Spring Sport Athletes Get Some Spring But No Break
Posted by Mariel Sena on March 23, 2011 at 12:55 am
While some basked in the sun on the beach of some tropical paradise or lounged on the couch in front of Jersey Shore reruns, spring sport athletes were getting off to the start of their seasons and getting important preseason and out-of conference games under their belt. Many had the luxury of competing in warm arenas such as California, Georgia, and Texas, and were able to get a little taste of the weather they wished they could compete in year-round. In addition, some winter sport athletes kept their seasons going with trips to NCAA tournaments, and many gathered honors at these events.
Post-Season Athletics
After a heartbreaking loss to Princeton for sole possession of the Ivy League Championship, Harvard men’s basketball sought to continue their season in the NIT tournament on March 15th, but fell to Oklahoma State in the first round. Losing 54-71, it was no close contest, but the men’s team did finish with league recognition of Keith Wright, Kyle Casey, and Christian Webster.
Harvard wrestling had two members go on the the NCAA Championships at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA March 17-19th. Steven Keith wrangled out one win in the 125 pound weight class before his series was cut-short. Keith finishes his sophomore campaign with a 23-17 overall record and a 1-2 mark at his second NCAA Championships. While Keith’s run for All-America honors ended before arriving at his goal, Walter Peppelman managed a seventh place match and won All-America honors as Harvard’s 25th All-American wrestler–the 17th in the last 7 years. Another impressive point to add to Peppelman’s accomplishments from the tournament is that he was the only wrestler in the tournament that managed to turn No. 1 seed of Boise State, Adam Hall, for backpoints twice in a single match.
The Crimson diving team continued their season past their swimmer counterparts at the NCAA Zone Diving Championships. Two men’s divers, Michael Stanton and Joe Zarrella, qualified for the one-meter final, placing 13th and 16th, respectively. Stanton also qualified for the three-meter final placing 16th alongside teammate Zac Ranta, who placed 13th. On behalf of the women divers, Brittany Powell led the Crimson by qualifying for the three-meter final and taking 16th overall. Leslie Rea made it to the one-meter final and garnered 16th place.
Fencing had a spectucular showing at the NCAA Regionals at Vassar College over the break and earned 11 NCAA nods to head to the championships at Ohio State March 24-27. On the women’s side, freshman Alexandra Fiefer and junior Noam Mills won gold in their respective events. Other notable performaces came from sophomore Katherine Chou, junior Shelby MacLeod, sophomore Felicia Sun, freshman Dakota Root, and Junior co-captains Hayley Levitt and Carolina Vloka. Leading the men’s team, Junior co-captain Valentin Staller won silver, while Thomas Kolasa won bronze, and Eric Arzoin won fourth place in the men’s saber. There were three top six finished in the epee as Michael Raynis earned the bronze, James Hawrot won fourth place, and Ben White received sixth. Additionally, Tommasso di Robilant won bronze in the men’s foil.
Spring Athletics
Men’s baseball has come off to a more-than-rocky start as they finished their tour of South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina with a 1-13 record. They managed to scrounge out one win at Kennesaw St. with Zach Hofeld awarding the win due to his performance on the mound. They will take on New York Institute of Technology, who also holds a losing record of 1-9, this coming weekend with two double headers.
Women’s softball fared better in their Southern California route playing at UC Riverside, Loyola Marymount, San Diego State, and University of San Diego. Winning five of their eleven games over the course of the break with stand-out pitching by Ivy-League renown player, Rachel Brown, they headed into their first games on the Northeast with an even 8-8 record. They took on Boston University this Tuesday, March 22 with a 2-1 win, giving head coach Jenny Allard her 400th career victory. They will head to Quinnipiac and Iona this weekend for a pair of double headers.
The men’s volleyball team undertook quite the competition as they traveled to Southern California for games against Cal State Northride, No. 13 Pepperdine, and No. 1 USC. While they did not manage to win any of the matches, they did manage to scrap one set from USC, winning the third set 25-22. In that match alone, Chris Gibbons tallied 11 kills while Matt Jones was close behind with 10. Jones leads his squad with an impressive 202 kills, followed by Gibbons with 142 and freshman Kyle Rehkemper with 125. The Crimson will travel to Springfield on March 23 for a 7 pm match, but pick-up conference play when they take on NYU at home on March 25 at 7 pm in the MAC.
Women’s waterpolo hit the West Coast with a Northern California tour. They work their way around the Bay starting with a win at Santa Clara, loss at California State Monterey Bay, win over Fresno Pacific, loss at UC Davis, loss at San Jose St., loss at California State East Bay, and a loss at Cal Berkeley. Even with such a competitive schedule, their overall record is at 10-9 and 1-0 in conference with a win over Brown back in February. They begin conference play again with a trip to Bucknell at the beginning of April but have their next game at home versus Wagner this Sunday, March 27 at 2 pm.
Both men’s and women’s tennis made it out to California, but only the men’s team was able to compete in all their scheduled matched as they made the wise choice to stick with the sun of San Diego while the women’s team scheduled a tour of the Bay area of Northern California. Of the three matches scheduled, women’s tennis was only able to complete its match against San Francisco and easily toppled them 6-1. The men’s team also had a three-match schedule at the University of San Diego, and came out with wins against Denver and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Their only loss of the week at the hands of Eastern Tennessee State with the score of 5-2.
While it often seems that the Track Season is all year around, they began their outdoor season at the Meeting of the Minds and the Shirley Crowe Multi Meet at Rice University. The women’s team earned wins in the 400 meter dash (Christina Twicken), hurdles (Melissa Bellin), and shot put (Shannon Watt) at the Meeting of the Minds while their counterpart, Nicole Silva, placed third in the heptathlon. The men had fine showings from John Dingus, Jared Kadich, and Brian Hill in the solo running events and bested Rice in the 4×400 relay by almost three seconds. Harvard took the titles in the pole vault (Nico Weiler), hammer (Eric Clayman), and javelin (Nick Farnsworth) as well. Both sides of the team hope to continue the winning trend at the Stanford Invitational this weekend.
Women’s golf made their spring debut at Cal Berkeley dropping a 289-315 decision at the Ruby Hill Golf Club in Pleasanton, CA. Bonnie Hu tied for the individual medalist while Mia Kabasakalis (81, 8th) and Christine Cho (83, 10th) placed in the top ten. Kabasakalis, Hu and Jane Lee all tied for the best marks of the day at -1.
Men’s lacrosse has come out with a bang as it has already garnered a 5-1 record and ranking of 17th in the nation. Although they have been playing since late February, the team started its conference play against Brown, winning 11-7. Over spring break they gathered wins against both Bellarmine and Holy Cross at Soldiers Field Stadium. These performances have garnered goal keeper Harry Krieger both COOP Athlete of the Week and NEILA Player of the Week honors. Looking to keep their winning streak alive, the lacrosse team will travel to Dartmouth to take on the Big Green this Saturday at 2 pm.
Women’s lacrosse has come off to a promising start, with a win against Johns Hopkins during spring break. While their record is 2-3, they have been neck and neck with ranked teams such as Stanford. 1-1 in Ivy League play, they take on Yale this weekend at 1 pm at home in Harvard Stadium. Leading the Crimson in goals are Danielle Tetreault with 15, Jennifer Vandermuelen with 13, Melanie Baskind with 11, and Jessica Halpern with 10.
Sailing had quite the week by competing in both the St. Mary’s Women’s Intersectional and the Truxton Umstead Trophy, a coed competition. The women’s team took ninth out of 18 teams at the St. Mary’s Women’s Intersectional and the coed squad finished ninth out of 19 teams at the Truxton Umsted Trophy. At the St. Mary’s Women’s Intersectional, juniors Emily Lambert and Alexandra Jumper had a total of six top-three finishes over the course of 14 races and even managed to sail past beat Georgetown to win the division. The teams set sail again March 26 with the women’s team competing at the Women’s Duplin Trophy Race at Tufts and the coed squad at the Owen, Mosbacher & Knapp Trophies at Kings Point.
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