Track & Field (Fiona Maloney-McCrystle)
The track and field team enters the 2014 outdoor season fresh off the winter indoor season, making an almost immediate transition into another long series of meets.
On the women’s side, top returners this year look to be Laura Strom ’14.5 in the high jump, Alex Morris ’16 in the 400 and Alison Maxwell ’15 for the distance squad, all of whom begin the season with impressive winters under their belts. Lauren Pincus ’14, who qualified for the NCAA Championships two years ago, also looks to have a good year in the javelin. They will be joined by first-year stand-outs Erzsie Nagy ’17 for the distance squad and Hannah Blackburn ’17 in the long and triple jump.
On the men’s side, the top returners are Bryan Holtzman ’14 in the sprints and Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 for the distance squad, as well as Kevin Chu ‘14, a two-time NESCAC champion in the hurdles, who will begin competition again after indoor season ends. They will be joined by talented first-year Alex Nichols ’17 in the 400.
“Our goals as a team are always to win the NESCAC championship as well as the D3 New Englands,” Head Coach Martin Beatty said. “This year we are a little behind in our training from not having an indoor track to train on. The focus will be to train hard and see if we can make up some ground that we missed during the indoor season, while trying to be conscious of not pushing people too hard to the point of injury.”
The first event of the spring season will take place at Point Loma Nazarene in California during spring break.
Men's Lacrosse (Fritz Parker)
Coming off a promising 2013 season that saw them reach the NESCAC semifinals, the men’s lacrosse team, ranked 18th in the preseason, looks for continued improvement as they take the field in 2014. Before falling to Wesleyan in the NESCAC semifinal, the Panthers had put together an 8-2 conference record and appeared to be on the road to an NCAA berth.
If they are going to get to NCAAs, Middlebury will have to replace a pair of stalwart defenders in Zach Driscoll ’13 and All-American Billy Chapman ’13. Darric White ’14, Cal Williams ’15 and Geoff Vrla ’14 anchor a fresh defensive unit that will be forced to step up and fill that gap. Nate Gaudio ’14 will provide much-needed experience on the defensive end.
“I think that this year’s defensive unit shows great potential,” Defender Christian Bonaventura ’15 said. “Although there is a lack of experience, the combination of talent, lax IQ and the reassurance of Nate Gaudio in the cage should lead to a strong defensive showing from here on out.”
The Panthers will count on 2013 NESCAC second-leading scorer Jon Broome ’16 for a spark on the other end. Broome–along with fellow sophomores Tim Giarrusso ’16 and Harrison Goodkind ’16–looks set to provide one of the more explosive scoring attacks in the conference.
After opening conference play with a home loss to preseason favorite and fifth-ranked Tufts, Middlebury will have a tough slate of conference games before the NESCAC tournament kicks off in late April. If all goes according to plan, the Panthers will be back on the field in May for their first NCAA appearance since 2011.
Women's Tennis (Joe MacDonald)
After falling in a nail-biter to top-seeded Amherst in last year’s NESCAC semifinal, the Panthers look to return to the conference championship match as they take the court for their 2014 spring campaign.
The Panthers will be hard-pressed to replace last year’s NCAA singles champion Lok Sze Leung ’15, who transferred to Division-I Northwestern University to continue her career. In order to fill that gap, Middlebury will rely on NCAA quarterfinalist Ria Gerger ’16 at the number-one singles spot.
In addition to Gerger, sisters Dorrie Paradies ’14 and Katie Paradies ’15 look to contribute in both singles and doubles play, while first-years Lily Bondy ’17, Alexandra Fields ’17, Jennifer Sundstrom ’17 and Kaysee Orozco ’17 also look to make an impact.
“We have a very young team but are extremely excited for the season,” Dorrie Paradies said.
The Panthers will travel to California for a string of matches over spring break, before returning for NESCAC play. With one of the stiffest groups of teams in the country, the NESCAC season should prepare Middlebury for a long postseason run.
Highlights on the schedule include matchups with first-ranked Williams, third-ranked Amherst and sixth-ranked Bowdoin. With such a tough lineup of conference opponents, attaining the NESCAC crown will be a tough, but not impossible, goal.
The fifth-ranked Middlebury women’s tennis team will open up its spring campaign this Saturday, March 8 against Colby and Brandeis.
Women's Lacrosse (Gabe Weissmann)
After finishing last year’s season with a strong record of 18-3 and graduating seven key contributors from the team in 2013, the third-ranked Middlebury women’s lacrosse team looks to repeat and improve upon the success of last year with the help of a small but powerful senior leadership as well as several skilled first-year, sophomore and junior players.
After graduating three of their top scorers from last year, the Panthers will look to senior Liza Herzog ’14 for leadership in point production. Herzog finished the 2013 season with a total of 44 points, which consisted of 31 goals and 13 assists.
The Panthers have a strong senior defensive outfit with co-Captain Alyssa Palomba ’14 between the pipes and co-Captain Hannah Deoul ’14 on defense. Palomba finished last year’s game with 92 saves in 21 games played, with a save percentage of .416. Deoul finished the season with the season with 36 ground balls, a key statistic in helping women’s lacrosse teams win games.
Palomba acknowledges that the face of women’s lacrosse will be much different, but this is never a bad thing.
Our biggest hurdle this season is the loss of our 7 seniors last year, all of which played huge roles on and off the field,” Palomba said. “This also plays to our biggest strength, which are the players who are stepping up to fill those crucial spots and bringing new things to the team. We are not the same team that we were last year. We have changed up a lot of things including many of our plays and the defense, so I think this is going to all work to our advantage.”
As they take the field in 2014, the Panthers hope to avenge last season’s overtime loss to Trinity in the NESCAC championship game. Middlebury will again look to May’s NCAA tournament – in which they reached the semifinals a year ago – as the final measure of their success.
Baseball (Fritz Parker)
The baseball team will begin its season on March 22 in Tucson, Ariz. as part of its annual spring-break trip. The trip provides a chance to start the season while wintry conditions continue to pester the northeast while also giving Middlebury the opportunity to play solid out-of-region competition. In Arizona, the Panthers will play 10 games in eight days, culminating in a three-game series against Williams.
Having graduated seven seniors in the class of 2013, this year’s team is about as youthful as can be. Steven Bodine ’16 thinks that a talented first-year class could offset those departures.
“Lot of speed, lot of power, I’m excited to see what they got,” Bodine said.
Co-Captains Dylan Kane ’14 and Alex Kelly ’14 make up the entirety of the senior class and are aided in their leadership duties by Eric Truss ’15.
Truss returns as the team’s most accomplished pitcher from a season ago, when he led the team in wins, games started, innings pitched and ERA. Kelly is a three-year starter who brings solid defense to left field and is known as one of the league’s toughest outs at the plate.
Dylan Sinnickson ’15, the team’s top hitter from a season ago, returns to roam centerfield, while classmate Hunter Merryman ’15 could provide another potent bat should he decide to rejoin the team after the Arizona trip, which he will not be attending. Max Araya ’16 started almost every game at second base last year, and will almost definitely be in the starting lineup again from day one.
Once they move towards establishing their lineup in Arizona, the Panthers will return to snowy Vermont to face a tough regular-season schedule as they attempt to reach the NESCAC playoffs.
Softball (Sydney Reid)
Last year the Middlebury softball team advanced to the semifinals in the NESCAC tournament, where it ultimately fell just short of the championship game. In the double-elimination tournament they lost to Tufts and Bowdoin, while Tufts went on to win the championship. The Panthers finished with an overall record of 26-11, and 10-2 in the NESCAC.
Alex Scibetta ’14, Emily Smith ’14 and Emily Kraytenberg ’14 will be leading the team as captains. Scibetta is excited for the prospects of the season.
“I think we have a lot of talent and a great team dynamic this year and I can’t wait to see what we do with it,” Scibetta said.
Siobhan O’Sullivan ’17 is one of five promising freshmen joining the team, and is impressed by her teammates work ethic.
“Whether it be staying after practice and fielding ground balls or spending some extra time in the batting cage, everyone is putting in full effort to make themselves and the team better,” O’Sullivan said. “I know the dedication and drive to get better will continue throughout our season and translate to the field in a positive way.”
The team will travel once again to Clermont, Florida for spring break where they will play 12 games and face opponents such as Wellesley, Potsdam, St. Catherine, and the University of Chicago. Their record for the spring training trip in Florida last year was 5-5, and it provided them a strong start to the season. The Panthers hope this trip to Clermont will launch them into a similarly successful season.
The team’s first home game will be March 30 against Castleton State.
Golf (Colin McIntyre)
The men’s golf team enters the spring season coming off of a strong fall led by NESCAC Player of the Year John Louie ’15. Middlebury’s dominant performance at the fall qualifier earned it the honor of hosting the NESCAC championship at Ralph Myhre golf course on April 26-27. The Panthers will play host to Trinity, Amherst and Williams as they try to improve on last year’s 3rd place finish.
“We are all very excited for the start of the spring season,” Captain Max Alley ’14 said. “We have a strong freshman class and now have two juniors joining us after being abroad in the fall.”
Depth is certainly not a problem for the Panthers, who fired off five of the top ten weekend scores at the qualifier last September.
The men ended their fall season with an ECAC Championship by 13 strokes over runner-up Westfield State.
On the women’s side, the Panthers field a team looking to return to the NCAA tournament after finishing 14th last year, and enter the spring season ranked 24th in the nation.
“We ended our fall season nipping at the heels of the Williams team,” Captain Caroline Kenter ’14 said. “The realization that we have the potential to beat the Ephs gives us a lot of motivation going into our spring season.”
In four of the women’s five tournaments during the fall, Williams, ranked number three in the NCAA preseason rankings, not only competed, but also emerged victorious. Three of those four times, Midlebury finished runner-up to the Ephs.
Both teams have had to adapt to the field house construction, and have not been able to hit indoors on campus as in previous years. They have been hitting on simulators in Burlington, but look forward to getting back on the course during spring break trips to the Carolinas before the start of the season.
Men's Tennis (Emma McDonald)
After an off-season of hard work and conditioning, the Middlebury men’s tennis team starts off the spring season this Saturday, March 8 on its home court with a double-header against Colby in the morning and Brandeis in the afternoon.
Middlebury will go on to play fifth-ranked Kenyon and third-ranked Emory over spring break in what could prove to be two key match-ups this season. Later in April, the Panthers will embark on what Head Coach Bob Hansen calls a “critical NESCAC road trip,” playing a series of matches against conference foes Williams, Wesleyan and Trinity.
This year’s squad boasts many returning players, including All-Americans Alex Johnston ’14 Brantner Jones ’14 and Palmer Campbell ’16, as well as an experienced trio of Teddy Fitzgibbons ’14, Zach Bruchmiller ’14 and Andrew Lebovitz ’14. In addition to Johnston, Jones, Fitzgibbons, Bruchmiller and Lebovitz, senior James Burke ’14 will serve as the team’s sixth captain for the season.
The team will take the court this season with no first-years on the roster.
After falling to Amherst in last season’s NESCAC semifinal match, Middlebury looks to make a run at the conference title in 2014. Following that, the Panthers have set their sights on hosting the first round of the NCAA tournament, May 9 through 11, and hope to continue on to the NCAA finals in Claremont, California.
“The team has very high expectations to improve on last year’s final eight NCAA National appearance,” Hansen said.
Spring Sports Preview
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