Clare McLaughlin ’15

Athlete of the Week: Liam Nicoll ’18

TRACK & FIELD

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.

Athlete of the Week

Women's Lacrosse

May 1, 2015

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.

Comments are permanently closed.