot of ways,” said Wiercinski. “They pass the ball as well as any team we’ve played all year and play an aggressive style on defense. But I thought our guys really stuck to the game plan, and playing against such a good opponent in Brandeis is just difficult.” In the second half, Brandeis scored the game winner in the 60th minute off a header that found its way just inside the far post. The Judges outshot Bowdoin 18-4 over the course of the game, with five of Brandeis’ shots being on goal to Bowdoin’s two. Brandeis advanced to 19-2 on the season with the win, while Bowdoin concluded the season with a 10-7-3 record.

 “It was a disappointing way to end our season,” Wiercinski continued. “Only one team in the country finishes with a win, and we’re not that team unfortunately. But I think the adventure we had as a team was just an awesome experience, and I think the guys can always look to that NESCAC championship and feel like there’s really something that came out of that hard work and camaraderie and effort.”

Sam White ’15 scored late in Bowdoin’s NESCAC quarterfinal game to upset the hosting Ephs 2-1 on Saturday in a wild game.

White scored from 25 yards out with a shot into the left corner in the 79th minute to give the Polar Bears the lead. It was White’s team-leading fifth goal of the season.

After missing the last two games due to injury, White scoreed his second game-winner of the year and earned Co-NESCAC Player of the Week honors.

The victory was the Polar Bear’ first win over Williams in postseason play in six tries, dating back to 1988. With the win, the team advances to its second straight NESCAC semifinal.

 “We knew that it was win or go home so we were excited to just get out there and play,” said captain Eric Goitia ’15.

The No. 6 seed Polar Bears upset of No. 3 seed Williams was not the only surprise in NESCAC soccer last weekend. No. 8 seed Connecticut College beat top seeded Tufts 2-1, meaning that Amherst is the top remaining seed and will host the remainder of the tournament this weekend.

Tufts had lost only one game all season prior to Saturday and had yet to lose a conference match. Conn. College’s win puts the Camels into their first ever NESCAC tournament semifinal.

“I really think we played pretty well in all facets of the game,”  said Head Coach Scott Wiercinski. “I thought in the first half we didn’t do much to generate a whole lot of offense, but at the same time our defense was really good and we didn’t give up a whole lot of chances in the first half.”

 In the 48th minute, Nabil Odulate ’16 drove home Bowdoin’s first goal following a corner kick. The goal was Odulate’s first of the year.  The team conceded a goal just five minutes later. “It was a little disappointing that after we scored our first goal we gave up the tying goal quickly thereafter,” Wiercinski said. “But they are a really good team. They really came at us after we scored the goal and were really aggressive.”

 “I do think we were able to settle down in some ways after they scored. I think we did a really good job of just getting back at it and passing the ball and moving well,” he said. The Polar Bears outshot the Ephs 13 to eight and had twice as many shots on goal. All of Bowdoin’s shots on goal came in the second half. The Polar Bears  also held a slight 7-6 edge in corner kicks.

 “I think we came together well in the second half and started to create a lot of dangerous opportunities,” Goitia said.

 The team faces Middlebury at Amherst on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. With a win, the Polar Bears would advance to their first NESCAC final since 2010. If the team wins the NESCAC tournament will recieve an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, which the team also has not reached since 2010.

Last year’s team failed to recieve an at-large bid after losing a  heartbreaking double overtime game to eventual NCAA quarterfinalist Amherst.

After eight days of rest and practice, the men’s soccer team returned to the pitch on Wednesday to defeat Husson University, 4-0, at home.

With this triumph the Polar Bears have won consecutive games for the first time this season and improve their record to 4-3 overall. Sam Ward ’18 opened the scoring in the 26th minute after Connor Keefe ’16 found Ward open at the top of the box. He took a shot that hooked just under the crossbar to give Bowdoin a 1-0 lead. 

Ben Citrin ’16 doubled the Polar Bear lead just before halftime with a fantastic individual effort. After his initial shot rebounded off the post Citrin regained possession and found the back of the net the second time, giving the Polar Bears a 2-0 lead. Citrin finished the game with a goal and two assists.

Bowdoin scored again in the 54th minute when captain Eric Goitia ’15 headed a corner kick from Citrin into the goal for his second score of the season. The scoring ended just seven minutes later when Citrin and Kiefer Solarte ’16 worked the ball into the middle of the box for Colton Hall ’16, who scored for the first time this season.

 “We focused a lot this week on getting shots on target,” said Goitia. “We did that a lot yesterday and tested the keeper a lot, which was a good collective effort from the whole team.” The loss snapped the Eagles’ four game win streak, and brought them to 6-4 overall. Bowdoin controlled possession for most of the game, finishing with 34 total shots and 16 on goal, while Husson finished with just two shots, both on goal.

 “It was a pretty complete game,” said Goitia. “We did well defensively and scored four goals offensively. We did a good job controlling possession and finished our opportunities when we got them. I think we had a good performance against UNE last week too.”

 Bowdoin has shut out their opponents in each of the last two games. Having complete games from start to finish has been one of their goals since the beginning of the season, according to Goita.

 “We’re taking it one game at a time right now,” Goitia said. “Obviously every win is good and builds confidence, but we’re excited to get back in the NESCAC and prove that we’re a contender in our league.”

 The Polar Bears are currently 1-3 in conference play and have a chance to raise their record at noon tomorrow in a crucial match against Trinity.

Last Tuesday the men’s soccer team outlasted Bates in a 2-1 double overtime win, marking its first conference victory of the season.

“Three points and a win against Bates is something that’s very nice to bring home,” said Head Coach Scott Wiercinski.

“I think we played particularly well on the offensive end,” Wiercinski added. “To score two goals against an in-league, in-state rival is great.”

Connor Keefe ’16 scored the first goal of the game off a feed from Andrew Jones ’16. Jones laid the ball right in front of the net for Keefe to slide in and knock it past the keeper.  

The second goal came late in double overtime with the play starting off a corner kick from Hunter Miller ’16. Miller passed it to Melong ’15 who played a ball into the box that Keefe headed to Ben Citrin ’16. Citrin played it to Eric Goitia ’15 who banged home the winning goal with 2:39 left in the period.

“When you get five guys involved in a goal it’s always a good thing,” Coach Wiercinski said.Earlier in the week the team fell to Amherst at home in a 1-0 defeat.

Although the Polar Bears came away from the game without a point, their play is encouraging moving forward with the rest of the season.

“[Amherst is] a particularly difficult team to play against because they’re so aggressive,” said Wiercinski. “But I thought we defended very well and we just made a few mistakes, which, unfortunately, accounted for the difference in the scoreboard.”

Goitia was also content with the team’s play.

“Overall, we put together a pretty good performance against Amherst except for a couple mistakes that ended up costing us,” said  Goitia.  “Attacking-wise we had some good chances against both Amherst and Bates.”

Though some players found positives to take from the games this week, they still see areas where the team needs to upgrade its play if it wants to be succesful later in the season.

“Most importantly I think our sense of urgency needs to improve,” said Wiercinski. “There have been too many occasions where the wrong guy in the field is taking a timeout mentally and not fully engaged in whats important, whether defending or attacking, and some of those mistakes have really cost us.”

Based on improvements the team has made thus far, Goitia has high hopes for future games. “I think we have a good team and have a lot more season left to prove it,” Goitia said.

The Polar Bears travel to Middlebury tomorrow to take on the Panthers at noon.

Last Saturday the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams traveled to Wesleyan, where they defeated both the Cardinals and the Trinity Bantams. The women beat Trinity 197-96 and Wesleyan 168-129, while the men also routed both squads with final scores of 213-80 and 219.50-67.50, respectively.

On the women’s side, Lela Garner ’16, Sophia Walker ’17 and Christine Anderson ’17 won big. Garner won the 200 freestyle and the 200 individual medley, Walker won the 100 free and 50 free, and Anderson took the one and three-meter dives.

“Lela Garner swam some really great races,” said co-captain Helen Newton ’14. “Not only did she finish first, but also in the last 100 meters she demolished everyone, which was really great to see.”

On January 11, the women’s track and field team finished first with 246 points in a meet against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) (163) and Connecticut College (107). In their most recent meet on January 18, the women finished second out of four schools with 152 points, losing only to defending D-III national champions MIT (283.50), while defeating Springfield (81) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) (55.5).

In the first meet, Bowdoin finished first in several field events. Hayleigh Kein ’15 finished first in the long jump, Erin Silva ’15 finished first in the pole vault, and Katie Krupp ’16 won the triple jump. Addison Carvajal ’16 and Krupp placed first and second respectively in the long jump. Carvajal also won the pentathlon, and Randi London ’15 won the shot put.

Bowdoin also claimed first in numerous track events in the RPI meet. Captain Emily Clark ’15 won the 200-meter dash and the 60-meter hurdles. First year Meghan Bellerose won the 600 meter run, Alana Mendendez ’15 the 800, and Lucy Skinner ’16 claimed the mile. Cleo Daoud ’15 and Liz Znamierowski ’16 placed first and second respectively in the 400, while Bowdoin’s relay team of Znamierowski, Daoud, Clark and Bellerose also took first in the 4x400.

Last Saturday, the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams opened their seasons at home against MIT and Babson College.  MIT swept both the men and women in swimming, defeating the women 194-93 and the men 215-82. Bowdoin, however, bested both the Babson men and women with head-to-head scores of 205-90 and 216-81, respectively.

“MIT has more talent on paper,” said Head Coach Brad Burnham. “They are a top 10 school on the women’s side, and a top-two-or-three school on the men’s side. And they’ve been training longer. We got touched out in a lot of races—points were lopsided in that way.”

One bright spot for the Polar Bears was the performance of first year Tim Long, who finished first in the 1,000 meter free-style with a time of 9:58:36. Long became the second Bowdoin swimmer to finish the event in under ten minutes, and was two seconds away from beating the school record of 9:56:94 set by Conrad Stuntz ’94. Long finished 11 seconds ahead of the second place swimmer.