Editorial

As the winter months draw slowly to a close, two sports teams at the College have infused the Middlebury community, both town and gown, with a new, higher tolerance for a long winter season. The men’s basketball and women’s hockey teams will continue their quests for championships this weekend: the men will welcome either Western Connecticut or Salve Regina for a second round game in the NCAA tournament while the women will host the semifinals and finals of the NESCAC championships.

These are heady times for Middlebury sports. Two of our college’s top athletic programs, one more recently dominant and the other a Middlebury staple, continue national championship caliber seasons this weekend. We at The Middlebury Campus encourage you to take a look for yourselves.

Men’s basketball currently boasts a 25-1 record and last weekend avenged their only loss by beating Williams, 63-54. The nine-point margin of victory, which came in the NESCAC championship game, more than compensated for a five-point loss earlier in the season. Both the stakes of last Sunday’s game as well as the preceding events that led to the men’s playing for the championship speak to the high level at which our men’s basketball team now competes.

Trailing by as many as 18 points to Amherst in the NESCAC semifinals on Saturday, the men collectively orchestrated a comeback in the game’s final minutes that led them to the championship game the following day. The win over Williams on Sunday guaranteed the men a place in the NCAA tournament and pushed them to the brink for record wins in a season by a Middlebury basketball team. A single victory in the NCAA tournament will give the 2010-2011 team the most wins in a single season in program history. Earlier in the season, head coach Jeff Brown, now in his 14th year coaching the Panthers, notched his 200th career victory, making him the winningest basketball coach in Middlebury history by far. In the last three seasons alone, the men have lost just nine games combined, against 74 victories.

Women’s hockey, meanwhile, will compete for a NESCAC championship at home this weekend. Though a more traditional area of success in Middlebury athletics, the women nonetheless find themselves in position to earn a top seed in the NCAA tournament contingent upon a successful weekend. After taking care of Williams 6-2 last weekend for the third time this season, the women seen poised to return Middlebury to the top of Division III.

With a record of 19-4-1, a goalie — Alexi Bloom ’11 — who has recorded 10 shutouts and a string of victories at their back propelling them towards a showdown with Bowdoin on Saturday, the women will offer ample entertainment and inspire a good deal of college pride this weekend. With an NCAA bid almost assured to the fifth-ranked team in the nation, we encourage the student body to begin taking interest in both of the winter season’s most formidable teams.

So, we congratulate both men’s basketball and women’s hockey on outstanding seasons to date and we urge our peers, at the College and of Middlebury proper, to continue to support these teams’ campaigns. Too often we take for granted some of the exceptional things that Middlebury students do; let us not make the same mistake with the contests this weekend and in the future. Head down to the field house this weekend and cheer for your classmates. You will surely appreciate their efforts as much as they will yours.