Erin Mullins ’16

Athlete of the Week: Emma Beecher '16

Women's Lacrosse

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.

Athlete of the Week: Joulia Likhanskaia ’17

Women's Tennis

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.

Athlete of the Week

Sailing

Alex Vasile

Orient Staff

April 3, 2015

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.

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