The Bowdoin Orient

Clare McLaughlin ’15 scored three goals and had one assist—a career high in goals and points—to help the women’s lacrosse team overcome an early deficit against Colby and give the team a halftime lead they would not relinquish. McLaughlin has recorded 27 goals and three assists in 16 games this season, placing her at sixteenth in the NESCAC and second on the team in goals.

McLaughlin scored two goals off of free-position shots, awarded because of drawn fouls within the eight meter attacking box. These opportunities are similar to penalty shots in that, although the other players remain on the field, the fouled player is given a direct lane for a one-on-one with the goaltender. McLaughlin’s other goal, Bowdoin’s eighth, saw her sprint down the field into the attacking box, spin off a defender, draw another and unleash a quick strike at a sharp angle. She finished up all three goals by emphatically throwing her stick to the ground, a common celebration for the team during the Colby game.  

“Clare’s really good at driving right and dodging through defenders,” said midfielder and linemate Lindsay Picard ’16. “She goes to goal with a lot of speed, which is very advantageous for her, and takes a harder shot that’s more difficult for the goalie to save.”

This season McLaughlin is a mainstay in Bowdoin’s starting lineup as one of the seven featured scoring threats, five of whom topped 25 goals this season. After seeing time in only six games as a first year, she saw time in each of the team’s games  in her next two seasons, but started no more than three. Similarly, before this season, McLaughlin had never topped three goals in a season.

McLaughlin, a Vermont native, started playing lacrosse in middle school and, though she pursued a college career in the sport, did not play at the club level before Bowdoin, instead devoting time toward skiing and soccer. McLaughlin acknowledges that she has really benefited from the team’s free-flowing style of play, which capitalizes on team chemistry to eschew set plays for quick reads on the field.

“I just try to work really hard,” she said. “I’m more of a go-with-the-flow type of player. I figure it out as it happens.”

Playing this way has led to a balanced attack that teams have struggled to defend, as anyone on Bowdoin’s offense presents a threat. Moreover, the team has played together long enough to take advantage of each player’s respective strengths. Picard notes that the other players have become attuned to noticing when McLaughlin is looking to drive. But even more, McLaughlin finds playing this way is a lot more fun.

“There’s less structure and more trusting each other,” she said. “I think it’s way more fun, and we all play better when we’re having fun.”

McLaughlin has used this approach to navigate the gauntlet that is the NESCAC playoffs as well, where all four quarterfinal games were decided by a goal.

“I have fun playing,” she said. “The more you win the more you get to go out there. I try not to think of it as pressure.”

She also looks at each day as an opportunity to improve and keep the team in the game for another week. As the team looks forward to its semifinals match against Middlebury, it puts itself in range for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament, though even if it does not win the tournament, the team may have to knock off Middlebury to get it.

“At this point it comes down to having more grit and tenacity, especially at this point when all the teams are good,” McLaughlin said. “I’m always trying to get better every day and improve my understanding.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

In the track and field team’s second-place finish at the Maine State Outdoor Championship, first year Liam Nicoll took first place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.06 seconds. The victory is the capstone of a season that has seen him rise from an unheralded newcomer to the 400-meter, through the many qualifying heats to a state championship and a second seed at this week’s NESCAC tournament.

Nicoll’s immediate success is rare for a 400-meter runner. The race is brutal: a sprint that requires near maximum exertion over a distance the human body cannot expect to cover at full-speed.

“It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever done in my life,” former 400m runner Jimmy Donnellan ’16 said. Donnellan, who has since moved to the 200m sprint, still practices with Nicoll, who referred to these practices as essential to his development.

Training for this race is difficult as well, because it is nearly impossible to practice racing speed trials.

“There’s a lot of trial and error to it. You can’t run a full-speed 400,” Nicoll said. “If you did it any more than once every week or every two weeks, you wouldn’t be able to do it anymore.”

Instead Nicoll focuses on his form, staying relaxed, and mapping out his run. He has stuck with a strategy of sprinting the first 120 meters, resting for the next 80 or so, and then sprinting the last 200 meters as fast as he can.

Donnellan also mentioned that typically, runners join the team with at least some 400m experience. He said that “only world-class athletes” could expect to come in and run one competitively for the first time. Yet Nicoll never ran the 400m in high school. In fact, he did very little organized running. A baseball player first, Nicoll had some experience with a 300m indoor race, but never made it through an outdoor season without injury. A torn hamstring effectively moved him from the 200m and shorter races to the 400m in college. The next interval, the 800-meter, required a background in distance running that Nicoll did not have.

Nicoll started the season experimenting with the 200m, and even ran an 800m, but settled into the 400m, which is now his strongest event. 

On his race last weekend, and on the NESCAC Championship coming up, Nicoll said he was running for the seniors, particularly Jarred Kennedy-Loving ’15, who ended his season in the fall by breaking his leg. Nicoll credited Kennedy-Loving’s motivation for his performance, and believes that he is primed to improve his time at NESCACs. He is also looking forward to racing Colby’s Brian Summers, one of the fastest runners in the division and the top-seeded runner in the 400m.

Julia Geaumont ’16 scored three runs, hit a home run and knocked in three RBIs in this weekend’s tripleheader sweep of Trinity. Geaumont also pitched two of the three games, allowing only one run and eight hits and improving her record on the mound to 10-3 this season.

Geaumont has seen time in the pitching rotation since her first year at Bowdoin. She factored prominently in last year’s four-pitcher rotation with Melissa DellaTorre ’14, Emily Griffin ’17, and Alana Luzzio ’17, starting nine games, pitching in 15, and finishing the season 7-1. 

Since DellaTorre’s graduation, Geaumont has taken over as leader of the rotation, and has started 13 games already this season. She has pitched more games than all but one pitcher in the NESCAC and also ranks second in the NESCAC in wins. She has performed well despite operating on little rest because of a condensed schedule; the team played five games over the last weekend, had a double-header on Wednesday, and will play six games over three days this weekend.

“You try to match your pitchers with strengths and weaknesses of teams, but sometimes you have to say, ‘It’s your turn to start,’” said Head Coach Ryan Sullivan. “[Geaumont] and [Griffin] have shouldered a bit more of the workload of late, and they’ve handled it really well.”

This year, according to Coach Sullivan and her teammates, Geaumont has shown a dramatic increase in confidence, which they said has made the biggest difference in her performance.

“She’s always been a solid pitcher,” said Adriane Krul ’15. “But this year, something has really clicked for her. She’s really matured as a pitcher and a softball player.”“She truly believes she can throw in all areas of the strike zone,” Sullivan said. “Instead of feeling her way through games, she’s been hammering her way through. If she gets into a tricky situation, she knows she can get out of it.”

Geaumont has placed in the top 10 in the NESCAC in most major pitching categories so far, including sixth in strikeouts—significant for a player who does not consider herself a strikeout pitcher.

“I’m not really a strikeout pitcher.” she said. “I try to hit my spins and rely on my defense— make it easy for my shortstop or my third base.”

Senior Captains Siena Mitman and Tory Rusch called her out for being humble immediately. Still, Geaumont is often labeled a versatile pitcher for her repertoire of pitches.

“I really like my drop curve or my screwball or my rise,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean my changeup isn’t working better. The first inning is kind of the defining inning for me. I need to go out there and try all my pitches.”

Geaumont has pitched well throughout her time at Bowdoin, but her batting was less consistent until this year. After dropping in and out of the batting order over her first two years, she is batting over .400 this season, with the sixth most at-bats of any hitter in the NESCAC. When she is not pitching, Geaumont  now anchors the third, fourth, or fifth spot in the lineup as the designated hitter.

Geaumont is fourth in hits, ninth in RBIs and first in home runs as a batter this season in the NESCAC. Batting .400 is hard to do and no one really knows how long this hitting trend will last for Geaumont.

“Hitting over .400 is always awesome, but a little odd,” Krul said. “Who knows what she’ll do next year. But she’ll still be a key player. I can’t imagine her going backward.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

Joulia Likhanskaia ’17 started her Bowdoin tennis career at number three in singles, but moved to number one at the end of her first year when she earned All-American status. She has held that spot this season and is unlikely to relinquish it. 

In an April 4 match against MIT, Likhanskaia and partner Tiffany Cheng ’16 won their doubles match 8-3.  Likhanskaia also defeated MIT’s number one singles player 6-0, 6-2 to give the team an additional point on the way to an 8-1 victory over the No. 13 ranked team in the country.

Likhanskaia is likely to remain with Cheng for the rest of the season—Cheng’s speed, strong groundstrokes and movement along the baseline complement Likhanskaia’s capability at the net.

Likhanskaia played her way to the top of Bowdoin’s singles roster with a game reminiscent of many of collegiate women’s tennis’ best players. She is consistent, rarely missing easy shots, with a diverse shot repertoire and the fitness to cover the court.

“Girls who play the number one spot are not just going to miss,” said captain Emma Chow ’15. “You have to structure the point. If she wants to, she could never hit the same shot twice.”

Of her skills, Likhanskaia prefers her serve because it can be a source of easy points, and her drop shot because some women’s tennis players struggle to cover the court in front. Many are trained to move quickly laterally, since women’s tennis is often a baseline game.

“A lot of girls are used to moving side to side,” she said. “When they have to move forward, it’s a bit harder for them, so the drop shot helps.”

Likhanskaia is comfortable all over the court, which makes her a versatile “all-court” player, according to Chow.

“She does have the ability to come to the net,” said Chow. “Versatility means shot-making. She can hit loopy balls or, if a girl doesn’t like coming to the net, she can hit drop shots. But the ability to come the net is definitely an advantage.”

Head Coach Hobie Holbach acknowledged that one of the biggest improvements Likhanskaia has made from last season has been physical.

“She’s competing better and she’s really fit,” he said. “Those are two things that stand out. She and the other girls put in a lot of effort in the gym in the offseason.”

By “competing better,” Holbach means that Likhanskaia is handling the flow of matches, staying focused and confident if she loses a point, and finishing opponents off if she wins a few in a row. He also noted the impact physical improvements—real or perceived—can have on confidence and ability.

“Playing the top spots, what’s tough is even if you’re not playing a good team, whoever’s playing one or two is still pretty good,” Holbach said. “You don’t get to take matches off.”

He also said that women playing near the top do not feel like the team needs to depend on them. This is because tennis matches are scored out of nine and the winners of the six matches and three doubles each earn a point for their teams.

Likhanskaia said she has noticed the difference between this system and the junior tennis circuit, which is almost entirely individually focused. 

She thinks she prefers the focus on teamwork, and she has fit well within Coach Holbach’s collaborative culture. She does admit that she glances over to see how her teammates are doing when she is in between points, and she also says that she can turn her teammates’ performances into motivation regardless of how they are doing.

“Here, you’re not playing for yourself; you’re playing for your team” she said. “You fight for every point. And if I see that everyone else is doing well, it gives me more energy.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

Skipper Erin Mullins ’16 opened the spring sailing season with a dominant display at the St. Mary’s Women’s Regatta. Mullins, along with her crew mates Dana Bloch ’17 and Emily Salitan ’16 won division A by 43 points. 

These points are awarded based on place—a first-place finish is worth one point while a fifth place finish is worth five. This means the team placed around three positions better than their closest competition. The effort won the three New England Intercollegiate Sailing (NEISA) Sailors of the Week. Mullins and Salitan followed up that performance a week later, helping Bowdoin clinch third place among nationally ranked competition.

Mullins, a Rhode Island native, has skippered most of her life, but said that her Bowdoin decision was somewhat independent of her desire to sail.

“Bowdoin is one of the prettiest places to sail,” she said. “But I picked the school for the school; sailing was a nice bonus.”

Mullins embodies the collaborative personality of the Bowdoin sailing team. Some skippers prefer to dictate orders, but Mullins treats races like a conversation. As Bloch put it, “some skippers really don’t want to hear from you.”

“It’s really nice of her to say ‘what do you think about this?’”  said sophomore crew Mimi Paz. “I think she likes asking questions and likes working together like that. Most of the time we definitely agree on what to do. If we don’t, she totally knows what to do.”

Mullins was quick to defer praise to her crew. Of Bloch, she acknowledged, “Dana pretty much does everything for me out there.”

Mullins cracked the top of the team’s lineup during her first spring on the team, racing in the B division. She moved to the A division her sophomore fall, following the expected trajectory of a skilled. Mullins made a leap her junior fall, however—an improvement Coach Frank Pizzo credits to her time spent in the boat with Bloch.

“She’s been able to get to a really high level,” he said. “She started sailing with Dana in the middle of the fall; I think Dana’s really helped her make that leap.”

Pizzo spends a lot of time mixing and matching skippers and crews. He said he learned that Mullins excels when she stays calm in the boat, so she’s seen success when working with crews with similar approaches.

“Both of those girls sail best when they’re having fun and keeping it light, personality-wise,” Pizzo said. “It’s very hard to describe the anxiety a skipper feels when they’re holding the tiller.”Similarly, Mullins has had success with Salitan and Paz.

“She really thrives in a positive environment,” Paz said. “She lets the crew pay attention to the bigger picture. I think that’s why she likes suggestions.”

Paz also called crewing “a lot of turning around” because of how focused skippers are at looking forward. Mullins called Bloch her “eyes and ears” in the boat.

Mullins succeeds not only because of the chemistry she’s found with her crew, but also because of her base technical ability. She has improved her place in a number of races because of her handling and speed while racing.

“She’s really smooth in all of her boat handling maneuvers,” Bloch said. “If the breeze is really light and you need a couple of tacks to get up to speed, it’s usually really smooth. Some people can’t use their boat-handling to their advantage because it’s        really messy.”

“It’s definitely a lot about experience,” Salitan said. “But she also doesn’t go for the risky, complicated maneuvers. Of the set of skills a sailor has, she knows what her strengths are and sticks to them. It’s her own personal diligence.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

Emma Beecher ’16 has tallied 16 goals and seven assists through seven games for the 6-1 Bowdoin women’s lacrosse team, leading them in each category. Beecher has continued to score at a consistent pace despite switching from midfield to attack and moving into the starting lineup. Though she has seen a lot of playing time as a rotation midfielder, Beecher has only started three games this season, and she will likely remain one of the four starting attackers for the rest of the season. 

Beecher had been a midfielder for her entire career, and the change was made to give her more playing time while keeping the dominant midfield line of Clare McLaughlin ’15 Taylor Wilson ’15, and Lindsay Picard ’16 on the field together longer.

“She deserves credit,” attacker Olivia Raisner ’15 said. “It could’ve produced chaos.”Beecher has not had much time to learn the finer point of her new position in practice; the team played four games last week. McLaughlin expects that the full week of practice before Saturday’s home game against Trinity will help Beecher get acclimated. So far, she has played the attack position defensively, working further from the crease than attackers generally do.

“I always think of her as a midfielder,” said McLaughlin. “We haven’t had a lot of practices. We haven’t really talked about it. I don’t even really think she’s been taught the attack position.”

“It’s not my first thought, to play behind [the crease]” said Beecher. “But the other attackers are good at playing behind and around the crease so we play to each other’s strengths.”

Typically, attackers try to organize themselves so that two of them are behind the net and two are by the elbows. Beecher has made a habit of lingering up by the restraining line—a position known as “high attack.” The team has taken this in stride, and the seven offensive players have learned to organize themselves to take advantage of Beecher’s strengths: speed and a strong right-handed drive.

More traditional attacking threats Mettler Growney ’17, known by teammates for quick, precise cuts, and Meg O’Connor ’16, known for rolls toward the crease and her stick-handling, can occupy defenders down low, pulling them away from the ball.

“If she’s driving from the top of the eight meter, I’ll occupya defender,” said Growney. “I’ll move them away from where she likes to take the ball. We have to make the right cuts and the right reads.”

This creates lanes and shooting space for Beecher or other midfielders to drive.“[A midfield] strength is driving from the top,” Taylor Wilson ’15 said. “She’s been a midfielder all of her time at Bowdoin. She has that tendency, and it’s also her strength as an attacker. It gives us another person who can drive from the top.”

Beecher beats goalies with an unusually low, precise shot and has the second highest conversion rate of shots to goals on the team; 50 percent of her shots have scored so far.“She has a very distinctive shot,” Picard said. “She shoots at a very low angle, moving from the top or outside. The placement is key.”

“She’s a very strong girl,” said Growney. “She holds her ground and gets into the zone quickly. The goalie doesn’t have time to prepare.”

A change from previous years, the team runs very few set plays or schemes, using their comfort with each other and understanding of the game to create opportunities. Beecher’s success has come largely from this and the variety of scoring threats the Polar Bears have fielded this year. Six of the seven offensive starters have recorded double digit points already this season, with the seventh, Growney, trailing with nine. 

Furthermore, the team’s creative freelancing makes it difficult for teams to focus on any one part of their attack, especially since they have their own defenders pushing the pace after a stop. Bowdoin players pride themselves on their speed, and they use it to create mismatches.

“She scores a lot off of fast breaks, where there’s more space and fewer people,” O’ Connor said. “She’s not afraid to go to goal where other attackers might make the decision to bring down and slow it.”

In this way, increased opponent  focus on Beecher because she’s scored the most goals may open up driving lanes for Picard, who has scored only slightly fewer goals, or allow passing threats Wilson or Raisner to find the cutters or else score themselves. 

“Most of attackers have a number of goals and assists,” Raisner said, “Everyone out there is a threat.”

Given this, Beecher is likely to have a similar number of opportunities, even if she begins to work behind the net more. If not, herexperience in the midfield should help her distribute the ball.  

​

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

Center John Swords ’15 finished Bowdoin’s 87-74 NESCAC quarterfinal win over Williams with 23 points, 13 rebounds, four assists and three blocks in 33 minutes. He tied a NESCAC tournament record of most shots taken without a miss by going 10-10 from the field. This season, Swords is averaging 12.8 points per game, is third in the conference with 9.9 rebounds per game and second with a shooting percentage of 70.7. Swords, whose shooting percentage benefits from a general affinity for layups, maintained that he attempted an actual jump shot in the game.

“I did take a real shot,” he said. “It was more of a gamble than the usual place or the direct deposit. I don’t really think about that in the game. People told me [I went] 10 for 10 after. I said ‘Oh yeah, I guess so.’”

After comparing his streak to Ethan Embry’s gambling streak in “National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation,” Swords was quick to acknowledge junior teammate Lucas Hausman’s 25-point second half, Hausman’s total of 37 was two points away from breaking the NESCAC tournament scoring record. Swords and Hausman have a good-natured relationship as Bowdoin’s offensive fulcrums; the two scored 60 of Bowdoin’s 87 points in the Williams game and have led the team in scoring since senior forward Keegan Pieri was lost for the season with an injury. This comes despite benefiting from very different offensive schemes—Swords prefers the slower pace while Hausman excels in an up-tempo game. Regardless, Hausman’s emergence has been a large part of the team’s success.

“He scores from everywhere,” Swords said. “This late in the season, teams know I exist, I think. Having me as the first and only offensive option is not going to work. I get scouted.”And Swords has no problem allowing point guard Bryan Hurley ’15 to dictate the pace of the game.

“Bryan knows the pace,” he said. “If we’re playing a team of five Lucas’ who won’t finish as well as Lucas, he knows to slow us down. But he’ll also make sure we’re not running slow just because I’m slow or running slowly.”

Swords noted that the Williams game was a tale of two halves for the Bowdoin offense. He scored most of his points in the first while Hausman scored most of his in the second. In addition to Hurley, Swords also wanted toacknowledge junior Matt Palecki’s near-double-double and sophomore Neil Fuller’s return to the lineup from injury.

“It’s been a great season,” Swords said, “All that cliché stuff that goes into a [senior] season has been present. My personal forecast was that it wasgoing to be very hard to fill the void left by [Matt] Mathias, [Andrew] Madlinger, and [Grant] White, three really complete players. Pretty quickly this season has turned into something special on its own.”

He also referred to the team’s perseverance through injuries, saying that at times the team has not even had 10 players who could suit up to scrimmage.

Swords has feelings typical of a senior approaching his last few games, but jokingly recognized the positives of being able to move on from basketball.

“I don’t really want it to stop, but I know when it does stop, my body will probably thank me,” he said, then quipping about how his minute total and the up-tempo offense might leave him in a wheelchair. Still, an avid rafter and Outing Club member, Swords does not seem to feel the need to give his body too much rest.

“Post-basketball, I will certainly be spending more time outside. Basketball’s an indoor sport, in a windowless gym. It’s good for the winter,” said Swords.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

First-year Mariah Rawding took fourth place in the 50-yard and the 100-yard breaststroke at last week’s NESCAC Championship. She also took third in the 200-yard breaststroke, the last of her three solo events, the maximum number allowed.

Rawding also participated on four strong relay teams—the 400-yard freestyle which finished second, the 200-yard freestyle and 400-yard medley both of which finished fourth, and the 200-yard medley, which finished fifth.

Rawding broke school records in each of her three individual events and earned All-Conference honors in the 200 breaststroke and the 400 freestyle relay. Her performance contributed to women swimming and diving’s best finish in program history.

Rawding completed 14 races over the three-day NESCAC Championship, an average number of events for a short-distance swimmer.

Her performance was somewhat surprising to Coach Brad Burnham and to Rawding herself. For most of the season, she had hovered around the top 20 before leaping into the top five in the conference at the Championship.

Burnham mentioned that he had not had much time to observe Rawding’s technique over the course of the season, as individual attention can be difficult to dole out on a 50-person team. He said that Rawding played a more significant role on the team than he had anticipated during recruiting.

Still, Rawding had believed from the beginning that she would benefit from tapering—the two-week period before big races when swimmers dramatically reduce their workload to regain energy and improve their performance.

“I think I told Brad during Christmas training that I was ready for taper,” Rawding said. “It had always gone pretty well for me.”

Burnham for his part, noticed her post-taper improvements in practice and felt comfortable enough to place her on the stronger relay teams.

“She’d been looking great in practice, but you never really know until someone does it,” he said. “I trusted her. She trusted herself. She said that when she got to taper she’d be faster. It’s more of a relief in some ways. She was confident and I could see some things in there—some flashes of brilliance.”

Her dramatic improvement at the NESCAC Championship—she dropped 12 seconds off her 200 breaststroke—was not quite unprecedented, however. Rawding had achieved something similar between her junior and senior years in high school, after she had already been admitted to Bowdoin.

A Washington state native, Rawding did not do a campus visit. She was only familiar with the school because Coach Burnham swam with her uncle.

“My uncle said he knew a really good coach,” she said. “I thought, ‘It’s in Maine. It’s not going to be fun. It’s going to be cold.’”

Still, Rawding said Burnham was “a really big piece” of her decision to come to Bowdoin and continue her swimming career. She said she appreciated his “quality over quantity” approach to swimming and was glad that she would only have to swim six months out of the year.

Rawding grew up in a swimming household—both her parents swam in college—and her mother coached her to swim competitively from five or six years old. She said this contributed to her mixed feelings on swimming in college.

“I came from a program where I didn’t swim a lot, like I didn’t swim mornings, for example,” she said. “I only swam six months out of the year. It’s the same here. I didn’t want to get burned out again—to get to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore.”

However, Rawding has found that this season’s results have renewed her enthusiasm for competing, particularly in the relays.

“It’s going to be hard to top this season to be honest,” she said. “I swam really well in all my individual events and the relays were amazing. Everybody stepped up. But it’s a great way to start my Bowdoin career because each year I’m going to want to replicate that.”

Rawding will wait for the rest of the Division-III schools to finish their championships to see if she will be selected to compete nationally. She has a strong chance to do so, as she can qualify in most of the events she placed in last weekend.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

As a sophomore, Lucas Hausman ’16 scored 9.5 points per game despite averaging 17 minutes off the bench. This season, his first as a starter, Hausman has proportionally increased his impact, leading the team with 19 points in 31 minutes per game, along with 3.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists.

“My job was to be the scoring punch of the bench,” Hausman said. “Now I’m doing that in the starting lineup.”

Hausman has reached double-digit scoring in 13 straight games and scored over 20 points in nine of them. He has scored 30 points twice in his last four games.

“The fascinating thing about Lucas is that he can score from anywhere on the court,” said center John Swords ’15. “Well, except the backcourt. He’s never tried, thankfully.”

The two guard has earned his points with a quick first step, a smooth pull-up jumper and creative finishes around the rim. Hausman has  earned more free throws than anyone else in the NESCAC and has converted nearly 90 percent of them.

“I want to attack whoever’s guarding me and get all the way to the basket,” he said. “I can either pull up or get into the lane and be crafty.”

Hausman’s style of play has changed very little during his time at Bowdoin, though it is clear that he has improved his attacking skills. Hausman stands at 6’3” with long arms, which helps him shoot over smaller defenders and draw fouls. His speed also allows him to blow by bigger defenders.

As his athleticism has improved, Hausman has developed a deeper repertoire of dribble moves that keep defenders honest. Rarely an outside shooter, Hausman is nonetheless shooting almost 50 percent this season, a result of his ability to beat his man for easy baskets and finishes in traffic.

“He throws up a lot [of shots] that, if I didn’t trust him, I wouldn’t call good shots,” Swords said. “But it’s calculated risk. He has a different calculus than the rest of us.”

“He can go and get his own shot at any time,” said point guard and captain Bryan Hurley ’15. “He’s probably one of the only guys on the team who can. You know he can go and get a high-percentage shot for him that isn’t going to be a high-percentage shot for anybody else.”

Hurley added that the team has taken advantage of Hausman’s skill in transition by playing at a more up-tempo pace since the start of the second semester.

Head Coach Tim Gilbride agreed.

“The team is looking to him a little more and creating opportunities that are good for him,” he said. “Teams are starting to key on him more over the course of the season. John was the focus early on.”

Hausman’s play and Sword’s seven-foot frame in the post have made the Polar Bears a difficult team to defend.

“If he gets into the paint and can pass it to John down low or kick it out, it’s huge at the beginning of games because teams won’t be able to collapse on him,” Hurley said.

Hurley, the team’s best three-point shooter, noted that Middlebury was forced to roll its better on-ball defender over to Hausman, which freed up Hurley who scored 17 points. 

Even with the switch, Middlebury still could not stop Hausman from dropping 21 points. His constant presence in the paint forces the post players to collapse off Swords as well, leaving him open under the basket. Hurley also believes that Hausman’s play has reduced the number of double teams Swords has seen.

Swords was not ready to concede that, but acknowledged that because he and Hausman are such different players, the offense can look very different over multiple games or even throughout a game.

“He’s up tempo,” he said. “That’s great when we need up-tempo, especially down the stretch in games. Usually when I’m in we tend toward slow, patient offense. It’s refreshing to have someone like Lucas come in and destroy all of that.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

Jackson Bloch ’15 has been one of nordic skiing’s most competitive skiers this season, with two top-25 finishes and an additional top-30 finish in five races so far this season. His lowest finish was 44th in races that can include as many as 90 skiers. Bloch also helped a relay team including Hannah Miller ’17, Tyler DeAngelis ’15 and Shelby Aseltine ’15 take 22nd place.

Bloch, a Falmouth, Maine, native started skiing in fifth grade and skied for a club team in high school. Bloch walked on to Bowdoin’s team as a firstyear with low expectations and earned a spot on the carnival team, comprisd of the six fastes skiers. He has held one of those spots for his entire Bowdoin career.

Nordic skiing has two different styles that are tested in carnivals: classical and freestyle. Classical requires more upper body strength and involves what Bloch calls “double polling,” which describes how the skiers move their bodies with their arms. Freestyle uses the legs to move as if skating. Bloch had performed significantly better in freestyle races until this season.Bloch’s adjustment to college distance—high school races are only 5K while collegiate races are between 10 and 20 kilometers—was all the more unusual given his small frame. However, he believes that rather than hindering him, the increase in distance has contributed to his improvement.  

“I’m a small guy,” he said. “I’m not as powerful so I had to learn efficiency of technique and endurance. It gave me an area to excel in that I wasn’t exposed to before.”    

Shorter races allow bigger, stronger, skiers to essentially sprint. Longer races equalize that natural advantage by changing the skills necessary for success. 

“With a 10K, everyone is very capable of doing it, so I’m always finding places on the course where I can make up time on other people,” Bloch said. “[The 20K is more] grit and determination. After 15K, after you’ve been racing for 45 minutes, everyone’s tired. A lot of it is a mental game, especially in the last 5K.”

Bloch also credits Head Coach Nathan Alsobrook for exposing him to new training routines and additional ways to improve his technique, calling him the largest force behind his improvement. Alsobrook developed a 550-hour per year training regiment that Bloch starts each May. 

Training lasts through the summer. Bloch runs and roller skis when there is not snow on the ground. In addition to building up his strength, Bloch has worked on maintaining forward body position and starting races faster. 

One of Bloch’s favorite offseason activities is skiing a marathon. He enjoys these 50K races because they are often raced in groups of around 15 people, who will travel together until the competition necessitates trying to pass each other.

“He’s really good at finding efficiency in his skis,” Alsobrook said. “It’s almost unnatural how he is able to squeeze every last bit of energy out of his efforts. “

Alsobrook also praised Bloch’s natural ability.

“A lot of it is sort of natural athleticism, and he has a very thoughtful approach to the sport. His brain is a finely tuned instrument that helps him calibrate how much effort he needs for each movement,” he said.

Bloch will look to finish the second half of his season strong. He hopes to finish no lower than 30th and will attempt to earn a top-20 finish against Dartmouth College and University of Vermont skiers who rank among the best in the country. 

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Shannon Brady ’16 scored 14 second-half points to lead the women’s basketball team to a 62-57 win over Colby last Saturday, their 14th straight win of the season and seven straight against the Mules. Brady struggled early with foul trouble and Colby’s quick five-guard lineup but overcame the slow start to finish with 18 points, five rebounds and two blocks in 30 minutes.“One thing I really want to emphasize is her growth as a leader,” said Head Coach Adrienne Shibles. “She has an optimism and a competitive spirit. She really didn’t play exceptionally well. Her shots weren’t falling, Colby was being very physical with her, and she got into foul trouble. But I told her to keep shooting and she made adjustments.”

Brady is averaging 13 points, six rebounds, and 1.5 blocks and 23 minutes per game this season—a low minutes total thanks to the team’s considerable depth. According to Shibles, Brady could go all 40 minutes easily. Brady is also fourth in the NESCAC in shooting percentage.Six feet tall and long-limbed, Brady has always been a traditional back-to-basket player, feeling most comfortable posting up and using a righty jump hook that has become her signature move. In a college game that typically differentiates only between guards and forwards, Brady is one of few at this level that could be considered a true center.

“The hook has kind of been my thing since high school,” she said. “I don’t really know what started it. Sometimes people say stuff like, ‘That’s all she does.’ But it works.”

Brady has been in the starting lineup since the beginning of her first year at Bowdoin, and had a breakout sophomore season that saw her average a team-leading 14 points and seven rebounds on the way to an All-American Honorable Mention. Since then she has been a target of other NESCAC teams, who often double and triple team Bowdoin’s most consistent scorer.Brady is equally effective, somewhat paradoxically, as a target in transition. Her high school team ran an aggressive transition offense and the Polar Bears like to run one as well. Teammates have mentioned that Brady is often the fastest down the floor.

“A lot of the offense revolves around her,” said guard Sara Binkhorst ’15. “She plays well with other guards who like to push and she’ll beat pretty much any other post player down the floor.”

“She’s the fastest girl on our team,” Megan Phelps ’15 said. “She beats us all when we run sprints.”

Brady’s scoring threat dramatically affects the way defenses shift against Bowdoin.“Just having Shannon on the floor is good for us as a team,” said Siena Mitman ’15. “They have to collapse on her coming off a screen which opens it up for other people.”      

“And on the rare chance she misses, there’s a good chance she’ll get her own rebound,” Binkhorst added.

Both players also noted Brady’s improvements at reading double teams and kicking the ball out. Still, Phelps thinks that Brady is going to score at least 70 percent of the time when she gets the ball.

“She’s always up for a physical game,” Phelps said. “They’re bringing constant double teams. She’s been doing a good job passing out of it, but more often scoring the ball anyway.”

Another area where Brady has improved is her shooting. Always considered a capable but not necessarily confident shooter, Brady has developed a face-up game and improved her in-game range to around 15 feet. She has also proven she can make three-pointers consistently in practice. Her goal now is to translate that into a game.

“It comes up a lot,” she said. “My dad and brother have bets on when it’s going to happen. I tell them if I’m in a pressure situation and it needs to happen, it will happen. But I definitely want to make one in a game during my Bowdoin career.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

In high school, Chris Genco ’15 acknowledged that he passed on the long jump simply because he did not like sand in his shoes. In college, after winning the event at last weekend’s Bowdoin invitatoinal, he is more open-minded, calling it the next logical progression for someone who can “run fast and jump high.”

When he arrived at Bowdoin, Genco anticipated competing in the high jump and as a sprinter. But what propelled his leading score for the men’s tream at the Bowdoin Invitational on January 17 was in fact his performing the long jump. Genco also finished in third place in the high jump, raising his score to 15. The team gained 95 points in total. His first-place finish was Bowdoin’s only top finish of the Invitational. Genco’s winning long jump occurred in the first set of jumps, allowing him to sit out the final heat when no one could match his best jump.

Genco competed in the long jump only once during his first year at Bowdoin and performed poorly. At the time his jump approached only 4.27 meters (His winning jump at the Bowdoin Invitational last weekend was 6.66 meters). Having never jumped in that event competitively before, he felt discouraged, even though Head Coach Peter Slovenski believed the jump correlated perfectly with his natural athletic abilities.

“I would have thought he would have picked up the long jump in high school,” Slovenski said. “Long jumpers benefit from having a lot of speed. As a high school sprinter, he picked it up quickly.”

 Slovenski observed that Genco shares physical similarities with most long jumpers, compared to being shorter than some high jumpers. He particularly praised Genco’s “intuition for jumping” and his “technical IQ,” which he believes pervades most track and field events.“He can make most adjustments to his technique and understand them better than most athletes in any sport,” Slovenski said. “If someone gets ahead of him, he knows what he has to do to catch up.”

By his sophomore year, he was practicing the long jump consistently. However, he retained the high jump, a strange pairing given their wildly different and sometimes conflicting techniques. Genco called it “counterintuitive.”

“I struggled at the high jump after I started the long jump,” he said. “My approach got faster.”In addition to the long jump’s faster approach, the two jumps have very different penultimate steps. The long jump emphasizes lowering the hips in preparation for the outward jump while the high jumpers tend to keep their hips higher.

“A lot of track events have a natural simplicity,” Slovenski said. “They look natural. But there’s a lot of complex things to bring together—to accelerate on the runway, get a good takeoff, and then get a good jump. One of the ways he makes it look easy is that he has a good sense of how to bring it all together.”

Slovenski noted the improvement in Genco’s performance in the long jump. Genco said that it has been his primary focus this season.

“His sophomore year he was very competitive at the state level,” Slovenski said. “His junior year he became very competitive at the New England level.”

The hope is that Genco can be competitive at the national level in his final year. Having never qualified for Nationals, this is the goal he set for himself.

More than anything, Slovenski praised Genco’s contributions as a teammate and captain.“What really stands out about Chris is not how he continues to place first. It’s what a great teammate he is.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Connor Quinn ’15 has scored at least one goal in each game so far this season and sits second in the NESCAC in scoring with eight goals and five assists. Quinn scored a hat trick in Bowdoin’s 6-3 win over Colby before Thanksgiving and tied the season opener against Williams with 52 seconds remaining to keep the team undefeated. 

In the last two weeks, he grabbed a goal against Wentworth Institute of Technology and recorded two assists against Salve Regina University. He has scored in both power play and short-handed situations this season, using his speed to create breakaway opportunities even with only four Polar Bears are on the ice. 

With linemates John McGinnis ’15 and Matt Lison ’18 ranking first and fourth in scoring, Bowdoin’s front three players have been more productive than entire NESCAC teams.Quinn started skating at age two and said he fell in love from the beginning.

“Practicing was a lot more fun than in other sports,” he said. “You think on your feet; there’s not as much set-up play. The physicality is nice too. You get to throw your body around a little bit.”

Quinn started as a defender but his high school coach moved him to forward against his wishes because he was “an offensive defenseman.” Quinn went so far as to call himself a “liability” in the position. However, his speed and willingness to fight for the puck down low made for a seamless transition to offense.

“One of the things that stands out is his puck protection in the corner,” said captain Danny Palumbo ’15. “He’s good at escaping. He likes to play in the dirty areas and he’s always in front of the net on powerplays.”

Head Coach Terry Meagher calls the ability to escape a key to being a great player and spoke highly of Quinn.

Quinn’s desire to freelance matched well with Meagher’s position-less style of hockey, and Quinn credits the system as one of the main factors that led him to Bowdoin. Meagher calls Quinn a left wing in name only because “where he lines up is not where he ends up.”

“He’s reminiscent of a few great players that have a unique style of play,” said Meagher. “You have to let them go and protect around them because they are so gifted athletically and so creative. He’s arguably one of the most exciting athletes in our league and really the East.”

Meagher noted that despite Quinn’s speed—Palumbo said he believes he could be the fastest player in the conference—many of his goals have come in situations that require reacting in front of the net or in scrums. His speed also has a tremendous impact on penalty kills. The Polar Bears play an aggressive style of penalty killing that allows Quinn to attack if he intercepts the puck in the opponent’s defensive end.

“Sometimes it can hurt, and I can get caught out of position, but I like to think my speed helps me make up for that,” Quinn said. “I’ve always been fast. I went to a few skating camps, but they say it’s not something you can coach. I guess I got lucky.”

Despite his early scoring run, Quinn acknowledges that he has not been a prolific scorer in the past. He is more than halfway to his scoring totals from last year with only a quarter of the season’s games played.

“Coming into the season, I wanted to be a goal scorer. I haven’t really been a goal scorer in the past,” he said. “Playing with [McGinnis], who’s a playmaker, makes my job a lot easier.”

Quinn also returned to playing rugby when he arrived at Bowdoin, which he had played through high school but given up temporarily to go to prep school for hockey. It is almost unprecedented for a varsity athlete to take on a club sport, particularly one that meets regularly and involves significant contact. 

Quinn has been a consistent contributor to Bowdoin Men’s Rugby during his time at Bowdoin, and Meagher said he has always embraced the contributions that rugby has brought to his style of play in hockey. 

“It’s not common throughout the game to have a player with such a unique style,” Meagher said. “Most players pass the eye test, they’re just a little better, a little stronger, a little faster, but conventionally. His is an unpredictability, in a good way.”

In the 96th minute of the men’s soccer team’s NCAA Division III Tournament first-round match against Brockport State, Hunter Miller ’16 corralled a turnover around midfield and—with no teammates nearby for support—turned upfield with six defenders and a goalkeeper between him and the net. 

After speeding away from the two players chasing him and regaining the ball through traffic in front of the net, Miller poked the ball into the lower right-hand corner of the net to send the Polar Bears to a round-of-32 match against Brandeis. It was the outside midfielder’s first goal of the season.

Miller’s account was a little more understated.

“I was in the right place at the right time to steal the ball,” he said. “No one stepped to me so I kept going. When they finally did, I pulled a move and went around them.”

Head Coach Scott Wiercinski said that a run of that length only rarely produces a goal. However, Miller’s speed left the tired defense in the dust. According to Wiercinski’s expectations for his midfielders, Miller would have held the ball to allow his offense to move forward before starting a passing chain through the midfield. But the game ending goal negated any doubts Wiercinski had about Miller’s aggressive run.

“When he started off on the run, I was hoping that he would slow down so that we could get more numbers forward,” said captain Tom Henshall ’15. “After he ran away from the second player, I was just praying that he would score.”

Miller might have been less inclined to attempt a run of that magnitude, but the nature of the turnover left him without a teammate to pass to. Both teams seemed sluggish chasing Miller, with half of the Brockport defenders on that side of the field failing to get in position to block Miller’s run and  with none of the Polar Bear forwards far enough up the field to offer help.“Brockport was very organized defensively and always had numbers behind the ball, so a counterattack was always going to be our best opportunity to score,” Henshall said. “It seemed to me that they were playing to tie the game and go into penalty kicks.”

Miller has held a starting spot in midfield since the middle of his sophomore season. As his goal highlighted, Miller plays with speed and aggression and enjoys taking players on in isolation. 

Wiercinski characterizes Miller as an “attacker” at the midfield position despite the team’s primarily defensive mindset.

“He’s creative and a little bit unorthodox,” said Wiercinski. “There’s always that unexpectedness. On the dribble, with his passing choices, his touches—it’s that unpredictable nature that you want to have when you’re attacking. “

Henshall said that Miller’s speed and control allowed him to get around midfielders without the need for flashy moves.

Wiercinski also noted that Miller’s lack of goals during the regular season was more a product of poor luck rather than poor play.

“He’s been very dangerous in a lot of games,” he said. “That it was his first goal of the year was ironic in a lot of ways, but we appreciate the day he chose to score it.”

“I was very proud and very happy for Hunter that he scored that goal,” Wiercinski continued. “Attacking players in any sport derive confidence from scoring. Even though he wasn’t scoring and we had a stretch of games where we weren’t winning, he didn’t get discouraged. If he had been discouraged earlier in the year, he might not have had the confidence to do what he did.”Miller was one of three players to start every game this season.  

Stevie Van Siclen ’18 picked up his fifth and sixth shutouts of the season after denying Middlebury and Amherst any goals in a combined 220 minutes of play. He made three crucial saves in penalty kicks (PKs) to help the Polar Bears defeat Middlebury and came up with two more against Amherst to deliver Bowdoin a 0-0 (5-4) victory and its first NESCAC Championship.

“It’s easy to talk about the penalty kicks as the deciding factor, but in 220 minutes of shutout soccer, I think I saw only four or five shots,” Van Siclen said. “This is easily the best defense I’ve ever played with.”

Still, he enjoys talking about penalty kicks.

“I love penalty kicks. They are the most exciting part of the game for me,” he said. “There’s nothing I’m more confident about in my game than PKs. There’s no pressure on me to make the save. The shooter is supposed to score.”

At least some of Bowdoin’s improvement defensively over the course of the season came from more time spent playing together and fewer injuries than in seasons past.

“Obviously as the season goes on, we have more time to gel as a defensive unit, but I’d include the goaltender in that,” defender Nabil Odulate ’16 said. “We had more time to play together and learn everyone’s style, we learned [Van Siclen’s] style too.”

Van Siclen allowed only eight goals all season, the second lowest in the NESCAC, though he played only 13 games. He stepped in after five games when starter Noah Safian ’17 went down to injury. Although he would only miss two weeks, the team did not allow a goal during that time, prompting Head Coach Scott Wiercinski to keep Van Siclen in the net for the remainder of the season. 

It was the first time he had played competitive soccer in a year and a half after tearing his ACL his junior year of high school. He mentioned that many of the larger programs that had been pursuing him for soccer backed away after the injury. Amherst, whose three-year chokehold on the NESCAC championship ended with his save, was one of those programs. Van Siclen mentioned that he keeps a log of every significant athlete achievement he has completed since his injury and remembers all of the important dates. The win over Amherst came 18 months and 20 days after his surgery.

Four of Van Siclen’s allowed goals came against strong teams—Williams and Tufts—in games where he still recorded seven and eight saves respectively. He finished the season second in the NESCAC with a .843 save percentage and fourth with a .64 goals against average.

Van Siclen was the only one of the four boys in his family who continued playing soccer past the age of 10. Instead, his three older brothers and his father all played  ice hockey in college, and he will as well, skating for the Polar Bears as soon as the soccer team’s run in the NCAA tournament ends. His performance in the NESCAC tournament assured that he would miss the start of the hockey season.

 “I know that Coach [Terry] Meagher is excited to get his hands on him, but we’re pretty excited to hold on to him too,” Coach Wiercinski joked. “Both Coach Meagher and I are supporters of the two-sport athlete. There are really no losers in that situation.”

 Van Siclen was actually recruited by Bowdoin’s previous soccer coach, and when Wiercinski took over the program Van Siclen was already well into his own rehabbing process. However, he was determined to get a goaltender in the Class of 2018 because of questions of depth at the position. Due to Assistant Coach Peter Mills’ strong recommendations and votes of confidence from Van Siclen’s high school coaches, he brought the goalkeeper on without having seen him play. Mills had coached his club team against Van Siclen and had seen first-hand the strengths of his game.

At 6’2” and 200 pounds, Van Siclen is able to be a physical presence inside his six-yard box, fielding crosses and winning battles in the air.

“It’s definitely a different style of goalkeeping,” Kiefer Solarte ’16 said. “We don’t have to win every ball in the six. But that being said, it really just changes the way we work around the box.”“He’s stopping shots but he’s also not giving up rebounds,” said Captain Eric Goitia ’15. “He’s doing a good job of controlling shots and not just getting in front of them.”

Adrienne O’Donnell ’15 scored twice and assisted once in Bowdoin’s NESCAC quarterfinal win against Hamilton last Saturday. This leaves the right forward with seven goals and nine assists this season, tying her for fourth highest assist total in the conference and ninth in points.

Until starting as forward this season, O’Donnell had been a midfielder for most of her field hockey career. O’Donnell’s speed allows her to win individual matchups and create space for her teammates.

“Athletically, she’s fit enough to run the midfield,” Coach Nicky Pearson said. “The right midfield has always been an offensive position for us.”

Pearson added that O’Donnell’s passing and defensive skills have developed through her time in the midfield.

“One of the biggest adjustments we’ve seen is her decision-making,” she said. “When players are as fast as she is, they have to make decisions a little bit quicker.”

O’Donnell said that Pearson had mentioned the possibility of a position switch at the end of last year given her similarities to predecessor Katie Riley’s ’14 style of play and her self-described designation as an offensive midfielder. She then spent part of her summer playing forward in pick-up leagues and working on her scoring techniques. She also improved her strength and speed. Captain Colleen Finnerty ’15—the left defender who is often matched against O’Donnell in practices—said that she started the year in the best shape of her career.Despite lacking the ice hockey background of many of her teammates, O’Donnell may be the team’s fastest player. 

Finnerty believes that O’Donnell enjoys a speed advantage over almost every defender she faces.

Since teams as a defensive strategy try to clog the middle of the field, Pearson’s teams have often looked to move the ball out wide. The right side of the field is often the more desirable attacking side because it is both the stick side for the offense and the weak side for the defense. Althought the team tries to balance its attack, both of O’Donnell’s goals came from attacks up the left side. O’Donnell has the ability to carry the ball 50 to 75 yards up the field as a result of the team’s desire to move up and down the field as one unit.

“She gets the ball on her defensive 25 yard line and can beat defenders with a simple pull-right and carry the ball into the circle,” said Rachel Kennedy ’16.

Kennedy has benefited tremendously from O’Donnell’s passing and ability to stretch the field; Kennedy is responsible for 40 percent of the team’s goals, which boasts the second-most prolific offense in the NESCAC.  

“If you look at the stats, there are a lot of goals and a lot of assists, which I think is key,” O’Donnell said. “Kimmy [Ganong ’17] and I try to beat our defenders and pop it back in the middle for Rachel [Kennedy].”

“She easily has at least 10 more [assists than she is credited for],” Finnerty said, “She could take the ball 75 yards and not get credit for it. There are so many things happening that affect our team’s success and she’s a part of so many of them.”

Assists in field hockey are only tallied if the eventual goal-scorer shoots immediately after receiving a pass. In terms of record-keeping even one additional move negates the assist.As the team looks to win another NESCAC championship, O’Donnell is still working on improving her game.

“There are definitely times in practice where she’ll make me look like I’ve never played field hockey before in my life,” Finnerty said. “But she’s always looking for something that will make her better. When I stop her, she’ll ask me questions like ‘What was another move I could have done?’ or ‘How difficult was that to defend?”

Maggie Godley ’16 put away Bowdoin’s first two goals in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Colby and scored again in Tuesday’s win over Tufts. She has struck first for the Polar Bears in each of their last three games. 

With the exception of an unassisted, 18-yard chip against Colby, Godley has consistently found herself in a place to score within the team’s aggressive offensive system.

A forward throughout high school and her first two years at Bowdoin, Godley moved to midfield this year but feels comfortable playing upfield on a team that puts an emphasis on getting numbers forward.

“With my background as a forward, I definitely favor attacking,” Godley said, “[Senior captain] Kaley Nelson is a very strong defender. I have faith that if I make an attacking run, she’ll be able to cover me.”

Nelson said that Godley’s technical skill and work ethic are her most admirable qualities.“She is constantly willing to outwork her opponent,” Nelson said. “She is also incredibly versatile, knowing when to give the ball up or take a player on off the dribble.”

Godley said Bowdoin has attempted to get pressure behind the ball this season and move as a unit after forcing turnovers. The team has also tried to stretch the field as much as possible and dominate play with its speedy forwards. This takes possession away from the other team’s midfield.

“We try to vary the way we attack,” Godley said. “But for the most part, I would say we work it through the midfield, move it wide, and try to get it to our forwards. My favorite ball to get is one over the top where I can run to it, dribble and get past someone, taking it down the line to get a cross or a corner out of it.”

Because of the team’s style of play, Godley said she has not found as many scoring opportunities over the course of the season as she has seen recently.

“I prefer to cross,” she said. “On this team, anyone can score. My strength is setting up my teammates.”

Godley has scored four times and recorded three assists this season, tying her for second and third on the team in these categories respectively.

Her increased presence in the offense has added another threat to an already  dangerous front line composed of Amanda Kinneston ’15 and captain Kiersten Turner ’16, along with hybrid midfielder Jamie Hofstetter ’16, who has assisted on a pair of Godley’s goals.

Godley started her soccer career as a child because her brother was also playing and her father thought it would be easier if they played the same sport. She made the decision to play in college because she has always enjoyed being on a team.

“Throughout high school and at Bowdoin, it’s always been the highlight of my experiences in school,” she said.

The Rhode Island native had always looked at Division III schools because of their academic rigor and was recruited by Maren Rojas, the predecessor of current Head Coach Brianne Weaver.

“I wanted to be a student first and an athlete second,” Godley said. “Making the decision to go to Bowdoin was more than just a soccer choice. You could get injured your first day and never play again.”

Despite being tied for second place in the conference heading into the NESCAC tournament, the squad has sometimes struggled to score this season. In the 11-team conference, Bowdoin is tied with three other teams for sixth-most goals scored.

 The team does not have a single one of the NESCAC’s top scorers. So Godley may have to continue her current hot streak  for the team to make a deep postseason run. The Polar Bears will play a rematch against Tufts in tomorrow’s NESCAC quarterfinal on Pickard field.

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.”            

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.

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.”

Kiersten Turner ’16 has been an integral part of the women’s soccer team’s best start in over a decade. She has scored three goals in just five games, and all of them have been game-winners. Two of her goals, one against Bates and another versus Middlebury, decided one-goal contests. Turner also recorded an assist in the Polar Bears’ win over Middlebury. Her performance won her the NESCAC Player of the Week recognition.

Turner has earned her a strong reputation as a goal scorer. She scored 12 goals last season and has retained her position at the top of the offensive formation. This year, as the team speeds forward, Turner spends most of her time daring defenders to chase her across the field. She purposefully runs to stretch the defense and can chase and hold the ball in her team’s end of the pitch, giving her teammates time to switch into the proper offensive formation and join her upfield.

Head Coach Brianne Weaver said that teams have started to focus their attention in Turner’s direction this season, marking her aggressively when she does not have the ball and swarming her when she tries to take a touch. As a player who enjoys winning individual matchups, Turner admits it has been more difficult to dominate in the way she has in the past.

“It’s been more mentally challenging for me—figuring out how to get around defenders,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking so much last year about how I was performing.”

“She sets a high standard for herself,” Weaver said. “With all the accolades that she earned last year and all the success that she had, I know that she wants to see that success again.”

It was not until the team’s third game this season that Turner earned a point. Teammate Jamie Hofstetter ’16 noted that Turner has been frustrated at times.

“During the first half of [the Middlebury game] she struggled,” she said. “They didn’t give her any time or space to move with the ball. You have to be dynamic moving off the ball so you’re always an option. The more stagnant you are the easier it is to close you down.”

“But she’s a nuisance,” Hofstetter continued. “She has really quick bursts of speed and she’s really good at getting a touch on the ball. It happens really easily sometimes.”

Turner said she takes a bit of solace in knowing that her presence opens the field up for her new partner, Amanda Kinneston ’15, who has absorbed most of the time Hofstetter had seen as the other forward over the last two years. Hofstetter has moved to playing center midfield but in certain formations still plays forward with Kinneston and Turner, or in place of Kinneston. 

This helps both players stay rested by not having to play in the center midfield position for the full 90 minutes. While Kinneston labels herself as more of a goal-scorer—her stats are identical to Turner’s so far this season—she bears more similarities to Hofstetter than Turner. Both have excellent technical skills, work as facilitators and are often praised for their skill holding the ball.

“I think we’re similarly-minded players,” Kinneston said. “We like to have the ball and play from our feet. Kiersten is good at running to the ball and using space.”

Still, it is not rare to see all three of them putting pressure on the opposing defenses, particularly as they try to clear the ball out of their own end. Weaver has emphasized an aggressive team defense that starts with the forwards and Kinneston has said it makes it easier for the midfielders and defenders to read where balls go. In this scenario, Turner often remains alone when facing the defensive line.

The team started its season with four straight conference wins in a row, all of which were decided by one goal, including a double win against Wesleyan and wins against Amherst and Middlebury. Turner’s teammates expect her to her hit stride as the season wears on. The Polar Bears will play two non-conference games before finishing their conference schedule.

“I think Kiersten does better as the season goes on,” Hofstetter said. “Once she scores a goal, her confidence goes up. Every game makes her more comfortable.”

Field hockey’s Rachel Kennedy ’16 scored both goals in last Saturday’s 2-1 win over Amherst. A three-year starter, Kennedy tied Katie Riley ’14 for the team lead with 21 goals last year, and scored 15 as a first year. Her early three goals this season have further cemented her reputation as a feared scoring threat at the center forward position. Both  Head Coach Nicky Pearson and captain Colleen Finnerty ’15 said a second year at the center forward position—where Pearson puts players with a knack for scoring—will benefit Kennedy further. Kennedy played on the wing during her first year on the team.

After several star seniors graduated last spring, Kennedy is the player with the most starts under her belt. Joining her at forward are Kimmy Ganong ’17 and Adrienne O’Donnell ’15, both first-time starters with whom Kennedy said she hopes to build further chemistry. Finnerty said she remembers the rapport between Kennedy and Riley as “instinctive,” noting that the two often assisted each other’s goals last season. 

Taking over for last season’s coring threat Olivia King ’14 is Mettler Growney ’17, who will seek to provide some of the consistency of last year’s NCAA tournament MVP. 

Of Kennedy’s three goals so far, two have been unassisted, with the Amherst game-winner coming off the stick of O’Donnell before Kennedy drove it home. 

“She has the speed and the quickness to beat players, coupled with good ball handling,” said Pearson.

Her first goal against Amherst demonstrated her expert scoring ability. Kennedy beat two defenders and avoided a charging goalie before hitting the bottom-left corner of the net.Kennedy records a number of unassisted goals because of her impressive one-on-one play and athleticism, which she thinks comes from years of ice hockey.

Kennedy believes that she has been able to translate stick control from the ice to the turf.Finnerty, who is also a member of the women’s hockey team, believes there is a “grit” in hockey that translates as well to the field.

“When you see her take a pole right,” Finnerty said, “it’s not the prettiest sight but it gets the job done. Rachel doesn’t have the most finesse out of anyone out there but it’s her hard work that makes it work.”

Both women picked up field hockey sticks for the first time as freshmen in high school, and Finnerty thinks that this commitment to ice hockey caused them to miss out on the experience that comes from playing more consistently on field hockey club teams. 

For her part, Kennedy noted that she has been working on taking the pole with more authority; she noted her tendency to go left more often. 

Both players laughed about Kennedy’s continued attempt to master the reverse, a more difficult maneuver that a player to subtly break the rule that the ball can only touch one side of the stick and hit a low, fast shot, vaguely resembling a backhand.

Pearson said that the adjustmentsto the lineup have affected chemistry, as the new players attempt to learn Kennedy’s tendencies and she tries to learn their’s. Pearson praised Kennedy’s one-on-one defense, but admitted that there is still an emphasis on completing double-teams with players around her, either with Growney or one of the wings.

As the season progresses, Kennedy will likely settle further into her role as the team’s primary scorer, though Pearson said that she ultimately does not care who scores. Finnerty called Kennedy the leader of the forward line, and Pam Herter ’15 said that while she is more of a playmaker than a scorer, her impact on the game will not change.

“She’s matured as a player in terms of her decision making,” said Herter. “She makes [the forwards] a little faster. But the core of her game remains the same—very strong, very fast, unbelievable one-on-one skills. Every time she is on the field she is a scoring threat. It’s not pressure we put on her but it’s still sort of the reality of having her as a player.”

The women’s volleyball team has opened its regular season with a five-game win streak, finishing the Endicott Invitational undefeated and picking up a home win against the University of New England on Tuesday night. 

So far only one opponent, New York University, has been able to drag the Polar Bears to a fifth set. Endicott College took just the first set against Bowdoin before losing the next three by a substantial margin. The other three games were won in straight sets, a goal for the team this season. 

Captains Hailey Wahl ’16 and Christy Jewett ’16 attributed part of the team’s early success to their ability to play within a new formation that features at least four hitters and relocates the setter to the back row without substituting a libero [a defensive player not required to rotate with the rest of the  team]. Both captains agreed that an encouraging effect of the new system has been that players are able to serve in multiple roles on the court.

“Players can’t be as specialized,” Wahl said. “Our middles switch off for our setters, so players that might not usually go all the way around [the rotation] now go all the way around.”Jewett maintains that the system is a strong fit for the players and believes that the new rotation works in part because the team’s hitters are also good at digging. Jewett and NESCAC Player of the Week Katie Doherty ’17 are both ranked in the top five in the NESCAC in digs as outside hitters. 

Jewett also noted that excluding the libero, who has a handsetting restriction within ten feet that forces hitters to stay on the ground, has made their offense more unpredictable. 

“Once we get past the confusion of not having a designated person to receive the ball, the ability to handset has been worthwhile,” Jewett said.

While the Polar Bears worry that teams will catch on to the scheme change and direct attacks at their setter, who now plays back right instead of front right, Jewett asserted that they are prepared for that tactic.

“We don’t actually lose a hitter [if one is forced to set the second ball] because we have an additional hitter to begin with,” she said.

Wahl explained that keeping the setter in the back allows an additional hitter to threaten with a kill, creating hesitation and confusion among the opposing ranks. This is how the team benefits from the new formation’s unpredictability. Anything that forces the defense to slide its blockers a second too slowly tremendously benefits the offense.

The team’s performance has been aided by the return of middle backer Erika Sklaver ’17, who has recovered this year from a torn ACL. She is currently third in the NESCAC in blocks per set. Jewett also singled out first years Clare McInerney and Michelle Albright for their steady contributions.

For a team that graduated what Wahl called, “the most successful class in Bowdoin volleyball history”, and does not have one senior on the roster, strong play from the first years has been integral to the Polar Bears’ early success.  

Bowdoin will travel to Atlanta, Ga over the weekend to play Emory University, a top-five Division III school.   

Playing Chaos Theory this year has been a disaster for most opposing teams. The women’s ultimate Frisbee team has earned its third consecutive bid to the D-III national championship, and will be the favorite to win for the second year in a row. What had been labeled a “rebuilding year” by some has become a shot at the national title in part because of Ana Leon ’16, appropriately nicknamed Calamity.

Friends on her high school basketball team convinced Leon, an Atlanta native, to try the game during her freshman year. She was already familiar with the sport, saying it is “something you played on the playground [in Atlanta] instead of football.” She stuck with the game, finding that a lot of the skills she developed through 11 years of basketball translated. By her senior year, her high school coach invited her to try out for the U-19 women’s team he would coach at the world championships in Ireland. She made the team as a defensive specialist, and it went on to finish second in the world.

At Bowdoin, Leon is able to offer advice to newer players—captain Clare Stansberry ’14 calls her a “baby captain”—because she knows the rules better than most other players. This is important in a game whose players are responsible for refereeing themselves. She also came to Bowdoin with a passion for the fundamentals of defense already ingrained. Mik Cooper ’14 noted that defense takes much longer for new players to learn than offense. 

Leon was already familiar with Bowdoin and Chaos Theory when she began her college search. Her sister, Liz Leon ’12, captained the team during the first year it qualified for nationals. Leon acknowledges that meeting members of the team during a visit, compounded by her desire to go to college far from home, influenced her decision to come to Bowdoin.

Ultimate players generally play one of two loosely defined positions: handler and cutter. Handlers are responsible for most of the throwing while cutters attempt to free themselves from the defense and advance the disk. Leon, technically a cutter, excels at throwing the disk as well, providing her with the versatility to keep the offense flowing.

“Ana is usually a cutter, but she’s easily one of the best throwers on the team,” said Kate Powers ’17. “It’s not too common. It’s something that most people aspire to be. Few have as impressive handling skills.”

Powers also said that Leon is better at adjusting her throws under windy conditions than many other players.

Leon explained that her goal as a player is to become more versatile, and that she models her game after Phoebe Aron ’13, who, among other skills, was known for her ability to throw the disk far upfield.

Teams without cutters who can throw typically accompany long gains with underneath backwards passes to allow the handlers to regain control of the disk. Cutters such as Leon who can look upfield put increased pressure on defenses and allow their team to move the disk more quickly.

Leon’s teammates often describe her uncanny ability to get open regardless of the coverage. “Honestly I don’t know how she does it,” said Hannah LeBlanc ’16. “It’s pretty incredible. If I knew how to do it, I would be doing it myself.”

“It’s a lot about setting up your cuts,” Leon said. “You’re trying to get your girl to move her hips so you can swivel around her.”

Leon employs a similar technique on defense, staying on her girl’s hip and denying her the disk. 

She explains how ultimate teams play a lot of “man” defense, while individual defenders prioritize taking a side of the field away from their girl when she gets the frisbee. This makes the next throw more predictable for an anticipatory defense. “Man” defense aims to keep the disk away from the offensive player but also to prevent them from getting into open space on the uncovered side of the opposing handler.

“You can watch her play and see that it’s just so intuitive for her—where to move, where to be—in a way that it isn’t for everyone else on the field,” LeBlanc said. “People can watch our games, not know anything about them and say ‘I just know that Ana’s dominating out there.’”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

First year Emily Griffin has established herself as a capable member of the Bowdoin softball team. Griffin has started on the mound seven times this season, tied for the team lead with senior Melissa DellaTorre. Last weekend, Griffin held Colby scoreless and limited reiging D-III national champion Tufts to almost two runs below its season average. Typically, first years do not contribute as much to the team, particularly not as pitchers.

“The last time it happened was with Melissa. It really is reminiscent of Melissa,” said captain Hannah Wurgaft ’14. “That being said, it’s not very often.”

Head Coach Ryan Sullivan said he agreed.

“You never like to think that a first year is going to come in and have that kind of an impact,” he said. “It would be almost unfair.”

“I had no idea what to expect,” Griffin said. “I don’t ever assume I’ll get much playing; I figured I’d have to do my time on the bench.”

The first-year pitcher has been part of a very balanced pitching rotation; the four pitchers—DellaTorre, Griffin, Julia Geaumont ’16, and Alana Luzzio ’17—have started seven, seven, six and four games, respectively. Each one offers a different style of pitching. Though Griffin has a vast repertoire of pitches, she can struggle—like many first years—with consistency.

“I came in with an inconsistent drop ball,” Griffin said. “I’ve been working on that in practice. My curveball was stronger. I think it’s actually reversed now.”

She leads the team in at-bats and hits while sporting a .379 batting average. When she is not pitching, Griffin starts in centerfield, and is therefore responsible for communicating with the right and left field.

“In the time that I’ve been here, she’s probably the most diverse player I’ve ever seen,” said Cielle Collins ’15. “And the really crazy thing about it is that she does each thing so well.”

Often at the top of the line-up, Griffin bats as a slap hitter, meaning that she bats left-handed and takes a running start at a bunt, hoping to beat the ball to first base. Her teammates note that although her incredible speed makes her ideal for the role, she is one of the few slap hitters strong enough to power the ball into the outfield. Wurgaft remembered an at-bat where Griffin recorded a triple by turning a potential bunt into a blast over the outfielder’s head. The threat of a long ball into the outfield makes Griffin particularly difficult to defend because defenses cannot slide to cover the bunt.

Griffin’s skill in all three facets of the game has demanded a rigorous practice schedule. She often pitches for 20 to 40 minutes then splits the remaining practice time between hitting and fielding. She has divided her time similarly for double-headers.

“I think it would be exhausting to do what she does each game,” Collins said. “She’ll pitch a game, get four at-bats, and then have to stay focused in center field.”

Before coming to Bowdoin, Griffin had played most of her career on the West Coast, often traveling to California with her team. The Arizona resident lived in Massachusetts until age nine and had always anticipated returning to the Northeast.  Her childhood goal was to play for Dartmouth but she was swayed by her talks with Sullivan.

Griffin said that she started playing softball with her town’s youth team because her parents wanted her to make friends. Once she began playing more competitively, she was forced to give up horseback riding, which she had been doing competitively since she was five. She has since rekindled her love of riding, practicing with the equestrian team in the fall when it does not conflict with softball.

Sullivan recalls that he brought Griffin to Bowdoin even though the distance between Maine and Arizona prevented him from seeing her play in person. He described the difficult evaluating process that he and his pitching coach went through when studying footage of her. In the end, he concluded that between the tape, her reputation and her contributions to a high-level club team with a national championship to its name, he could “take a shot at it.”

So far, Griffin has not disappointed.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Kate Winingham ’14 has led a women’s tennis team that is on a tear as of late, winning seven matches in a row and opening undefeated in conference play. With five first years on a team of ten women, Winingham has been challenged this year acclimating the new players to the culture of the team.

“How we behave on the court, how we act before matches, after matches—it’s about keeping those standards,” she said, “We’re known as a respectful team.”

Leading by example seems to be her style. Winingham currently holds the No. 1 singles spot and the number No. 2 doubles spot with Samantha Stalder ’17. She has split the No. 1 singles billing with Tiffany Cheng ’16 at points this season. During the spring season, Winingham is 11-4 in singles play and 10-2 in doubles play. She has paired well with Stalder so far this season.

 “I’m more of a baseliner,” said Winingham. “I try to set up a shot so she can poach. She has good instincts about when to poach and when to fake.”

Winingham’s capable net play differentiates her from most women’s tennis players and her propensity for approaches has shaped her doubles play, where the points are shorter.

“She tries to get to the net as fast as possible,” Stalder said, “If she sees that they’re on their back foot, she’ll creep in. She puts a lot of points away.”

Emma Chow ’15 also notes that Winingham is a quick starter, which benefits her in doubles because those matches are a race to eight games.

Head Coach Paul “Hobie” Holbach and Winingham now joke that she lacked a definitive game when she first arrived on campus. Holbach noted that Winingham was the last recruit he chose that year, choosing her over another player because of her competitive drive and experience with team sports. Winingham said she dedicated more time to playing soccer than tennis before Bowdoin, although she did win All-State honors for tennis in Indiana during high school. Additionally, her brother, Kent Winingham ’12 was a member of the men’s tennis team at the time.

“She was a good athlete—that was about it,” Holbach recalled. “She didn’t have the tennis background, but I figured I could help her with the tennis part.”

Chow noted that even though Holbach likes to keep the team small, he always adds a few “project players” that he works on developing. More often than not, those players go on to contribute meaningfully to the team.

But even now, Holbach goes out of his way to praise Winingham’s intangibles.

“For the first three years, she was stubborn—not always in the best graces of the coach,” Holback said with a laugh. “But stubbornness is a good thing; it’s just about using it in a positive way. Every year she’s grown.”

“She’s been a terrific captain,” he continued, “better than I could have hoped. I don’t just make seniors captain. I only pick them if I think they can do the job.”

Winingham has become a more aggressive player as her career has progressed. As an all-court player, she can take advantage of her uncommon net game to counter against players with better groundstrokes. A balanced repertoire and above-average athleticism have given her an advantage in many of her singles matches.

She said that she feels more pressure as her career has progressed because now—playing at No. 1 singles and representing the team as captain—she has higher expectations for herself.Holbach said he believes she likes the pressure.

“If she’s not playing well, she can still compete and fight through it,” he said. “I can put her down in a match and I don’t have to worry about whether or not she can be there that day. A lot of girls have the strokes. Big deal. Are you a player who wants the ball?”

“I’m proud that she’s become a very good leader,” Holbach said, “I try to teach all my girls to become good leaders. I’m proud of her journey.”

Winingham will graduate with a degree in sociology. She is a member of Peer Health and  will go to nursing school after Bowdoin.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

After a year of waiting due to a spinal cord injury, Chad Martin ’16 began his Bowdoin baseball career in Florida with three hits in his first four at bats. Thirteen team games later, he’s barely slowed down, maintaining a .448 batting average and leading the NESCAC in hits. He is also second in RBIs and has claimed more bases than anyone else in the conference. He got on base five times in 12 at-bats in the Trinity series and recorded an RBI or a run scored in each of the three games.

On March 25, Martin was named the NESCAC Player of the Week for his terrific stretch in Florida. Martin had an impressive 21 hits in 12 games while accumulating a monstrous .717 slugging percentage.

The now 6’4” student played a number of sports throughout his childhood and also played football throughout high school. Baseball was always his first love. His grandfather Angelo Dagres, who played for the Baltimore Orioles, made sure of that. Martin calls Dagres his inspiration and remembers how his grandfather attended every practice for every sport he ever played. He attended the Trinity series last week as well.

Martin believes his grandfather would have followed him to California if he had decided to attend college there, but Dagres—a Massachusetts native—does not need to travel far to see most NESCAC games.

Martin played some AAU ball on a few teams coached by his grandfather, and the resulting exposure helped him enter The Governor’s Academy in Byfield, Mass. for high school. Martin considers his junior year at Governor’s his breakout year. He also began playing at showcases and talking with schools from all three divisions. The sought-after recruit seemed settled on Holy Cross (which is D-I) until a last-minute change of heart placed him on the Bowdoin campus.

Unfortunately, Martin did not see any playing time on the diamond in his first year as a Polar Bear. An L5 stress fracture in his spine took longer to heal than the projected three-month recovery time, holding him on the bench for eight months—Bowdoin’s entire season.

“My doctor told me it would be fine to play, but I got in the batting cage and my back still hurt,” Martin said. “They told me they guessed it wasn’t healed quite yet.” The stress fracture required Martin to wear a back brace at all times.

Martin remained close to the team despite the brace and spent most of the time he would have spent on baseball training instead on physical therapy.

“It was hard,” he said. “I couldn’t wait to come to Bowdoin and play baseball, so it was tough going down to Florida and seeing everyone else being able to play.”

The eight-month hiatus ended in time for Martin to participate in fall ball. He acknowledged having some difficulty getting back to his pre-injury form, both physically and mentally, despite some summer preparation with his grandfather. Still, during this year’s Florida trip, Martin showed up eager to hit but found the field crowded.

Talented junior Sam Canales was locked in at third base and Martin saw the field only as a stopgap when senior outfielder John Lefeber had to sit out for a week due to a minor injury of his own. 

Instead, Martin has filled the role of designated hitter, though he is always looking for opportunities to get back onto the field, or at least the infield.

“I hadn’t played outfielder in my entire life,” he laughed. “I’d be the first to admit I’m not a solid outfielder.”

He has noted the difficulty involved with getting excited for an at-bat only to return to the bench for an extended period when it concludes. Martin also believes that his opening game performance in Florida reignited his confidence, and that his post-injury adjustments have actually made him a better baseball player.

“Before the injury, my work ethic was not as strong as it was after the injury,” he said. “It became my goal to get back to where I was [before,] and then to exceed that.”

Already one of Bowdoin’s most valuable players, Martin’s continued growth could put Bowdoin in a great position for a postseason run.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

After two years on the bench recovering from an injury, lacrosse attacker Jordan Smith ’14 went on to score 44 goals in her junior year, finishing the season with just five fewer than Carolyn Gorajek ’13, Bowdoin’s all-time goal, assist and points leader. With Gorajek’s graduation, Smith is well on her way to taking over as the team’s leading scorer. In the first six games, she has scored 17 goals and handed out seven assists.

Smith’s father introduced her to the game at an early age when he brought home a few lacrosse sticks from a yard sale. In second grade, she joined her town’s fledgling program and had made the decision to play in college by her freshman year of high school. Twenty-eight school visits and hours of game tape later, the New Jersey native settled on Bowdoin after an overnight visit, which she said “felt like home.”

Smith only played the attack position occasionally in high school, but came to Bowdoin expecting a change from her position as midfielder. She earned a starting position her junior year and is now the center of the team’s attack. The Polar Bears’ offense starts at the top of the offensive zone and prioritizes mid-field drives, leaving the low attackers to buzz around the crease looking for feeds. Smith has proven to excel at backdoor cuts and catches in traffic.

“She’s probably the one attacker I hate to cover,” defender Erica Nangeroni ’14 said of their practice scrimmages. “She has the quickest feet and she’s the hardest cutter to cover, which on defense is annoying but on offense is exactly what you need.”

Statistics also suggest that she gets a lot of goals by converting on close. She has scored 17 goals on 29 shots—a 58.6 shooting percentage that ranks second in the NESCAC among the top 50 scorers. Her incredible shot on goal record of 90 percent proves that she can beat the goalie when she gets the ball near the net.

She currently averages more goals per game than anyone else in the NESCAC, tied with teammate and midfielder Betsy Sachs ’14.

She also recorded a competitive five turnovers at this point in the season, lowest on the team and proof of her reputation among teammates for holding on to the ball.

“Personally, I feel really comfortable with Jordan on the field,” Nangeroni said. “I’m never worried about her losing the ball. I trust her decisions on the field.”

“She’s a great person to play with,” Sachs said. “I know I can throw a pass to her and she’ll catch it. She’s good about freeing herself up.”

Fellow attacker Molly Popolizio ’14, responsible for eight assists and a goal so far this season, also agreed.

“She will catch almost everything in the middle,” she said. “She makes other players look better.”

Popolizio also attributes Smith’s success to her ability to shoot as soon as she catches a pass. Many players need to separate from the defense to catch passes cleanly, and often give up a shooting lane to do so.

“She doesn’t need that extra space from a defender,” Popolizio said. “She always cuts at a good angle to shoot.”

The team has gotten so used to her precise cuts that they are able to anticipate her moves on the field. This has made it particularly difficult for opposing defenses, considering that her own defense, which knows how she plays, struggles to contain her attacks.

As an environmental studies and sociology double major, she has also taken on captain responsibilities this year. Her fellow captains appreciate her approach to the job. Nangeroni acknowledged her ability to appeal to different personalities on the team and Sachs noted that some of the team’s current pregame rituals are of Smith’s design.

Smith has a well-known attacking move where she gets the ball from behind the goal and tiptoes along the crease before putting her stick behind the goalie, depositing the ball directly into the net. If her scoring rate persists, it’s a move that spectators on all sides will likely see a few more times.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Erin Silva ’15 has transformed years of honed gymnastic ability into consistent success in the pole vault event.

Last weekend at the New England Division III Indoor Championships, Silva vaulted for a new personal best of 3.75 meters—or 12.3 feet—raising the bar on the Bowdoin record she originally set as a first year and has broken many times since.

Currently ranked No. 7 nationally, Silva will likely qualify for nationals for the third year in a row. Maintaining her current rank would also earn her a second All-American distinction.

Silva began vaulting as a sophomore in high school—convinced by a friend and vaulter—when she grew too tall for gymnastics, a sport that she had been competing in since first grade. She also sprinted in that first year of competing, and her speed on the 100-foot runway eased her transition to vaulting. 

Her gymnastics background has helped her to gracefully execute the turn during the swing-up phase of the vault. During this phase, the vaulter quickly inverts her body before swinging over the bar.

Head Coach Peter Slovenski, a former vaulter himself, said that speed and grace are two of the most difficult things to teach, and the notion that they can be learned at all is up for debate. 

“Erin is very talented at all three phases of vaulting,” said Slovenski. “She’s one of the five fastest sprinters on our team. She has terrific jumping ability, and she has strong arms and gymnastic ability for the swing-up phase.”

The jumping phase involves converting forward momentum into upward momentum once the runner plants the pole in the metal box at the end of the runway. The fiberglass pole then bends dramatically to lift the vaulter up and forward, at which point she must execute the “swing-up” phase.

“Field event athletes have to be able to make adjustments in their technique, and this is a great strength of Erin’s,” Slovenski said. “There are a hundred things to coordinate, and she’s got a gift for coordinating all of them in the space of about three seconds.”

Silva said she made the decision to vault in college because she felt she had not yet hit her potential after only vaulting for three years.

“It’s been a long process,” she said. “It’s impossible to do a perfect vault, I would say. There’s always something you can do better.”

Silva’s success has been consistent since her arrival. Teammates expect her to win most of the meets she competes in, particularly the smaller regular season meets.

“I think she feels some pressure because, during some of the smaller meets or home meets, we kind of expect her to win and get her 10 points,” said captain Emily Clark ’15.

For reference, the Polar Bears scored 51 points in last week’s meet, so Silva’s second place finish—and the eight points it earned for the team—accounted for more than 15 percent of the team’s total.

Silva and the meet’s champion, Jenna Adams of Williams College, actually jumped the same height, but Silva lost the tiebreaker because she cleared the mark on her third attempt. Adams made the jump on her first attempt. Neither vaulter could clear 3.90 meters on their three given attempts.

Silva acknowledged that she feels more pressure when she attempts something she has already accomplished, and said she appreciates the constant challenge of improving her own performances, which is less stressful for her. She also said she felt motivated coming back from Spain, where she had been abroad for the fall semester.

Slovenski and vaulter Emily Lambdin ’16 said they noticed that Silva returned at a slight disadvantage having been away from vaulting, though Slovenski said she overcame it about six weeks into the season.

“At the beginning of the season, she was vaulting a lot lower than she usually does,” Lambdin said. “She jumped 11.1 [feet] a lot, which is still amazing, but low for her.”

To compare, the qualifying height for women at the NESCAC Championship meet is 7.6 feet.Slovenski believes that about 13 feet—4 meters—is a realistic goal for Silva before she graduates. He noted that somewhere between 13 feet and 13.4 feet is usually good enough to win nationals.

“The pole vault is so complex that there are still things to improve, even for an All-American,” he said. “Erin does dozens of things at a high technical level, but there will always be more things to learn.”

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Helen Newton ’14 is the fastest breaststroke swimmer in Bowdoin history, at least according to the record books, where her name sits atop lists for the 50, 100 and 200-meter races. Each record fell at the women’s NESCAC Championship last weekend, Newton’s last collegiate race. She had broken them unofficially as part of the 400-meter medley and 200 medley relay teams, which also broke school records, but had to wait to replicate her finishes in the individual events. When she did, she held the records by a couple of seconds and had beaten her personal best by nearly three seconds in her main event, the 100m.

Newton began swimming around age three and remembers learning the frog kick technique even at that point. She specialized in the breaststroke all through high school and spent most of her offseason time on lacrosse. The prospect of playing lacrosse brought her to Bowdoin, where she met current teammate and breaststroke swimmer, Maeve O’Leary ’14, who convinced her to consider joining Bowdoin swimming. Left without a major commitment until lacrosse started practicing, Newton ultimately found her way to the pool, though she did not introduce herself to Head Coach Brad Burnham until late October that year.

“She had a good pull and a good kick,” he said. “It seemed that she was lacking experience more than anything.”

Ariana Bourque ’16 turned heads with a five-point performance last weekend in two games against Trinity. She scored two goals, including the game-winner in Friday’s 2-1 victory and assisted on Bowdoin’s other three goals. The left winger turned a likely loss into a tie with Saturday’s effort, notching a goal and an assist in an 18-second span to erase a 3-1 deficit. Bourque now leads the team in points with 16, equaling her mark from last season with five regular season games left to be played. She shares the team lead in assists with Mallory Andrews ’14 and trails leading goal-scorer Chelsea MacNeil ’15 by just one goal.

Bourque, a Massachusetts native, decided she wanted to play hockey when she was five years old, but her parents feared that she was too small for contact sports. Still, Bourque was determined to play and finally started skating at age 12. She played defense until high school, drawing light-hearted comparisons to Boston Bruins hall-of-famer Ray Bourque because of their shared surnames and the fact that she wore his number for a period of time.

Bourque left Massachusetts to attend high school at The Holderness School in New Hampshire, where she played soccer, ice hockey and lacrosse. She had been playing soccer since she was three and considered it her primary sport until her sophomore year.

Coby Horowitz ’14—10-time All-American, six-time Athlete of the Week, and holder of seven Bowdoin College records—continued his dominance at Farley Field House last weekend with wins in the 1000-meter and the mile run.

Next week, Horowitz expects to face his toughest challenge of the season at the Dave Hemery Invitational at Boston University, where runners from all three divisions will compete. Horowitz ran his personal best in the mile at the event last year and is hoping to beat his own mark. He has already qualified for nationals, and is also preparing to run the 3000 with fellow senior Sam Seekins. He hopes one of them will break the only record not owned by the Class of 2014. All his other remaining races this season will feature only D-III runners.

Horowitz’s records have come in races as short as the 1000 and as long as the 5000.

Tim Long ’17 has already made some revisions to Bowdoin’s record books during his short time on the men’s swim team, breaking the 1000-yard freestyle record with a 9:55.32 time against Bates on January 17. Conrad Stuntz ’94 had held the record at the College since his senior year. Long won the 1000 free and took the 500-yard freestyle in the same meet. He has followed the record-setting performance with wins in both categories at Wesleyan, dominating the 1000 with a 12-second cushion.

“We talked about it at the beginning of the season, and we thought all three of them (500, 1000, 1650) would go down this year,” said Nate Garner ’17, adding that Long had been close to breaking the Bowdoin records since the beginning of the season.

Long began swimming at age five, joined a competitive summer league soon after, and was swimming year-round by age nine.

Down 11 points with less than six minutes to play, Sara Binkhorst ’15 carried the women’s basketball team into overtime last Saturday at Hamilton by scoring nine points before punctuating the effort with nine more in the two-minute extra period. Before the final whistle, she had scored a whopping 32 points—nearly half her team’s total. Binkhorst single-handedly outscored the Continentals in overtime. She finished the game having shot 9-15 from the field and 12-15 at the free-throw line. She got into the paint seemingly at will and used her jab-step on isolation plays to raise the threat of pull-up jumpers.

“She excels at taking people off the dribble,” said captain Megan Phelps ’15. “But she’s also an exceptional outside shooter.”

“She’s the team’s most reliable offensive player,” said Head Coach Adrienne Shibles.

John Swords ’15 set the bar high after his strong play in the Regis College Tip-Off Tournament, averaging 14.5 points per game and 11 rebounds in two games. His effort was enough to win the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award.

The seven-foot center created mismatches for the opposing teams, neither of whom had a player of comparable size. While NESCAC opponents are more likely to have players who can defend Swords, he is still the tallest player in the conference.

Swords started playing basketball in elementary school but gave it up to play hockey, following the lead of his two brothers. After ninth grade, he stopped playing and resumed basketball because he questioned his skating ability. Even at that time he was almost seven feet tall, including skates. Swords started working on improving his basketball skills, practicing with his best friend over the summer. He played very little during his first year with the team, but saw more time as a high school junior, and earned a captainship as a senior.

In last Saturday’s field hockey game against Trinity, captain Katie Riley ’14 made history. She scored four times, leading the team to a 6-1 victory and tying the record of most goals scored in a NESCAC tournament game.Riley started playing field hockey as a high school junior. She had just transferred schools and needed to pick a fall sport, but she was also playing lacrosse and ice hockey. She was wary of putting in too much off-season work for her third athletic commitment.

Though she had expected to start her Bowdoin athletic career as an ice hockey player, encouragement from her high school coach—a Bowdoin field hockey and ice hockey alumnus—convinced her to try out for field hockey her first year fall. She did not expect to make one of the country’s strongest programs as a walk-on, and when she did, she received very little playing time.

That first year convinced her to dedicate her time to the sport permanently, and after a summer of working at a number of field hockey camps, she started as many games as she had her first year—zero.

Captain Taylor Vail ’14 will soon finish her career as the anchor of Bowdoin volleyball’s defense. She ranks second in career digs in Bowdoin history and, if the team makes a run in the post-season, she will challenge for the top honor. Last week, she made the all-tournament team at the Hall of Fame Invitational at Mount Holyoke.

“It was a very up-and-down weekend for us,” captain Ellie Brennan ’14 said. “Taylor was very consistent all weekend so that’s probably why she won it.”

Playing the libero position, Vail’s contributions are difficult to quantify on stat sheets, as digs are the result of a team failing to block an attack, which is always less preferable than the block itself. Vail, therefore, tends to accumulate better stats against stronger teams.

The soccer team almost missed out on the talents of a player whose high school coach called him “Mr. Clutch.” During his college search, Cedric Charlier ’17 looked at schools similar to Bowdoin, but had not considered becoming a Polar Bear until close friend and teammate Nabil Odulate ’16 invited him to visit the college last year. Charlier was not on Bowdoin’s radar yet either.

“I was already looking at five or six schools at that point,” Charlier said. “Bowdoin was the last school to pop up.”

However, a brief recruiting exercising thoroughly imprssed former Head Coach Fran O’Leary, and Charlier later decided to enroll at Bowdoin.“The NESCAC is a very physical league and I knew he had the physical presence and the speed to contribute here,” Odulate said.

Mac Caputi ’15 always knew that if he kept his grades up, he could eventually have the opportunity to play quarterback for his father. Although he matriculated to Bowdoin as a football and lacrosse player, the coach’s son hasn’t had it any easier playing football under Head Coach Dave Caputi.

Mac Caputi maintains it does not change the player-coach relationship.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “On Saturdays, I try to talk to him only as a coach.”

Unseeded Luke Trinka ’16 busted open the bracket of the USTA/ITA Men’s Tennis Regional Championship last weekend as he played his way to six wins in three days, bringing Bowdoin the tournament’s championship trophy for the first time in program history. Trinka, who faced three ranked opponents on his run to the title, won four of his matches in straight sets. He overcame a 3-6 first set loss to fourth-seeded Matt Micheli of Williams to win nine sets in a row before dropping one in the final to Williams’ unseeded Conrad Harron. Harron and Trinka have known each other since they were 16, and have played together often over the summer in their native Chicago.

Trinka’s victory earned him a place at the Small College Championships in Fort Myers, Fla. where he will compete against junior college, DII and DIII athletes from across the country.

Because tournament seeding is based on previous collegiate success, Trinka was never a serious consideration for a seed, as he did not play singles for the College as a first year. He did, however, partner with Chase Savage ’16 to form a doubles team that finished the spring season undefeated.

Last year, Kiersten Turner ’16 took a weight off of first-year coach Brianne Weaver’s shoulders by asserting herself into a starting forward position. As a freshman, she tallied six goals in 17 games, tied for eighth-most in the NESCAC. A year later, Turner is on pace to surpass that total, netting her fourth goal in six games this season. She currently ranks second in the NESCAC in goals and third in points, and is one half of a capable pair of forwards along with Jamie Hofstetter ’16.

Turner scored both goals in the team’s 2-0 victory over Bates. She added another goal on a penalty kick Tuesday evening against the University of New England.

According to various teammates, Hofstetter’s technical game pairs well with Turner’s pure speed.

The women’s volleyball team started this season with only four upperclassmen on the roster and no experience at the middle position. The uncertainty allowed Miami native Erika Sklaver ’17 to step in and contribute immediately.

“She came in with a lot of natural talent,” said captain Ellie Brennan ’14. “She’s receptive to feedback and has been able to take a little bit of advice and run with it.”

Sklaver says she has had no difficulty adjusting to college athletics.

Whether on the field or the ice, opponents and teammates alike take notice of Rachel Kennedy. Following her older brother’s lead, the Connecticut native began skating at age four. After years of trips to the Midwest and Canada, she attended the Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn. as an ice hockey player intent on playing in college. 

She picked up field hockey as a freshman because of the school’s three-activity requirement, but she became an irreplaceable part of the line-up by her sophomore year, when Bowdoin Field Hockey Coach Nicky Pearson first saw her play. 

Despite little time for structured work during off-seasons dominated by ice hockey,  by senior year Kennedy’s natural talent made a collegiate field hockey career all but inevitable. That her coach was a Bowdoin Field Hockey alumna helped her choose to play field hockey at the school where she would also be a stand-out hockey player. 

Because track and field is more of a collection of individual events than a team venture, team building in the sport requires leaders with strong personalities. 

Hurdler and long jumper Michele Kaufman ’13, known as much for her dry sense of humor as for her athletic talent, has performed well in her efforts to lead the team, according to teammates.  

“Her personality is well-suited for track,” Olivia MacKenzie ’13. “She’s enthusiastic and brings the team together through a positive attitude and genuine concern for everyone.”

An improbable injury and a shallow bench thrust Melissa DellaTorre ’14 into the pitching rotation two years ago as a first year. She is now much more than a spot-starter, having thrown more innings than any other pitcher on the team this year. She ranks second in the NESCAC in ERA and fifth in total strikeouts this season. 

“She really exceeded our expectations her first year,” said Head Coach Ryan Sullivan.   “[Now], going into a big series, we’re going to throw her at least once. We know she’ll go seven innings and give you a great performance.”

Sullivan had plenty of opportunities to set those expectations. DellaTorre played high school softball only a half an hour away from the College. 

The road to Major League Baseball rarely runs through D-III, and hardly ever through the NESCAC. Despite this, NESCAC Pitcher of the Week Oliver Van Zant ’13 might just find a way. 

His demolition of several Bowdoin records has kept him on the radar despite going to a school that stays out of the national spotlight. His 256 career strikeouts puts him comfortably ahead of the closest Bowdoin pitcher on the list, Bernard Johnson, who tallied 187 in 1961. Van Zant also holds the record for most strikeouts in a season (95), and if the 2013 season ended today, his ERA (1.29) would be the second best in Polar Bear history. 

Van Zant started where most aspiring baseball players do, in little league as a six-year-old. He started soccer from an early age as well and excelled at both sports. But as each grew more and more time consuming, Van Zant’s parents encouraged him to make a single commitment. He chose baseball.

Among his numerous duties as Bowdoin’s President, Barry Mills apparently dips into athletic recruiting on occasion. A chance encounter between two fathers on the Williams lacrosse field put current ice hockey and lacrosse goalie Tara Connolly ’13 on the path into Bowdoin’ s record books. 

One of her older brothers played lacrosse at Williams, alongside President Mills’ son. Mills caught wind of her college search at one of their games and made her father promise him to consider Bowdoin. 

After a match against the University of Southern Maine on Wednesday, Connolly now holds the College’s record for career wins as a goalie and stands a good chance at moving into the top-five in career goals-against-average. She is just nine minutes away from the second position in the time-in-goal record. However, she says that she would not have been in the goal for one minute if not for her two older brothers.

In a sport where goals scored tend to outpace saves, lacrosse goalkeeper Chris Williamson ’12 came up with a season-high 18 saves in a 7-6 victory against Middlebury last Saturday and 14 saves in a quadruple-overtime battle the next day against Williams. He saved over 70 percent of shots he faced on the weekend, including a critical stop as time expired at the end of regulation against Middlebury. 

The Polar Bears have grown to rely on Williamson’s steadiness in net, but his lacrosse career started on a whim and his goalie career on even less. The Winnetka, Ill., native did not grow up in a region of the country known for its lacrosse pedigree. In fact, Williamson played hockey until the sixth grade, when he decided he needed a change.

“I got hit in the head a few too many times and I had to quit,” he said. “It was a happy accident.”According to Williamson, his career as a goalie began similarly.

The women’s lacrosse team started its season with a lot of question marks after returning only three starters from last year’s squad. The only returning attacker, Carolyn Gorajek ’13, helped answer most of those questions on the offensive side of the ball, averaging just under four goals a game so far this season. She has 23 total points in five games, 13 more than the next highest scoring player on Bowdoin’s roster.

This early success is hardly a surprise to any women’s lacrosse fans; Gorajek averaged 3.0 goals per game last season while picking up 66 total points—enough to lead the 2012 team by 20. Should she sustain her current goal production, she’ll net 56 by the season’s end.Gorajek is just 13 points, four goals and 18 assists from owning Bowdoin’s career records in all three statistical categories. She will likely pass the goal mark this weekend.  

Gorajek’s path to NESCAC dominance started with her parents, former lacrosse players themselves. She eventually left the town league they started to play at the Peddie School. After falling in love with lacrosse, the “community feel” of Bowdoin and the chemistry that the team displayed during her overnight visit eased the difficult decision of choosing between the competitive NESCAC schools.

Kyle Lockwood ’14 is often one of the biggest players on the ice. With line mates Rob MacGregor ’13 and Rob Toczylowski ’13, the Bowdoin second shift specializes in physical mismatches. The size of the line—the three player’s average height is 6-feet-2-inches and 202 pounds—gives Bowdoin a depth that other teams cannot boast. It also allows the team to wear its opponents down, just as it did against Hamilton last Saturday, scoring three goals in the final eight minutes to spark a dramatic comeback.

Lockwood had his stick in four goals in that game, scoring three on his own and assisting Toczylowski on the game-winner. He also scored both goals in the home playoff-clinching win over Connecticut College a week earlier. 

Still, despite his presence on the ice, Lockwood has developed a reputation as one of the quietest team members off of it. The steady, modest forward shrugs off his own success without thinking.

Max Staiger ’13 has a pretty big advantage as a basketball player, standing at 6’10”. The tall center/forward said he gets his height from his father, who is just two inches shorter. Staiger’s father, who played basketball both at the college level and professionally in Germany, is responsible for introducing his son to the game. Of course, it may have been an obvious decision when his son already stood at 5’6” in the fourth grade. Still, Staiger’s height did not guarantee his success in college. “The college game [is] 10 times faster than high school,” Staiger said.

“I’m just trying to take as long as possible to finish college,” the 21-year old sophomore Max Fenkell joked. One of two goalies responsible for the playoff-bound men’s ice hockey team, Fenkell has taken a roundabout path to the top of the conference leaderboards. Fenkell leads the NESCAC in goals allowed average, is a close second in save percentage, and Bowdoin has yet to lose a game he has started. If the season ended today, Fenkell would have Bowdoin’s highest-ever save percentage by a goalkeeper in a season, and he would be third on the list of lowest goals allowed per game for a season. Like many college athletes Fenkell started early, following in the footsteps of his father, who played on the last NCAA hockey team at the University of Pennsylvania before the program was relegated to club status due to budgetary constraints. His father’s participation in what Max called “the beer leagues” gave him the requisite exposure to the game. Becoming a goalie, though, proved to be an unusual decision.

As the women’s basketball team’s season heads into the home stretch of the season, it will depend on the team’s only senior, captain Kaitlin Donahoe. Donahoe, the team’s sole starter from last year and their unquestioned leader, provides the team with more than just spirit. She has scored 15.5 points per game—the most on her team and the second most in the NESCAC. But it is her intangibles that the team will sorely miss next year. “When there’s 10 seconds left on the shot clock, we look to Kaitlin,” said captain Anna Prohl ’14. “We always try to get the ball in her hands.”

Success on the ice is not new to Harry Matheson ’14. The Ontario native has gone through all the proper channels since he started skating at age four, learning the basics on his own backyard rink. He came to the United States to go to prep school, following in the footsteps of his brother and hockey role model. He also emulated his prep school coach, who played hockey at Bowdoin.

After her team’s strong showing in the NCAA tournament, women’s soccer coach Brianne Weaver has made a strong impression in her first year at Bowdoin.