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Number of articles: 34
First Article: October 2, 2020
Latest Article: May 12, 2022
Sam Pausman
Before Ella Slaby ’25 was leading the rugby team to national championships and representing her country on the international stage, she was living abroad in Shanghai and working tirelessly to get recruited by an NCAA rugby program.
The Bowdoin Office of Sustainability and the Bowdoin Organic Garden (BOG) teamed up to plant two semi-dwarf anjou pear trees in the gardens behind first year dorms Osher and West to celebrate Arbor Day. The tree-planting ceremony, led by Office of Sustainability student-worker Maya Chandar-Kouba ’23, Associate Director of Sustainability Keisha Payson and the BOG Superintendent Lisa Beneman, took place on April 28.
BRING OUT THE BROOMS Following an impressive 14-1 season, the men’s lacrosse team swept the NESCAC yearly awards for the first time in program and league history. Head Coach Bill Mason won Coach of the Year in his first season with the program, with attacker Donal Mullane ’21 winning Player of the Year and first-year phenom Will Byrne ’24 winning Rookie of the Year to round out the sweep.
1 … 2 … 3 … CANCUN Following its victory against the Bowdoin H*rpoon, Southern Charm, everyone’s favorite intramural basketball team, sadly saw its season come to a close at the hands of Beaters of Balls.
THEY HAVE A TIMEOUT, DECIDE NOT TO USE IT Bang! The Bowdon H*rpoon’s intramural basketball team wheezed in agony as sharpshooter Andrew Cohen ’24 of the Bowdoin Orient’s team, Southern Charm, swished successive three-pointers to put the game out of reach for the struggling satirical publication.
For the first time since the NESCAC’s founding in 1971, the conference has given fall sports—such as football, soccer, volleyball and field hockey—the green light to hold team practices over the course of the spring. “The NESCAC provided flexibility this year in light of schools returning from essentially a year away from traditional athletic activity, and permitting the non-traditional season … was one of the changes identified that could positively impact students returning to competitive athletics,” Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan wrote in an email to the Orient.
In 2020, the baseball team had plans to fly down to Auburndale, Florida for spring break. Auburndale, a small town tucked in between the two metropolitan mainstays of Tampa and Orlando, serves as the baseball team’s spring training destination.
On Wednesday morning the Athletic Department announced that Sacha Santimano would not continue as the women’s basketball head coach. Santimano, who led the Polar Bears to a 16-9 record (5-5 NESCAC), will not return after leaving for family health reasons.
SOFTBALLIN’ Early this April, the Bowdoin softball team swept UMaine-Presque Isle in a two-game series in Brunswick. The first game, which only went five innings, concluded early after the Polar Bears scored 14 combined runs in the third and fourth innings to go up 21-3.
WAVED ON HOME When much of the College traveled home for spring break, the baseball team returned to Florida for spring training for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Over break, the team was able to make up for lost seasons as they played 11 games in their stint away from campus.
Bowdoin’s winter sports teams were no strangers to success this past season, as teams delivered impressive performances in all aspects of competition. When All-American honorees were announced this past month, it was no surprise that 13 Bowdoin athletes received national honors.
NATIONAL TREASURE Following its performance in the Kurtz Cup Division of College Squash Association Nationals, the women’s squash team ended the year ranked 16th in the nation. Going into the matches last weekend, the Polar Bears boasted an impressive record of 11-7.
GRAND FINALE The men’s hockey team concluded its regular season with an impressive overtime victory against Tufts this past Saturday. Led by Patrick Callahan ’24, the Polar Bears put four goals past the Jumbos’ goalie by the end of the game.
Before Alex Lloyd was named the men’s basketball coach last May, Lloyd worked as the lead assistant for the Memphis Grizzlies’ G-League affiliate, the Memphis Hustle. While Lloyd is no longer working for the Grizzlies organization, he remains a supporter of his former employer.
UPHILL BATTLE The Nordic ski team had one of its biggest challenges of the year this past weekend at the Dartmouth Carnival. The unusually warm winter temperatures led to soft and slushy snow conditions, which made the team’s wax setup exceptionally difficult.
In September 2020, Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan sent an email to all athletes and coaches outlining the athletic department’s plan to combat internal racial inequalities. After the initial email was sent 17 months ago, the department’s commitment to increase staff diversity has come to fruition.
SPEED. I AM SPEED. The Bowdoin Men’s Track and Field team finished second in the Maine State Meet held in Waterville this past Sunday. Over the course of the competition, numerous Bowdoin athletes produced impressive performances, with Ajay Olson ’23 and Cheng Xing ’23 honored as MVPs of the meet.
Emily Dobson, Bowdoin women’s basketball assistant coach, stepped down from the team this past week after holding the position for just seven months. During her stint with the team, Dobson helped lead the Polar Bears to a 14-3 record (4-1 NESCAC).
SQUASHING THE COMPETITION The men’s squash team is seeded third for the NESCAC championships this weekend. Despite a disappointing loss to St. Lawrence on January 29, the team capped off its season with the highest seeding in the program’s history and will face sixth-ranked Colby in the quarterfinals.
Despite a late push, the Bowdoin men’s basketball team failed to rally against rival Bates in a 77-88 loss on Sunday at Morrell Gymnasium. The game’s end result notwithstanding, first-year coach Alex Lloyd had praise for the way his team played down the stretch.
SPLASH SISTERS The women’s basketball team, led by impressive three-point shooting performances from Sela Kay ’23 and Annie Boasberg ’22, improved to a record of 14-3 (4-1 NESCAC) following a commanding four-game winning streak. Over the course of the streak, Kay averaged nearly three made three-pointers per game and Boasberg boasted an impressive 46% from beyond the arc to propel their team to the top of the NESCAC standings.
Throughout this semester, the Bowdoin Orient Sports Section will highlight outstanding individual performances by Bowdoin athletes every week. All athletes are eligible to receive this distinction, and the Orient aims to include athletes from as many teams as possible by the end of the year.
In Ben Raphelson’s first year as Head Coach of the men’s and women’s cross-country teams, he sent four athletes to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III National Championship in Louisville, Kentucky on November 20.
Last Tuesday, Angelina Mayers ’23, the Athletic representative for the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) and the Athletes of Color Coalition (AOCC) representative to the Bowdoin Student Athlete Advisory Committee (BSAAC), sent an email to the greater student body seeking opinions on the perceived student-athlete divide on campus.
After winning the Division III national championship in the 2019-2020 season, the women’s rugby team aims to continue its success through the last stretch of the regular season by continuing to split up their major goals into smaller, more immediately achievable parts.
As the leaves in Brunswick begin to change colors, Bowdoin’s winter sports teams set their sights on the season ahead. After a two-year hiatus from uninterrupted winter competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bowdoin’s athletes, coaches, administrators and fans are ready for winter sports to return to the College.
Last March, during its 218th academic year, the College sent the student body home for the first time in institutional history. In the midst of every major world event from 1794 to present day, Bowdoin felt that it had the ability to maintain the safety of its students, faculty, staff and surrounding community.
On March 26, President Clayton Rose announced a series of anti-racism workshops, to be delivered by the Racial Equity Institute (REI), that ran earlier this month on April 15 and April 24. The workshops, designed to build a dialogue as well as generate awareness regarding racial discrepancies in American culture, were a success, according to Benje Douglas, associate vice president for Inclusion and Diversity.
Bowdoin Dialogues, a group led by Assistant Dean of Student Affairs for Inclusion and Diversity Eduardo Pazos and Associate Dean of Students for Inclusion and Diversity Kate Stern, launched its most recent series of discussions focusing on issues surrounding race and class this week.
As COVID-19 continues to rage, the Bowdoin crew team has maintained both team camaraderie and physical fitness throughout the year of social distancing. While some teams might lack self-motivation amidst the chaos of this past year, the crew team has had very few issues maintaining their athletes’ fitness.
Throughout the fall semester, Bowdoin athletics has been forced to “adjust and adapt” in response to the new challenges presented by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Despite grappling with geographically divided teams, a lack of competition and Zoom fatigue, athletes and coaches alike were pleasantly surprised by their teams’ ability to provide a meaningful and engaging athletic experience, but long for the return to an in-person season.
From fun socks to the social-fitness app Strava, Bowdoin’s running club is finding ways to engage their members when running together in person is not possible. “I really think our biggest limitation [this year] is just not being able to run together,” co-club leader Reed Warburton ’23 said in a Zoom interview with the Orient.
Finding new ways to hit the links, members of the women’s golf team are still playing the sport they love while trying to maintain a connection as a team. “We’re really fortunate that golf is a relatively socially distant sport,” said captain Haley Baldwin ’22 in a phone interview with the Orient.
The Bowdoin Hall of Honor, founded in 2002, biannually inducts classes of five to six outstanding members of Bowdoin’s athletic community. Candidates are usually nominated by other alumni, and the finalists are chosen by a committee of seven former Bowdoin athletes.
