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(04/24/14 1:00am)
Two months after kicking the Seattle Seahawks to the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory, Steven Hauschka ’07 returned to Middlebury, where as a sophomore he walked on to the football team and into the record books.
Director of Athletic Communications Brad Nadeau spearheaded the effort to bring Hauschka back to campus.
“The Seahawks won the Super Bowl and about a week later I talked to [Football Coach Bob Ritter] with the idea of bringing him back to campus,” he said. “So I started making some calls to different people on campus and talked to Dave Kloepfter in student activities. He later talked to MCAB and they said they would love to have [Steve] back.”
On Thursday, April 17, Hauschka sat down with Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff in McCullough social space for an hour-long interactive discussion with Wolff and audience members.
“For me, as someone who doesn’t know the NFL as well as [Sports Illustrated senior writer] Peter King does, it was actually an advantage, because I was able to ask the questions I really didn’t know the answer to,” Wolff said. “But I had the same curiosity a lot of people in the audience did.”
The Seahawks’ kicker was introduced with a five-minute long highlight reel that included footage of both his time at Middlebury, when he re-wrote Panther record books, as well his 2013-14 season with the Seahawks during which he made 33 of 35 field goals as the second most accurate kicker in the NFL.
For Hauschka, it was a celebration of the long journey that took him from Middlebury to North Carolina State and then five professional teams before landing with the Seahawks, who earlier this month, signed him to a three-year, $9.15 million deal.
Hauschka stressed that a combination of visualization, meditation and resulting hyper-focus have keyed his success thus far in the NFL.
“I have this ability to hyper-focus — almost like a horse with its blinders on,” he said. “I think I probably have more in common with the sports psychologist than a lot of my teammates.”
He also credited being cut from the men’s lacrosse team and relegated to the junior varsity soccer team at Middlebury with preparing him for being cut in the NFL.
“[Getting cut] is one of those moments that tests you deep down,” he said. “But I took it as a sign that I need to improve on something.”
Though he was among the final lacrosse cuts as a first-year, Hauschka improved enough to make the team his sophomore spring. By that point he had already walked on to the football team, convinced by his roommate Scott Secor ’07 to take up kicking.
Almost immediately, Hauschka began hearing that Division I opportunities — and perhaps the NFL — could be in his future. Steve Wolf, a former NFL punter who coaches specialists, told Hauschka he had Division I talent the first time he saw him kick.
“I thought he was crazy,” Hauschka said.
The accuracy of Wolf’s prediction was on full display when Hauschka took a break from the question-and-answer format to screen a preview of a GoPro video he shot during Super Bowl week in the lead up to the game.
Following the screening, Hauschka answered questions from a variety of audience members, including students, professors and children on a variety of subjects.
“He cracked the window open to that world,” Wolff said. “The sizzle was the Super Bowl champion who came from humble Middlebury College, but the steak, in the auditorium, was these insights into the interior life of the kicker. And then the bonus was how this can apply to anybody if they’re facing an obstacle.”
Hauschka answered questions around NFL culture — how head injuries are going to impact the NFL in the future and the relationship between players in the locker room — as well as the story of how he met his wife Lindsey, a fellow Middlebury alumna.
“For him to take the time [to come back here], Middlebury must be pretty special to him,” Wolff said. “Two truisms about Middlebury that seem to bear out: real loyalty from the alumni base; and also they tend to marry one another — and we had both on display.”
Following his two-day visit, which included talks at the local high school and elementary school in addition to the College, Hauschka returned to Seattle to participate in the team’s voluntary offseason workouts — the first organized team activities of the new season.
(01/23/14 6:16am)
In a matchup between the NESCAC’s top seeds, the Middlebury women’s hockey team traveled to Amherst, Mass. where the second-ranked Panthers gained a crucial advantage in conference play over the ninth-ranked Lord Jeffs, stealing a 2-1 win in the first game of the doubleheader before drawing 5-5 in the second leg.
In the series opener on Friday, Jan. 17, the Panthers got out to an early first-period lead as Jennifer Krakower ’14 beat Amherst goaltender Kerri Stuart for her second goal of the game on a one-timer off a feed from Carly Watson ’17 on the point. Sara Ugalde ’14 assisted on the play at the 18:37 mark as the Panthers scored their 17th power-play goal of the season — one of four advantage goals on the weekend for head coach Bill Mandigo’s team.
“Our power play overall has been working a lot better,” Krakower said. “We’re passing the puck much quicker and coach Mandigo had told us to work on moving the puck more and that helped.”
Amherst answered shortly after, as Tori Salmon beat goalie Annabelle Jones ’15 for her seventh goal of the season, drawing the Lord Jeffs level 19 seconds into the second period of play.
Middlebury took the lead for good 13 minutes later as the Panthers converted their second power-play opportunity in three tries after Amherst’s Eileen Harris was penalized for hooking. The Panthers wasted little time, scoring 14 seconds after the restart, as Madeline Joyce ’14 netted the second goal of her season, while Pam Schulman ’17 and Katie Mandigo ’16 registered assists.
The Panthers killed off three penalties over the game’s final 26:13 and endured 1:07 of empty net from the Lord Jeffs as Jones made a number of point-blank saves — and 33 overall — in Middlebury’s 2-1 victory.
With poll position in the conference, the Panthers returned the next day needing just a draw to maintain their edge over Amherst. Middlebury accomplished that in a wild, 10-goal game, in which the Panthers and Lord Jeffs combined for six third-period goals before a scoreless overtime period ended the game knotted at five apiece.
After registering Amherst’s lone goal in the loss the night before, Salmons, the NESCAC’s second-leading goal scorer, decimated the Panthers, compiling a hat trick and assisting on a fourth goal to power her team’s offense. On the other end, five different players scored goals for Middlebury — and five more registered points — as the Panthers and Lord Jeffs traded goals, with neither team leading by more than a goal at any point.
Ugalde started the scoring for Middlebury, breaking the ice just 46 seconds into the game off an assist from Katie Sullivan ’15, who leads the conference with 16 points through 12 games. The Panthers have received balanced scoring — five of the top 19 point scorers in the conference don the navy and white of Middlebury — all season long and Saturday was no exception.
“We’ve always been a team, not of all-stars, but of collective players who work really well together, which gives us an advantage over other teams,” said Emily Fluke ’15, one of Middlebury’s five goal scorers. “I think that contributes to why we have so many people who can step up at different moments because we’re not reliant on one person at any moment and that’s why we can have so many different people score goals.”
After Salmon scored and assisted a pair of goals to give Amherst a 2-1 lead midway through the second period, Krakower tied the game at two with her third goal of the game off an assist from Watson, a first-year defender who leads the NESCAC with 10 assists this season.
Tied at two after the first 40 minutes of play, Amherst and Middlebury poured in six goals over the next 20 minutes with Salmon starting the third-period barrage 17 seconds after the opening face-off. 3:26 later, Amherst’s leading scorer was whistled for tripping and the Panthers took advantage as Fluke scored 16 seconds into the power play.
Less than a minute after killing off a Middlebury power play, Amherst surrendered another goal, this time at the hands of Mackenzie Martin ’15, who was assisted by Anna Van Kula ’16 and Jane Freda ’17.
Amherst equalized just over two minutes later, but surrendered the lead even faster as Schulman re-took the lead for her team 22 seconds later off a feed from Julia Wardwell ’16 with 8:15 left to play.
Middlebury managed to maintain the advantage for nearly five minutes of play before Salmon struck again, besting Jones for the third time in the game to tie things at five apiece with 3:22 left.
Despite a couple of frenetic moments over the final 3:22 of regulation and overtime, neither team managed to find a game-winning goal and the Panthers came away with a 5-5 tie and a pair of strong results on the road.
“It’s nice to come away from the weekend with three points,” Joyce said. “We have a lot to work on from the weekend and it’s more of a learning process as a team for the next chapter of our season. We’re going to face them again, I’m sure so we have to come prepared.”
Middlebury, whose lone loss on the season came nearly two months ago to undefeated Plattsburgh, improved to 10-1-2 on the season and 6-0-2 in conference. The Panthers host Bowdoin (8-5-1, 3-2-1 in NESCAC) for a two-day doubleheader, Friday, Jan. 24 and Saturday, Jan. 25.
(01/23/14 6:06am)
When I arrived at Middlebury four years ago, I knew that I wanted to write for the newspaper. A lifelong sports fan — and former varsity athlete adjusting to life as a NARP (I briefly entertained notions of trying to walk on to the football team before enjoying a brief, but formative career playing ultimate frisbee) — I figured this was the perfect opportunity for me to write about topics and teams that interested me. But not Middlebury athletics — I wasn’t the least bit interested in Division III sports or their place at this school. In other words, I got to Middlebury with the intention of being The Campus’ Bill Simmons.
Today, almost four years later, I can think of nothing better to write about than the experiences that I have had and the athletes I have covered at Middlebury who have transformed the way that I write, think and talk about sports.
I got to the College in February 2010, my arrival at this school aligning almost perfectly with the rise of the men’s basketball program and the extended golden age of the women’s hockey team — an unlikely marriage between two programs that share more in common than might meet the eye.
As a former athlete most often relegated to the end of the bench, I have an affinity for teams that overachieve and athletes who compete like they’ve just spent a while sitting next to me. And no two teams that I’ve watched and covered in the pages of this newspaper embody that spirit like the Middlebury men’s basketball and women’s hockey teams.
So when I look back at my time at Middlebury I will return to the days I spent in Pepin and Kenyon, sometimes watching, but more often broadcasting their respective games, enthralled by the fierce, bordering on reckless competitiveness of a Joey Kizel ’14 or Emily Fluke ’15; the shot-blocking dominance of Lexi Bloom ’11 and Andrew Locke ’11; the tremendous two-way play of Madison Styrbicki ’13, rivaled only by the flawless defense and smooth shooting of Nolan Thompson ’13; and the offensive genius of Lauren Greer ’13 and Ryan Sharry ’12, two players who played the way every athlete strives to — by accomplishing the immensely difficult with apparent ease.
Nor did it hurt that both teams played games with moments that will forever be seared in my mind. For the men’s basketball team, those memories are multiple and typically end in cruel fashion, thereby becoming all the more indelible: Kizel’s hanging, floater with seconds remaining to tie Scranton in the Sweet 16, only to be outdone by Travis Farrell’s three at the buzzer to end Middlebury’s NCAA Tournament hopes in 2012; the intentional miss and put-back from Amherst’s Willy Workman in Middlebury’s triple-overtime loss to the hated Lord Jeffs; and Nolan Thompson’s final shot to beat St. Thomas in the Final Four in Salem, Va. that would have sent Middlebury to the national championship game in 2012, only to clank off the front rim.
For the women’s hockey team, it is a singular memory — and one void of tragic appeal. When my dad came to visit me in March, 2012, I took him to the team’s NESCAC title game. And though neither of us are hockey fans —he probably can’t distinguish icing from offsides — the level of competition and sense of unity that emanated from the ice made a Middlebury women’s hockey fan out of him and inscribed a newfound respect in me for those athletes, many of whom were playing in the biggest game of their lives in front of a sparse crowd. That Greer won the game in overtime with the game’s only goal, followed by as genuine a celebration as I have ever witnessed, completed the pensive-worthy memory.
Following graduation — a mere eight days away — I hope to eventually cover teams across the country and on the national stage. But years from now, I will look back on my four years at Middlebury and the time I worked at The Campus and recall the players and games that made the men’s basketball and women’s hockey teams resonant.
So before I go, I will pay homage at least once more to these two teams that have always made a former athlete, who spent more time on the bench than he would have liked, somehow feel connected to their performance.
DAMON HATHEWAY is a Sports Editor from London
(12/04/13 8:41pm)
The Middlebury women’s basketball team fell to 2-3 on the season with a 53-51 loss to Johnson State as they dropped two of three games over a two-week span. On Nov. 23 the Panthers fell 65-43 to Emmanuel, but rebounded three days later with a six-point win over Johnson State that featured a 20-rebound game from Katie Pett ’14 — her second such game of the season.
On Tuesday Dec. 3, the Panthers lost in heartbreaking fashion as a last-second, desperation heave narrowly missed after Castleton State took a two-point lead with 3.9 seconds remaining.
Middlebury fell into an early eight-point hole as efficient shooting from the Spartans gave the visitors an early advantage. Castleton State opened the game converting seven of their first 14 attempts including a pair of threes to take command of the game.
The Panthers audibled into a two-three zone in an attempt to deter the Spartans’ outside shooters, but Castleton State kept firing away, extending the lead to 10 midway through the first.
Junior forward Alexis Coolidge ’15 kept the Panthers in the game early, knocking down her first four shots of the game for eight first-half points. Point guard Laura Lowry ’14 took over the game down the stretch, pouring in 10 first-half points on 4-7 shooting as Middlebury made a late run to cut the deficit to three at the half.
After a promising run, the Panthers endured a sustained scoring drought to start the second half, failing to score until the 12:45 mark when forward Rachel Crews ’15 knocked down a 20-foot jump shot to cut the Castleton State lead to nine.
Defensively the Panthers shifted back into the two-three zone, forcing a Spartans miss, which led to a Pett layup on the other end. Following a Castleton State bucket, Crews knocked down another long two to draw Middlebury within seven at 43-36 midway through the second half. Crews made it three straight on the very next possession, knocking down a wing three and cutting the deficit to four, giving the junior seven points in a 2:22 span.
After the Panthers cut the lead to two, a quick four-point run by the Spartans extended the visitors’ lead to six before back-to-back baskets from Pett and first-year forward Elizabeth Knox ’17 cut the Castleton lead to 47-45. The comeback was realized two possessions later as Crews knocked down a corner three to give the Panthers their first lead of the game with 5:01 remaining.
“[Rachel has] always shot the ball that way, but never in games because she never was in a position to do it,” said head coach Noreen Pecsok. “When we’re in transition we want her to stop at the three-point line where then the defense has to guard her or leave her. And if they come out and guard her than she has position inside.”
Both teams struggled to convert from the free throw line down the stretch, with Castleton State taking advantage of a miss on the front end of a one-and-one by grabbing the loose rebound and scoring to take a two-point lead. Pett returned the favor on the other end, missing a left-handed shot in the key, but ripping the ensuing offensive rebound out of the hands of a Spartans’ defender and laying the ball in to tie the game at 51 apiece with 1:03 remaining.
After a pair of empty possessions for both teams, Castleton point guard Jade Desroches converted on a runner with 3.9 seconds remaining to give the visitors a two-point lead. Lowry took the ensuing inbound pass and launched a half court shot that clanged off the back iron, but would not fall for the Panthers who fell to the 2-3 on the season with the loss.
“It’s always hard to lose that way, but I felt that in our early season that was our best game,” Pecsok said. “We had a lot more assists and that’s when we know we’re better — when we share the ball. I thought we made adjustments on the fly and reacted really well to them. Our intensity levels were great. They have better scores than we do at this point in the season and we just kept fighting our way back. Some days are easier to coach than others and this team was an easy coach today because we stayed after it.”
First-year forward Elizabeth Knox ’17 — who missed her entire senior year of high school with an injury — led the team in both scoring and rebounding, making all five of her field goal attempts for 12 points while wrestling down 13 rebounds in just 23 minutes.
“She’s like a sponge,” Pecsok said of Knox. “She takes in information so quickly and one thing we’ve noticed about her right away is that she can compete at the intensity level we have here. Sometimes it takes a while for freshmen to get there and she has that. And hitting those shots — that’s a great sign for our future.”
In the Panthers’ narrow 48-42 win over Johnson State, Pett led the way, scoring 17 points and grabbing 20 rebounds as Middlebury overcame a woeful shooting performance to squeeze by the Badgers. The Panthers made just 17 of 64 field goal attempts — shooting less than 27 percent from the floor — and opened the game by missing 12 of their first 13 attempts, falling behind a similarly struggling Johnson State team early.
Trailing 6-2 more than eight minutes into the game, Middlebury’s trio of senior guards — Sarah Marcus ’14, Laura Lowry ’14 and Kristina Conroy ’14 — scored 11 points over the next 10 minutes of play, giving the Panthers an 18-10 lead with 2:13 remaining. The Badgers closed the half with five straight points, however, and tipped off the second half by scoring eight of the half’s first nine points to take a 23-19 lead.
Johnson State extended its lead to a game-high seven points with 7:41 remaining before Pett, who had scored just two points at that juncture, took over the game for the Panthers, scoring 15 points over the final 7:26 of the game. The senior from Saginaw, Mich. found her range by knocking down a jump shot before attacking the Badgers’ zone — a late-game adjustment — with three layups over a 2:38 span to swing the game in the Panthers’ favor and give her team a six-point lead with 1:55 remaining.
Pett then sealed the game at the free throw line, making seven of 10 free throws down the stretch to give her team the 48-42 victory. The former walk on leads the NESCAC in both rebounds (14) and steals (3.2) per game and is second on the team with 10.4 points per game.
“What she does at 5’7’’ is remarkable,” Pecsock said. “I find myself — and this rarely happens to me as a coach — watching her as a spectator. It’s so cool to watch. She’s smart and how she scores over people she scores over … I don’t know. And the rebounding is shocking. She has done it long enough for us to know it’s for real. It’s not a one-game thing. I can’t say enough about her — she’s fantastic in every aspect. I’m not sure I’ve coached anyone tougher.”
Pett uses a combination of pre-shot preparation and unrelenting energy and will to dominate the glass.
“I just try to get whatever angle I can,” Pett said. “Box out first and then go get it. I’m not big enough to just go get the ball so I have to get a position where I can get it. But once it comes off the rim I just keep going until I get it. If I have to hit the ball out of someone’s hands a couple of times, then that’s what I’ll do.”
For the Panthers, the victory over Johnson State was a needed rebound after a 22-point loss to Emmanuel the week before, in which Middlebury turned the ball over 22 times while shooting 28 percent from the floor. And while Pecsok’s squad continues to struggle to score, they turned the ball over a season-low nine times against Johnson State, including just three second-half giveaways and shot 45 percent from the floor in the first half against Castleton State.
The Panthers travel to Skidmore (1-4) on Saturday Dec. 7 and play four more nonconference games before they begin NESCAC play against Bates on Jan. 10.
(11/20/13 6:39pm)
The Middlebury women’s basketball team earned a split on their season-opening weekend in the Colby Sawyer Tournament, rebounding after a narrow, hard-fought loss to Fitchburg to down the hosts in a decisive victory that Middlebury dominated from the opening tip.
In Saturday’s loss to the Falcons, Middlebury twice battled back from double-digit deficits, once in the first half and again in the second half to take a one-point lead with under a minute remaining in regulation as guard Laura Lowry ’14 freed herself from her defender late in the shot clock to drain a three-pointer that gave the team a fleeting lead. Fitchburg converted on a pair of free throws on the ensuing possession and the Panthers coughed up the basketball on the next possession with less than 30 seconds remaining, forcing them to foul the Falcons. Consecutive sequences of Fitchburgh free throws and empty Middlebury possessions sealed the Panthers’ fate.
“They pressed us the entire game, and that made it really difficult for us to get into our offensive set,” said guard Sarah Marcus ’14. “They took away everything that we’re comfortable in and forced us to make lots of turnovers. We played the second half with a ton of effort, but little efficiency. We were looking for quick fixes when we should have been looking for the extra pass and at the end that got the best of us.”
The loss also diminished an outstanding individual performance by senior Katie Pett ’14, who poured in 16 points and pulled down 23 rebounds, duplicating her career highs in both areas. Pett’s pair of 23-rebound performances — separated by just over 10 months — are the second-highest single-game tallies in program history, trailing only the 34-rebound performance of Caroline Leary ’92, Middlebury’s all-time leader in career rebounds.
While Pett acknowledged that first-game adrenaline aided her performance, the game situation —and the importance of controlling the basketball — drove her to make plays.
“As the game went on, it became obvious how critical it was to limit their second chances and how badly we needed second chance baskets,” Pett said. “I was just locked in on doing whatever I could do to give us the best chance at winning.”
“Katie Pett is one of the most competitive and hardworking people that I know,” Lowry said. “As always, that translated into a ton of rebounds, and huge defensive presence. She brings an intensity to the floor that elevates all of our play.”
The next day, Middlebury found space to operate offensively, shooting 45 percent from the floor — a significant improvement on Saturday’s 21-69 (30.4 percent) shooting performance. The Panthers were carried by its trio of starting guards as Marcus, Lowry and first-year Siobhan O’Sullivan ’17 combined to score 40 of the Panthers’ 59 points, nearly eclipsing Colby-Sawyer’s 43-point performance.
“Colby-Sawyer is a very good team, but plays a different style than Fitchburg, which allowed us to run our offense,” said head coach Noreen Pecsok.
“We were able to get in a rhythm offensively that we never did against Fitchburg.”
On the other end, Middlebury limited the Chargers to just six first-half field goals on 22 percent shooting as the Panthers jumped out to a 14-2 lead, which they extended to 14 by the break. Pett grabbed 12 more rebounds and recorded four steals in another strong performance on the defensive end.
“We worked hard to get good shots out of our offense and focused on having baskets come from assists,” Marcus said. “We recognized that we needed to play more composed to not turn the ball over and that we need to focus on what each of us can do individually to make our teammates better.”
While Middlebury still turned the ball over 24 times — giving them 52 through two games — 14 of the team’s 22 made field goals came off assists as Marcus led the way with five dimes and Lowry added four more.
Another bright spot was the play of a pair of first-years. O’Sullivan, who started both games, contributed 11 points, five rebounds and five steals, while turning the ball over just once in 27 minutes against the Chargers. Elizabeth Knox ’17, meanwhile, stuffed the stat sheet with six points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal in just 17 minutes off the bench.
“Once we spend more time on the court together playing Middlebury basketball the offensive issues and turnovers that slowed us down this weekend will be dealt with,” Lowry said. “Our defense, and effort was there this weekend. What excites me the most was how relentlessly my teammates played.”
The Panthers play their home opener at Pepin Gymnasium on Saturday, Nov. 23 against Emmanuel.
(11/14/13 3:33am)
Running off the field for the final time in a Middlebury uniform with his team leading Tufts 52-10 late in the third quarter, McCallum Foote ’14 began celebrating with his teammates. Foote had just thrown his seventh touchdown pass of the game — a single-game program record — but the source of celebration was not Foote’s performance, but the news that had traveled from Hartford, Conn., where Trinity held a substantial fourth quarter lead over then-undefeated Wesleyan, guaranteeing Middlebury a share of the NESCAC title.
Entering the day, Middlebury needed a win over Tufts and a Wesleyan loss at Trinity — where the Bantams had won 50 straight regular season games — to finish the season as co-NESCAC champions. The afternoon started on the right foot, with Trinity opening a quick, 13-0 first-quarter lead over Wesleyan before Middlebury and Tufts kicked off.
The opening sequence for Middlebury was less persuasive, as the offensively challenged Jumbos marched inside Middlebury territory before being turned away. On Middlebury’s first offensive possession, Foote dropped back in the face of oncoming pressure — the result of a missed pre-snap read — and threw a fluttering pass over the middle that was snatched out of the air by cornerback Garrett Ewanouski, who ran underneath Foote’s intended receiver to make the play on the football, returning the football to the Middlebury nine-yard line.
“I should have shifted the protection towards the field side [before the snap] and on that play I didn’t really have a check down,” Foote said. “I knew I would have to get it out quick and it sort of sailed on me as I was getting hit.”
As they have all season long, the defense braced with its back against the goal line, forcing a Tufts three-and-out and short 20-yard field goal attempt that kicker Willie Holmquist converted to give the Jumbos an early 3-0 lead.
The Panthers offense that had struggled to work in rhythm and find consistency early in the season continued its torrid aerial assault from the previous week, when Foote passed for 332 yards and five touchdown passes in less than three quarters of work. Saturday, Foote somehow managed to amplify his production, throwing touchdown passes on each of the five drives following the interception, including three in the final 5:07 of the first half.
The barrage started with an 11-play, 79-yard drive during which Foote targeted first-year wide receiver Grant Luna ’17 and tight end Billy Sadik-Khan ’14 extensively. The drive culminated in a 15-yard Sadik-Khan touchdown catch, one of three on the day for the senior, who was named to the D3football.com national team of the week for the second time this season.
Great starting field position on the next Middlebury possession gave the offense a chance to open a two-score lead. Senior running back Matt Rea ’14 scampered for 12 yards to put the offense in motion inside Tufts territory. The diminutive back, returning from an ankle injury that had sidelined him for parts of the previous three games, ran for 54 yards in the first quarter alone, en route to a 21-carry, 118-yard performance.
“This year, especially, we were able to run the ball when we had to,” Rea said. “Obviously we have Mac and we’re going to throw the ball 60 times a game, but there were times when we could really pound the ball when teams were dropping eight [players into coverage] and daring us to run the ball.”
Four straight Foote completions later, Middlebury found the end zone as Sadik-Kahn once again found separation, this time releasing from his defender towards the back end.
Trailing 14-3, the Jumbos herded together, charging 71 yards on 12 plays, capped off by running back Zach Trause who tusked his way into the end zone from a yard out to cut the Middlebury lead to 14-10.
The Panthers responded with ruthless efficiency, extending the lead back to 11 points with a 12-play drive that included a pair of crucial fourth down conversions in Tufts territory. First, on fourth-and-six, Foote hit Sadik-Khan on an underneath route that the nimble tight end turned up field for a gain of eight yards and a first down. Three plays later, facing the same down and distance from the Jumbos’ 30-yard line, Foote and Luna connected for a 15-yard pick up. On the next play, sophomore Matt Minno ’16 beat his man on a post route, catching a 15-yard touchdown pass sandwiched in between the trailing corner and the late safety.
Trailing 21-10 with 5:07 remaining in the first half, Tufts had an opportunity to cut into the Middlebury lead and go into halftime trailing by a single possession.
What transpired subsequently, however, essentially pushed the game out of reach as the Jumbos went three-and-out, punting the ball back to the Panthers with 3:55 left. The offense needed just 42 seconds to widen the gap as Rea gained the first 26 yards — 13 each on the ground and through the air — before Foote rolled to his right, reared back and unleashed a pass over the top of the Tufts secondary, which Minno ran under, proceeding untouched into the end zone for a 58-yard touchdown catch and run.
“We actually missed on the previous drive [on the same play] and I overthrew him,” Foote said. “And I told him we were coming back to that play because of how they were [defending it with their safeties]. So we ran the play and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, I pulled up and he made a great catch and outran the guys to the end zone.”
Middlebury squeezed one final scoring drive out of the first half — again with help from the defense, this time in the form of an Andrew McGrath ’17 interception, the first of his career. Following the takeaway, the offense took over at its own 25-yard line with 1:20 left in the half. After an unsuccessful run — the only negative run of the game for Rea — Foote completed five passes to four different receivers, advancing the ball to the Tufts two-yard line with two seconds remaining. Instead of settling for the chip shot field goal, head coach Bob Ritter — with positive input from Foote —elected to leave his offense on the field.
“There was a little discussion [about kicking a field goal] and I told coach Ritter, ‘If we put this in here, it’s a back-breaker,’” Foote said. “We had confidence in the play we called, which was a play action play we had scored on two or three times already.”
Ritter’s roll of the dice produced a six as Foote, moving to his right on a bootleg, threw back across his body to a wide open Minno — the sophomore’s third touchdown catch in as many possessions.
After a lone first-quarter touchdown, the Middlebury offense exploded for 28 second-quarter points and a 35-10 halftime lead. To add to the momentum, the public address announcer broadcasted the halftime score from Hartford, where Trinity held a 23-3 lead, raising cheers from the Middlebury faithful that made the trip.
A special team’s blunder set up the Panthers’ first second half touchdown. Following a 24-yard Mike Dola ’15 field goal on the opening possession of the second half, Tufts sealed its own fate, failing to put together a meaningful drive and sending the punt team onto the field for the fourth time.
However, Holmquist, who handled both the kicking and punting duties, failed to corral an errant snap and was tackled for a turnover on downs at the Jumbos’ 14-yard line. Two plays later, Rea found pay dirt for the first time this season as a receiver, following his blockers on a screen pass from Foote for a 14-yard score.
“Mac actually turned to me before the play and he said, ‘You’re getting in the end zone on this play,’” Rea said. “He threw it right to me and I walked in basically untouched.”
The Middlebury defense, which limited Tufts to 18 total yards in the third quarter, forced a three-and-out from Tufts on the subsequent possession, priming Foote’s final career drive. The Panthers moved the ball methodically, chewing up 5:42 of clock — their longest scoring drive of the game — as Foote made plays with both his legs and arm, scrambling for 11 yards and a third-down conversion, setting up his seventh touchdown pass of the game and the 67th and final one of his storied career. It began as a relatively unremarkable play as Sadik-Khan sat down in a soft area of the Jumbos’ zone defense on an underneath route. Foote delivered the pass and his tight end turned away from a pair of Tufts defenders, rumbling 36 yards for the final score.
On the sideline, Foote embraced his teammates, everyone now aware that Trinity would hand Wesleyan its first loss of the season and, consequently, Middlebury a share of the NESCAC crown.
Foote finished his career as the most decorated quarterback in Middlebury history, amassing 8,083 yards in just three seasons as well as the program’s touchdown and completion records. More significantly, he led Middlebury to just its third ever NESCAC title and 14 wins in his final two seasons, the most of any NESCAC team over that period.
“Mac has had an incredible career,” Ritter said. “And more importantly the way he’s carried himself in the classroom and on campus and the kind of leader he has been really shows the best of our football program.”
(11/14/13 2:02am)
Skiing
A year after hosting the NCAA Championships at the Snow Bowl and Rikert Nordic Center and placing 10th as a team, the Middlebury men’s and women’s nordic and alpine ski teams hope to repeat that level of success next March in Utah.
A big part of achieving that goal will rest on the skis of nordic co-captain Ben Lustgarten ’14. Last year at the NCAAs, Lustgarten placed in the top 10 of both the 10K classical race and the 20K freestyle.
Three other NCAA nordic competitors return this season in the form of co-captain Austin Cobb ‘14, co-captain Heather Mooney ’15 and Kelsey Phinney ’16.
Middlebury will also return two more All-Americans, as alpine captain Hig Roberts ’14 and Mary Sackbauer ’15 are back to compete.
Though bringing back a successful group of skiers, the nordic side will undergo a change at the helm this year, as Middlebury alum Andrew Johnson ’99 takes over for Andrew Gardner as head coach. Johnson was a three-time All-American at Middlebury, a two-time Olympian and has previous coaching experience at Utah and the University of Vermont (UVM), where he was an assistant to the 2012 national championship team.
“As a team we were excited for new energy and a fresh perspective,” Cobb said. “Andrew has brought a more simple method for training that focuses on the fundamentals and doing the basic things right.”
For the alpine team, head coach Stever Bartlett returns for his eighth season, coming off of back-to-back NCAA championships for the men’s slalom team. Barlett has been assisted this season by Bobby Poehling ’10 who trains the US Men’s Ski Team and who has adjusted the alpine team’s training program.
The nordic squad ships off to Foret Montmorency north of Quebec City over Thanksgiving break for training camp, while the alpine team heads to Vail, CO for their preseason preparation.
Men's Hockey
The men’s hockey team laces up for the 2013-2014 season with a good chance to improve on last year’s up-and-down results. The team is captained this year by Louis Belisle ’14 and Rob Donahoe ’14. Five more players, John Barr ’14, Tom Freyre ’14, Mike Longo ’14 and Ben Wiggans ’14 and goalie Nick Bondurant ’14 also look to make their final season a special one.
Last season looked promising at points for Middlebury, but team sees room for more consistency.
“Last year we got off to a really hot start, but coming back in December we hit a big skid,” said Freyre ’14. “We recovered a bit before NESCACs but never quite all the way. We had some guys get hurt who we definitely want to keep healthy this year.”
After starting the season 5-1-1, the team dropped seven of the next nine games. The Panthers recovered some momentum but finished 13-11-2 with the season-ending loss to Bowdoin in the NESCAC semifinal game.
Freyre got visibly excited talking about new players who would make an impact right away this year.
“Mike Najjar ’17 has incredible hands and really good vision,” Freyre said. “He is going to be very fun to play with. And Cameron Romoff ‘17 too, he skates extremely well.”
The Panthers will definitely miss the influence of departed seniors Mathieu Castonguay ’13 and Chris Steele ’13, but the team will look to replicate the services they did for the team.
“Those guys were a big part of our team, so I don’t want to diminish what they did for us, but I think we have people who are going to step up to fill those gaps,” Freyre said.
The Panthers expect big crowds when they break the ice at Kenyon arena against Bowdoin on Saturday, Nov. 16th.
Women's Basketball
After a much improved 2012-2013 season, which saw the Middlebury women’s basketball team reach the NESCAC quarterfinals and finish with an overall record of 14-12, the Panthers look to build on a solid foundation and keep progressing forward.
The Panthers will especially miss the influence of Tracy Borsinger ’13, the top scorer and the only Middlebury member of the All-NESCAC squad. Head coach Noreen Pecsok will look for all members of her team, including four first-year players, to step up and contribute to scoring.
“We have a group of four first-year players that we are very excited about,” Pecsok said. “Barring injuries I expect them all to make an impact on this year’s team.”
The Panthers are led by a solid senior class made up of Laura Lowry ’14, Sarah Marcus ’14, Katie Pett ’14, Scarlett Kirk ’14, and Kristina Conroy ’14. Lowry and Kirk especially bring an attacking threat, with Marcus returning stronger from a season where she was frustrated by injury. Pett will look to continue her tireless work on defense after leading the team in rebounds and steals.
Tightening up the defense will continue to be a major focus, especially in the second half of games, where the Panthers conceded a total of 150 more points than in the first half in 2012-2013.
Pescok is hoping her team will bring a level of intensity that never drops whether its in practice or NESCAC play.
“My goals and our goals as a group are focused on the team operating on the highest level possible in all areas from work ethic to competing to how we challenge and support each other,” Pescok said.
Indoor Track and Field
This year’s indoor track team will combine an impressive field of returners and an exciting crew of newcomers to pursue success despite the challenges that field house construction has caused.
On the men’s side, key returners include Kevin Chu ’14, Bryan Holtzman ’14, Peter Hetzler ’14, Jason McCallum ’14, and distance veterans Sam Craft ’14, Wilder Schaaf ’14.5, Nate Sans ’14, and Kevin Wood ’15.
On the women’s side, key returners include Laura Strom ’14, Alex Morris ’16, Jackie Kearney ’16, and distance runners Alison Maxwell ’15 and Sarah Guth ’15.
The old guard will welcome the talents of an impressive class of first-years, which includes athletes like Alex Nichols ’17 for the men and NESCAC Cross Country champion Erzsebet Nagy ’17 for the women.
The ongoing construction of the bubble has relegated the team to running laps around Nelson Arena as well as pushing their ability to run outside in the cold weather conditions to the limit, but distance coach Nicole Wilkerson is not too worried about the lack of an indoor track this season.
“The training will be a bit different this year since we do not have a track but I am looking forward to the challenge,” Wilkerson added.
This seems to be the attitude of the team as a whole, one of positivity that they can get the job done regardless.
“Both men’s and women’s teams are well rounded...with terrific senior leadership and a wonderful balance of talent in all classes,” head coach Martin Beatty said.
Men's Basketball
The men’s basketball team opens the season as the 18th-ranked team in the country, marking the fourth consecutive year the Panthers have tipped off a season nationally ranked in the d3hoops.com preseason poll.
Led by head coach Jeff Brown, who is entering his 17th season at the helm, Middlebury returns just two starters from its 2012 team that went 25-4 and advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. Graduated are Defensive Player of the Year and First-Team All-NESCAC guard, Nolan Thompson ’13, Middlebury’s career assist leader, Jake Wolfin ’13 and the team’s top scorer last season, Peter Lynch ’13, who is playing professionally in Ireland. The 2013 graduates represented the winningest class in program history, accumulating 104 wins over four seasons.
The cupboard is far from bare, however, as preseason All-American and captain Joey Kizel ’14 returns for his senior season with a talented supporting cast and a promising first-year class. Other key returners include center Jack Roberts ’14, who started all 29 games a year ago, swingman James Jensen ’14, and three-point threat, Hunter Merryman ’15 who averaged 8.3 points per game in 2013, while shooting 43 percent from beyond the arc. Notably, Dylan Sinnickson ’15, who missed the entire 2012-13 season with a broken arm, will provide instant energy, athleticism and, the team hopes, shot creation in his return.
Sophomores Henry Pendergast ’16 and Matt Daley ’16 will have an opportunity to make an immediate impact this year after spending their first-year seasons in developing roles. First-years Jake Brown ’17 and Matt St. Amour ’17 may also contribute.
“We have guys that are capable [of winning],” Kizel said. “It just takes meshing, finding the right units and gelling together. We may not look great to start and it’s difficult with the tough schedule right away but it will only improve us and [help] us towards our ultimate goal.”
The Panthers open their season Friday, Nov. 15 in the Franklin & Marshall tournament against 22nd-ranked Alvernia. Middlebury has won each of its past six season openers.
Swimming and Diving
Middlebury swimmers and divers have finally hit the water this season and are seeking to build on their success from last season. The men and women finished fifth and fourth, respectively, at the NESCAC Championship last spring.
The men are led by captains Nick Keenan ’14 and Mike Oster ’14. The team also returns its top swimmer, Ian Mackay ’14, who set a Middlebury and NESCAC record with a time of 20.34 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle last season. The men welcome nine first-years to their team. The diving team is led by Skylar Dallmeyer-Drennen ’14, who finished eighth at NESCACs last year.
“Our biggest strength this year is going to be our depth,” said Oster. “Ian will be the one to watch, but also look out for sophomore Stephan Koenigsberger ’16 to build off a great freshman year and make a run in the breaststroke events. We would be able to put together some great relays and surprise a lot of people at NESCACs.”
The women’s captains this year are Alex Edel ’14, Jenna Meyer ’14, and Andie Tibbetts ’14. Also returning is Jamie Hillas ’15, who captured the NESCAC title in the 50-yard breaststroke last year. She holds the school records in all individual breaststroke events. Tibbetts, meanwhile, is the school record-holder for the backstroke.
The diving team is highlighted by Colleen Harper ’14, who finished fourth in the one-meter event last year.
Head coach Bob Rueppel enters his third year as head coach, while Lisa Gibbs, now in her 17th year with the school, will coach the diving team.
Both teams will open their season at home Saturday Nov. 16 in a tri-meet against Tufts and Connecticut College. It is the first of their two meets before winter break.
Squash
With a new facility and talented first-years both the Middlebury men’s and women’s squash teams come into this season with their usual high expectations. As both teams are playing Division I competition, the upcoming season poses to be fraught with challenges from quality opposition.
The men’s team appears primed to have a successful season, with a full lineup’s worth of players returning. While the loss of last year’s number one and three players is significant, such returnees as Will Moore ’14, Andrew Jung ’16 and Robert Galluccio ’15 are skilled players who should fill in bigger roles with success. Also adding to the mix is a talented first-year recruiting class, with players such as Andrew Cadienhead ’17 and Ben Krant ’17, both very capable players who should be able to contribute early on. A NESCAC Championship and improved showing at the NCAA’s are well within reach for the team this year.
“We believe that we can compete at a higher level this year with a talented class of freshman in addition to a healthy returning core of players,” said Rob Galluccio ’15.
A strong contingent of the women’s squash team returns as well, the extra year of experience likely improving on last year’s already impressive season. Graduation was minimal, with the top seven players in the lineup returning, including First Team All-NESCAC selection Charlotte Dewey ’15 in addition to Second Team All-NESCAC players Abigail Jenkins ’14 and Anne Wymard ’15. With a recruiting class of only two players, much of the contributions are expected to come from the returnees. Captained by Jenkins and Amanda Chen ’14, the team could find success not only at the NESCAC level, but on the national stage as well.
Women's Hockey
The powerhouse program that is Middlebury women’s ice hockey looks to come out of the gate gunning this season, with high hopes already set in place. After a trip to the NCAA Championship game last season, which ended in a tough loss to Elmira College, the Panthers are eager to prove they still belong firmly in the elite of Division III women’s hockey. The team is young, with eight first-years and only four seniors, but they are hungry to show their youth isn’t reflective of their skill.
Coach Bill Mandigo hopes that the senior leadership will quickly rub off onto the less experienced freshman.
“We are a young team and my hope is the older players will help to teach the younger ones,” he said. “We should have a great deal of depth, but it will be a work in progress.”
Sarah Ugalde ’14 and Madeline Joyce ’14, both forwards, are back to lead the team as captains, while goalie Laura Pinsent ’14 will look to hold down the back of the defense. Jennifer Krakower ’14, who is the only remaining fourth-year defenseman on the roster, will lead the young defensive corps.
Mandigo will take the reins for the 26th year in a row this season as head coach. Mandigo remains a tour de force in the women’s hockey realm, with more wins than any other coach in any division – 471 to be exact. A newcomer to the coaching staff, Lauren Greer ’13, joins the team after graduating Middlebury last year. She is well adjusted to Panther hockey, as she was a team captain just last year.
The team has its sights set on a pair of away contests at Colby this Friday and Saturday, Nov. 15 and 16, to open up its NESCAC season. The Panthers outscored the Mules 14-3 in three wins last year.
This preview was compiled by the SPORTS EDITORS and STAFF WRITERS.
(11/06/13 10:28pm)
McCallum Foote ’14 threw five touchdown passes and just four incompletions in the final home game of his decorated career, leading Middlebury to a 40-13 blowout victory over Hamilton on senior day and improving the Panthers’ record to 6-1 on the season. Tight end Billy Sadik-Kahn ’14 caught three touchdown passes, improving his NESCAC-leading touchdown receptions mark to nine, and emergent running back Ryan Hislop ’15 scored the first two touchdowns of his career.
After stalling on fourth-and-one at the Hamilton 30-yard line on its first drive, the Middlebury offense elevated to previously unreached heights, finding the end zone on each of its next six possessions.
“There are times, particularly with a passing offense when everybody feels in sync and things are a little slower and the windows are a bit bigger and I think that’s the way the offense felt,” said head coach Bob Ritter. “And certainly defensively we played really well and forced some early three-and-outs.”
First-year wide receiver Grant Luna ’17 catalyzed the outburst, hauling in three of his seven catches on the first touchdown drive. On the first play of the drive from the Middlebury 30-yard line, Foote sailed a sideline throw that Luna brought down with a leaping, one-handed catch. Then, two plays later, on third-and-10, Luna made a streaking catch over the middle for 16 yards and a first down. The Panthers slot receiver ran a similar route out of the slot on the next play, this time picking up 18 yards to the Hamilton 21-yard line.
“He has done a tremendous job for us,” Ritter said. “For a first-year, his knowledge off our offense and how to run routes is really impressive. And he runs with a lot of precision, he catches everything and he has no fear. And that has made him one of Mac’s favorite targets.”
A Foote-to-Sadik-Khan connection for 16 yards put the ball at the five-yard line, where, on first-and-goal, Foote hit his running back Hislop in the flat for a pylon-reaching score, the first of Hislop’s career.
“We knew they were going to blitz when we were in the red zone and we called a certain protection where I don’t have any responsibilities to protect the quarterback — I just get out into a route,” Hislop said. “I got out into the right flat as soon as I could and before I knew it Mac threw me the ball and I dove to try to get into the end zone.”
After waiting nearly three seasons for his first career score, Hislop found pay dirt for a second time fewer than 70 seconds later, this time on the ground. The second touchdown was set up by a pair of ball-hawking plays, first by the Middlebury kick-coverage unit, followed by a defensive takeaway. On the kickoff subsequent to Middlebury’s first touchdown, gunner David Elkhatibb ’15 stripped Hamilton return man, Joe Jensen, of the football, which the Continentals recovered at their own one-yard line. Running back James Stanell carried the ball to the four-yard line on first down, but on the next play Continentals’ quarterback Chase Rosenberg, facing pressure from an edge blitz, fluttered a ball over the middle, which first-year linebacker Addison Pierce ’17 intercepted and returned to the one-yard line.
On the sideline, Hislop realized that he might have a chance to score a second touchdown in quick succession.
“The ball was on the half-yard line and I thought, ‘it could be a run play, I have to get dialed in’” Hislop said.
On the first play from scrimmage, Hislop took a handoff from Foote, bounced the ball to the outside away from a penetrating defensive lineman and twisted his way into the end zone.
Hamilton found some continuity on its next drive, injecting heavy doses of the run, to great effect. Stannell and Rosenberg combined to run the ball six times for 29 yards on the drive’s first seven plays. Then, on second-and-seven from the Middlebury 30-yard line, a Rosenberg 11-yard scramble was negated by a holding penalty. On the following play, outside linebacker Jake Clapp ’16 blitzed over the left tackle, sacking Rosenberg and ultimately forcing a Continentals’ punt.
The Middlebury offense drove 80 yards in less than two minutes, as Foote completed five of six passes, including a high-arcing spiral over the top of the Hamilton defense, hitting Brendan Rankowitz ’16 in stride for a 42-yard gain. Three plays later, Foote found Sadik-Khan running a post route for a 13-yard touchdown, giving the Panthers a 20-0 lead less than three minutes into the second quarter.
The defense forced three-and-outs on each of the next two Hamilton possessions, which the offense turned into two more touchdowns and a 34-0 lead. Foote marched the offense 52 yards in 2:06, connecting with Minno for a 29-yard touchdown down the sideline. On the following possession Matt Rea ’14 entered the game, carrying the ball and lowering his shoulder for added emphasis. Again, Foote capped off the drive, making a pair of precision throws over the middle, first threading the needle to a sliding Luna before high-pointing Sadik-Kahn on a seam route for a 25-yard scoring strike.
“Coming into the game I told Billy it should be a pretty good day for him,” Foote said. “Their safeties play pretty deep and pretty wide and I knew we were able to hit a couple of seam balls against them last year with Billy Chapman.”
Trailing 34-0, the Continentals softened the scoreboard with a touchdown drive of their own to end the half. Jensen, somewhat atoning for his earlier fumble, took the kickoff following Foote’s fourth touchdown pass 44 yards up the sideline where he was forced out of bounds by kicker Mike Dola ’15 at the Middlebury 48-yard line. 11 plays later, Rosenberg punctuated the drive with a six-yard quarterback-keeper off right tackle.
The Panthers opened the second half with their sixth and final touchdown drive of the game. Foote and Sadik-Khan continued to exploit Hamilton’s two-high safety scheme, as the senior tight end hauled in three more receptions for 53 yards, including a 22-yard touchdown on the same route concept the pair dialed up on the second touchdown. Alertly, Hamilton’s backside safety read the play and covered enough ground to make a play on the ball, resulting in a simultaneous catch that was awarded to Sadik-Khan for the touchdown.
“That route is an option route, so if the safety is over the top, I’m supposed to cut it off,” Sadik-Khan said. “I saw him in the corner of my eye and I thought we had enough room, but as the ball was in the air, I saw he was gaining ground pretty fast. You’re going to get hit either way so you go up and catch the ball, but he definitely had a good piece of the ball. My hand was over the tip of the ball, but his hands were around the side of it … but I had it.”
Stannell ran for 53 yards on the ensuing Continetals’ drive, culminating in a four-yard score and narrowing the Middlebury lead to 27. With 6:46 remaining in the third quarter, however, Ritter elected to pull Foote, who completed 25 of 29 passes for 33s yards and five touchdowns, followed by most of the first-team offense, shortly thereafter.
Neither team scored from that point, as the Middlebury offense was largely ineffective after Foote and the first-team unit exited the game. Middle linebacker Tim Patricia ’15 registered his second career interception in the fourth quarter, stepping in front of an underneath route over the middle and boxing out the intended receiver.
“I had been caught staring at the quarterback’s eyes earlier in the game; I kind of floated and guys got underneath me a couple of times,” Patricia said. “The difference on that one was that I made sure to take my drop right off the quarterback’s eyes and then focus also on where the receiver was in relation to me. So check the quarterback, check the receiver and I got underneath it and made a play.”
Patricia added 12 tackles to lead the defense, including a sack of Rosenberg. Safety Matt Benedict ’15 added 11 tackles, giving him 30 in the past two games and Jake Clapp sacked Rosenberg to increase his total to 4.5 on the season —good for fourth in the NESCAC.
Middlebury travels to Tufts (0-7) on Saturday for the final game of the season. A Middlebury victory and a Wesleyan loss would guarantee the Panthers a share of the NESCAC title. The Cardinals (7-0) play at Trinity (5-2) where the Bantams have won 50 straight regular season games.
[CORRECTION: The photograph above went uncredited in the print edition of this story; it should be credited to Paul Gerard.]
(10/30/13 5:26pm)
To hear the players' post-game reactions click on their names below.
With Middlebury trailing 24-20 and facing fourth-and-goal from the Trinity seven-yard line with less than 90 seconds remaining in the game, quarterback McCallum Foote ’14 connected with wide receiver Matt Minno '16 in the end zone to give the Panthers the lead. 1:12 later, first-year cornerback Nate Leedy ’17 sealed Middlebury’s 27-24 victory with a leaping interception at the goal line as time expired, sending a capacity Homecoming crowd into delirium.
The victory improved the Panthers to 5-1, giving Middlebury an outside shot at a NESCAC title, while knocking the Bantams (5-1) off their undefeated pedestal and ending Trinity’s 14-game winning streak. Entering Saturday’s game, Trinity had won nine of the past 11 meetings between the two teams, including the past two by a combined score of 87-14.
Undeterred by past performances, Middlebury drove the length of the field on its first drive, as Foote completed five of seven attempts for 49 yards, culminating in a seven-yard touchdown pass to Minno — a play call the Panthers would return to on the game-winning score.
The touchdown pass was Foote’s 12th of the season and 63rd of his career, breaking the previous program record of 62 set by Donnie McKillop ’11.
“Mac really deserves it,” said Minno the NESCAC Co-Offensive Player of the Week, who caught nine passes for 110 yards and two touchdowns. “He’s the one who makes the offense tick, and he’s played at such an unbelievable level for so long for this program.”
Defensively, the Panthers limited Trinity to just 67-first quarter yards on three, futile possessions as the Bantams struggled to move the ball against a stiff wind and a stingier Middlebury defense that held the Bantam offense, which entered the game averaging over 230 rushing yards per game, to just 3.3 yards per carry and 148 total rushing yards.
“We had guys making plays all over the field,” Matt Benedict ’15 said. “We were more physical with them this year than last year. I thought last year we kind of shied away. This year we punched them in the mouth and gave it right back to them and they didn’t like it.”
Benedict led the way from his free safety position, racking up 19 tackles over the course of the game and winning NESCAC Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts.
“Matt’s just a smart, smart player — maybe the most coachable player I’ve ever coached,” said defensive coordinator Doug Mandigo. “He’s not the most gifted athlete, but he’s an incredibly sharp kid. You can give information [on what the opposing offense is going to do] and he takes advantage of it and that’s why he makes plays.”
Turnovers and missed opportunities, however, threatened to derail Middlebury following the opening-drive touchdown. On their second drive of the game, the Panthers appeared to stall at their own 28-yard line as a personal foul forced Middlebury to punt on fourth-and-21. What could have been disastrous for Middlebury turned into the miraculous as a high snap forced punter Mike Dola ’15 to pull the ball back from an oncoming Trinity rusher and, with a convoy of blockers in front of him, the 6’2’’, 210-pound specialist rumbled for a 23-yard gain and a first down. The Panthers failed to capitalize on the special teams swing, however, as Dola pulled a 24-yard field goal attempt wide left later in the drive.
The game became more precarious from there as Foote threw a pair of interceptions inside Middlebury territory on consecutive possessions that led to 10 Trinity points in the form of a four-yard Ben Crick touchdown run and a 37-yard Ben Rosenblatt field goal.
Trailing for the first time in the game, Foote and the offense responded with an 11-play, 71-yard touchdown drive that culminated with a 17-yard strike from Foote to his tight end Billy Sadik-Khan ’14. The drive started with a 17-yard carry from running back Ryan Hislop ’15, who started in place of injured teammates Matt Rea ’14 and Joey Zelkowitz ’17. Hislop, who entered the game with just 39 career rushing yards, carried the ball 19 times for 68 yards and provided crucial pass protection for Foote.
“He upped his game for that day,” said head coach Bob Ritter. “Once he had some contact and was in the moment he ran really hard with his shoulders perpendicular to the sideline, to get north-south to get everything he could and always fell forward.”
Middlebury’s lead was short-lived, however. Trinity enjoyed its first sustained drive of the half with 5:24 remaining, as Crick found pay dirt for the second time in the game, this time from 15 yards out after a 12-play drive that chewed up 4:46 of clock and giving Trinity a 17-14 halftime lead.
Middlebury took the opening drive of the second half and marched deep into Trinity territory, Foote notably keeping the drive alive with a 17-yard completion to wide receiver Grant Luna ’17 on fourth-and-six from the Bantams’ 19-yard line. However, two negative plays forced the Panthers to settle for a 28-yard Dola field goal that tied the game at 17 apiece.
Playing against the wind in the third quarter, the Panthers managed to outgain Trinity 123-13, blanking the Bantams and sending the game into the final frame tied at 17.
17 seconds in the fourth quarter, Dola broke the tie, splitting the uprights on a 37-yard field goal — now kicking with the wind at his back — to give Middlebury a 20-17 lead.
On the ensuing drive, Trinity threatened to take the lead as quarterback Sonny Puzzo and Evan Bunker, the conference’s leading rusher, orchestrated a 27-yard screen pass that nearly went the distance. Bunker appeared to be stopped short of midfield after he was upended by a pair of Middlebury defenders, but managed to land on his feet and regain his momentum. Alertly, first-year linebacker Addison Pierce ’17 dragged him down from behind at the 50-yard line to save a touchdown. Pierce finished the game with 10 tackles, none bigger than the play on Bunker.
On the subsequent series, Jake Clapp ’16 chased down Puzzo from the blindside, sacking him for a loss of six yards and forcing Trinity to punt. The Middlebury offense managed just one first down, however, before Dola came on to the field to punt for just the second time, downing Trinity inside its 20-yard line with a 43-yard boot.
The Bantams, who had just two plays longer than 15 yards through the first three quarters, finally found a rhythm in the passing game. Facing second-and-15 from the 10-yard line, Puzzo connected on a 34-yard pass to Chris Ragone — the NESCAC leader in yards per reception. The two hooked up five plays later as Ragone got behind the Middlebury defense and Ragone arced the ball over the coverage for a 39-yard throw and catch, giving Trinity a 24-20 lead with 4:52 remaining and silencing the Homecoming crowd.
The Panthers began the following drive with a pair of Hislop runs, good 21 yards, followed by a Foote five-yard scramble for another first down to the Trinity 35-yard line. Again, however, the Middlebury offense, which had managed just two second half field goals, stalled, turning the ball over on downs with 2:50 left in the game.
“Even though we didn’t score, when Trinity played prevent Hislop ripped off a couple of 10-yard runs and it kept them out of prevent in the next series,” Ritter said.
Needing to force a three-and-out to give the offense the ball back with a chance to win the game, the Middlebury defense stuffed Bunker on three straight carries and preserved the clock by burning all three timeouts.
“Ultimately for them to win the game, they had to run the ball to get a first down, and our guys stepped up,” Ritter said.
Following a 40-yard Kyle Pulek punt, Foote and the offense took the field at their own 25-yard line, needing to drive 75 yards in 2:21 to win the game. The Middlebury receivers won on their routes immediately and the offense quickly moved the ball into Trinity territory. Ritter then dialed up an out-and-go route for wide receiver Brendan Rankowitz ’15 who hauled in Foote’s touch throw in between the corner and the safety for a 40-yard reception down to the Trinity seven-yard line.
The Panthers, who had converted less than 54 percent of previous red zone drives into touchdowns, failed to find the end zone on three straight plays, setting up a decisive fourth-and-goal play from the seven-yard line.
“We have our call sheet and the plays that you run from the seven-yard line and in, but it’s a tough place for us, given our offense,” Ritter said. “We had a couple of things that didn’t work and then on fourth down it ended up being the same play and the same pattern that we scored our first touchdown on.”
With time in the pocket, Foote surveyed the defense, held the defense on one side of the field with his eyes and connected with Minno, his intended target pre-snap, on a crossing route between the corner and the linebacker.
“They brought both safeties over to the front side and the quick look I had to the front side was really just looking away — I knew I was coming back to Matt,” he said. “Their linebackers split and he made an unbelievable catch going down to the ground and holding onto the ball.”
Now trailing by four with 1:12 remaining, Trinity moved the ball to the Middlebury 33-yard line on 12 plays, setting up the final play of the game with 6.5 seconds left. Leedy, playing the deep third to the boundary side of the field kept his eyes in the backfield, broke on the throw and intercepted the football at the goal line — the first takeaway of his career providing an emphatic finish to the game.
“They hadn’t thrown the ball to my side all game, so I figured they’d try to take a shot and right before the play Tim Patricia ’16 said, ‘Here you go, they’re coming right at you,’” Leedy said. “The receiver did a double move to try to get me to bite on something, but I knew they were going to the end zone and I saw the ball in the air before the receiver and I made a play on the ball.”
The Panthers, who need to win out for a shot at a NESCAC title, play their final home game of the season on Saturday, Nov. 2 against Hamilton (0-6).
(10/16/13 5:47pm)
First-year running back Joey Zelkowitz ’17 scored from eight yards out with 4:03 remaining to give Middlebury a seven-point lead and the Panthers rode the play of their defense to a 21-14 victory over Williams. Zelkowitz finished with two touchdowns — one on the ground and one through the air — and 135 yards of total offense, earning him NESCAC Offensive Player of the Week honors for the first time in his career. On the defensive side of the ball, Will Bain ’14 also earned Defensive Player of Week distinctions for the first time, as the junior cornerback totaled 16 tackles, including at least one on each of the Ephs’ first eight drives.
“Our coaches game-planned well and put our defense in the best position to make plays knowing that Williams was going to look to test the perimeter of our defense,” Bain said.
“Sometimes you take it for granted when corners are making a lot of tackles, but when they’re not making those tackles they’re usually going for big plays,” said head coach Bob Ritter.
The Panthers continued their streak of strong starts, scoring points on their opening drive for the fourth time in as many games as McCallum Foote ’14 found wide receiver Trevor Wheeler ’15 down the seam for a 25-yard score on third-and-three from the Ephs’ 25-yard line. It was Wheeler’s second catch of the drive, as the oft-injured, but explosive junior converted a crucial third-and-15 from the Middlebury 26-yard line on a similar play, hauling in a Foote fastball over the middle for a 28-yard completion. Foote, who was erratic with his arm again, made two crucial plays with his legs on the opening drive, scrambling on third-and-six from the Williams 36-yard line for a pick up of five yards. Then, on fourth-and-one, Foote escaped from the pocket again, and scampered out of a tackle to the sideline for another five-yard gain and a Middlebury first down. Three plays later Foote hit Wheeler for the first touchdown reception of the junior’s career.
“Wheeler gives us a weapon that we don’t have,” Ritter said. “He’s very fast, very athletic and on the third-and-15, made a great play on the linebacker to get free and get back into the route. So he can really stretch the field for us.”
Behind junior quarterback Adam Marske, the Ephs took their first drive of the game 60 yards on 12 plays before stalling at the Middlebury 20-yard line. First-team All-NESCAC kicker Joe Mallock, who nailed a 46-yard field goal the week before, could not cash in, pushing the 37-yard attempt wide right.
Neither offense was productive for the remainder of the quarter, combining to gain just 29 yards on the subsequent four possessions, including three straight three-and-outs.
Following the touchdown drive, the highlight of the first half for Middlebury was specialist Mike Dola ’15’s booming, 76-yard punt that was nearly downed inside the 10-yard line, but rolled into the end zone for a touchback and a still-incredible 56-yard net.
Williams regained its form first, as Marske, who had been benched for the previous two games due to his poor performance, strung together the Ephs’ first scoring drive. The senior quarterback converted a crucial third-and-six with a 21-yard strike to his receiver Darrias Sime and again on fourth-and-two with a 15-yard scramble to the Middlebury 12-yard line. Four straight runs later, the Ephs reached the end zone, as second-string tailback Marco Hernandez beat one Middlebury defender off the left tackle, finding pay dirt from a yard out. Mallock, however, pushed the point after try wide right, the previous miss still lingering in his head and Middlebury maintained a 7-6 lead.
The Ephs’ scoring drive appeared to spark the Panthers as Foote completed five of six passes on the next drive, including a 20-yard completion to tight end Billy Sadik-Khan ’14, who shed his defender and picked up half the yardage after the catch. Three plays later, Foote found Zelkowitz on a swing pass, which the diminutive first-year turned up field, knifing through a pair of Williams defenders en route to a 47-yard gain down to the 10-yard line.
“I always set people up to make them miss either by using my blocks or a little shake or something,” Zelkowitz said of the highlight-reel play.
Then, on second-and-goal, Foote found his dynamic back again on a well-designed screen pass and Zelkowitz zipped his way into the end zone to give the Panthers — who bookended the half with touchdown drives — a 14-6 lead.
Williams demonstrated an impressive display of the two-minute drill, driving 57 yards on 11 plays in just 1:34, but it was ultimately for naught, as Mallock missed another field goal wide right — this time from 37-yards out — to end the first half.
The Middlebury defense forced a three-and-out to begin the second half, giving the offense a chance to take a commanding two-score lead. Despite great starting field position and a Foote-to-Wheeler 14-yard completion, Middlebury failed to come away with points as Foote threw his eighth interception of the season on a clear miscommunication with his intended receiver.
Once again, the Ephs found their footing first on offense, regaining possession at the halfway mark of the third quarter and orchestrating a 12-play 80-yard touchdown drive that ate 6:40 of clock. On the critical play, Marske found his tight end Alex Way from the three-yard line and then went back to the well on the two-point conversion, finding Way to tie the game at 14 with under a minute remaining in the third quarter.
Middlebury appeared to be on its way to retaking the lead on the opening drive of the fourth quarter, but a 21-yard Zelkowitz catch-and-run was negated by a holding penalty and the Panthers were forced to punt. The defense recovered by forcing a three-and-out. Outside linebacker Matt Crimmins ’14 provided the crucial play — as he did time and time again in the second half — blitzing off the edge and batting down Marske’s pass.
The Middlebury offense continued to struggle, earning just one first down on a 14-yard completion to running back Matt Rea ’14 before punting once again on.
Rea, however, would take matters into his own hands on the ensuing Panther drive, carrying the ball three times for 31 yards, including a frantic, 25-yard scamper up the middle on a key third-down conversion. The Panthers were not out of the woods, however. After an incompletion on third-and-three from the Ephs’ 40-yard line, Ritter elected to go for it on fourth down, and the offense responded as Foote hit a sliding Matt Minno ’14 on an inside slant for a 10-yard gain and a first down. Foote targeted Minno on the ensuing play, throwing a go-ball for his 6’3’’ receiver in single coverage. The defender in coverage grabbed Minno, drawing a flag for pass interference. The team turned back to Zelkowitz who carried the ball out of the backfield on consecutive plays for seven and eight yards, respectively, the latter of which into the end zone on a draw play behind a road-grading offensive line.
“The line opened up a huge hole which made it pretty easy for me,” he said of the run.
Williams squandered two final opportunities to tie the game, going three-and-out on the next drive before running out of clock on the game’s final possession. Crimmins featured heavily in the Ephs’ struggles, batting down another Marske throw before meeting teammate Jack Crowell ’14 at the quarterback for his second sack of the game on the final drive.
“We were trying to get Crimmins off the edge because we thought he could give them fits, and he played exceptionally,” Ritter said.
Crimmins totaled seven tackles, trailing only Bain (16) and Tim Patricia ’16 (10), as well as 1.5 sacks and two break ups. Offensively, the ground game led the way as Rea gained 74 yards on 17 carries and Zelkowitz picked up 37 yards on just seven carries and led the team with six receptions for 67 yards. Foote, meanwhile, completed 20 of 37 passes for 247 yards and two touchdowns and the lone intercetpion.
With the victory Middlebury improved to 3-1 and has won 10 of its past 12 games dating back to last season. Williams, meanwhile, dropped to 0-4 for the first time since 1947. The Panthers travel this weekend to Lewiston, Maine where they face Bates (2-2).
(10/09/13 11:06pm)
Trailing by 13 and driving into Lord Jeff territory to begin the fourth quarter at Amherst, the Middlebury football team had an opportunity to draw within striking distance and recover from their worst half of football of the 2013 season. But on a first-and-10 from the Lord Jeffs’ 22-yard line quarterback McCallum Foote ’14 was sacked by Amherst linebacker Chris Tamasi. Then, on the ensuing play, with pressure in his face from a blitzing defender, Foote overthrew his intended target, Brendan Rankowitz ’15, sailing his pass into the waiting arms of Christopher Gow. It was Foote’s fourth of five interceptions on the afternoon, in what was a turnover-laden loss for the Panthers.
Foote’s final stat line was one-part ugly, one-part historic, as the record-breaking passer set a new career high with five interceptions, but also entered the NESCAC record books with 84 attempts and 54 completions. All totaled the Newton, Mass. native threw for 459 yards and two touchdowns as the Panthers racked up 484 yards of total offense on 100 offensive plays, while possessing the ball for 36:01—12:02 more than Amherst. However, that could not atone for a litany of mistakes.
Early on it appeared Middlebury might take a commanding lead as the Panthers hummed down the field, appearing totally in sync offensively for the first time this season. On the game’s first drive, the visiting Panthers moved the ball seamlessly to the Amherst 11-yard line on 13 plays, converting three third downs along the way, before stalling, setting up a Mike Dola ’15 28-yard field goal to take a 3-0 lead.
The Lord Jeffs struggled on their first possession, digging themselves into a third-and-20 situation after a holding penalty. Amherst running back Kenny Adinkra turned a conservative draw into a solid gain, but was stripped of the football at the end of the play by Panthers’ linebacker Jake Clapp ’16. Middle linebacker Tim Patricia ’16 recovered at the Amherst 30-yard line.
Foote then found first-year running back Joey Zelkowitz ’17 on back-to-back plays out of the backfield, the second of which Zelkowitz turned into a long, twisting 17-yard gain down to the Amherst nine-yard line. Middlebury’s red zone offense was once again an issue, however, as the Lord Jeffs stymied them at the two-yard line. Normally an area of the field Middlebury would approach as four-down territory, head coach Bob Ritter elected to attempt a field goal, a decision he would soon regret.
“What was going through my mind was I didn’t have a great play,” Ritter said. “Most of the time on fourth down if you feel good about a play, you go with it, and I didn’t have a great one because we had been stalled there last time. [Amherst] had turned the ball over and I wanted to get points off of that turnover.”
A 20-yard field goal away from taking a 6-0 lead, the Panthers made their first blunder of the game, allowing an unbalanced Amherst kick blocking unit to break through the protection and deny Dola’s attempt.
“In retrospect I wish I had gone for it, and most of the time we do go for it there,” Ritter said. “If we didn’t [score a touchdown] we would have pinned them and maybe gotten good field position. The blocked field goal just makes it sting a bit more.”
Lord Jeffs quarterback Max Lippe exorcized many of the demons that plagued him in last year’s 24-3 Middlebury victory, demonstrating a mastery of the Amherst offense, completing eight of 11 passes for 80 yards and a touchdown to senior wide receiver Jake O’Malley.
The miscues continued for the Panthers as Foote threw his first interception on the subsequent offensive possession. After picking up a pair of first downs, Foote threw a fastball over the middle under pressure that glanced off the hands of Matt Minno ’16. Trailing on the play, Amherst defensive back Landrus Lewis made an acrobatic interception and proceeded to weave his way inside the Middlebury five-yard line where Foote stopped him short of the end zone.
On the first play from center, Lippe kept the football on a read option and waltzed into the end zone. The Lord Jeffs scored 13 points in 1:42 and never led by fewer than 10 points from that point.
The Panthers went into hibernation in the second quarter, gaining just five first downs while turning the ball over twice more and producing another special teams gaffe—this time, a blocked punt. The defense, however, scrapped to contain the Lord Jeffs, forcing consecutive three-and-outs to begin the second quarter.
The offense never achieved the same level of consistent execution, the Panthers were forced to punt on each of their first two possessions, followed by Foote interceptions on consecutive possessions. First Lewis victimized number 10 with a diving catch — his second interception of the game — and then free safety Max Dietz caught, for all intents and purposes, a first-down punt from Foote who vastly overthrew his intended receiver on his third interception of the game.
Sandwiched between interceptions, Amherst found the end zone for the third time in the half — eclipsing the number of touchdowns the Panthers had allowed in the previous two games — as Lippe, normally a threat with his legs rather than his arm, deftly baited the Middlebury defense underneath and lofted a perfectly thrown ball to a wide open receiver for a touchdown and a 20-3 halftime lead.
The defense continued its strong play out of the break, forcing a three-and-out on the first possession of the third quarter and limiting the Lord Jeffs to a field goal on the second.
In a 20-point hole, Foote and the offense finally found their first quarter groove, marching 64 yards in 2:47 on just seven plays as Foote found Minno in the end zone from six yards out on fourth-and-three.
Defensive coordinator Doug Mandigo’s unit stood tall again, forcing the Lord Jeffs offense into its sixth three-and-out of the game as Nate Leedy ’17 made one of his game-high three pass breakups. The first-year cornerback leads the team in both total tackles and passes defended.
“Leedy is getting better week by week,” Ritter said. “He’s dialed in as a corner, really works hard at understanding the game, practices really hard — he’s very intense.”
With a chance to pull within one score, however, Foote threw his fourth interception, effectively ending Middlebury’s fleeting comeback bid as Amherst took the ball and, in just 1:32, found paydirt to take a 30-10 lead.
While the early fourth quarter interception broke Middlebury’s will, the defeat wasn’t sealed until the subsequent Panthers possession when a Foote pass to first-year Ryan Rizzo ’17 slipped from the wide receiver’s hands and was returned 74 yards in the opposite direction by Jaymie Spears for a Lord Jeffs’ touchdown.
Foote mounted one final drive, capped by a seven-yard touchdown pass to Billy Sadik-Kahn ’14 to reach the final 21-point deficit.
Despite the turnovers and mistakes on special teams, Ritter saw some positive signs from his team.
“We moved the ball on offense and the defense did some nice things,” he said. “With a passing offense it is going to be a little hot or cold sometimes. We just didn’t finish our drives off. The interceptions were killers and they were all kind of different shapes and sizes. They weren’t all one thing; a couple of different things conspired to it.”
Middlebury hosts Williams (0-3) on Saturday, Oct. 11. The Ephs have not started a season 0-4 since 1987. Williams dropped last week’s contest to Bates 14-10.
(10/09/13 10:59pm)
They gather on the steps of Mead Chapel, some dressed for the occasion, others wearing the clothes they wore to class, and make small talk while waiting for the one or two inevitable latecomers. When everyone is in place, materials in hand, they come together and perform an age-old hand ritual to determine their order. Then, one by one, each launches his disc into the air — some over the heads of curious passerbys, unaware that, by ascending up the path to the chapel, they are in fact walking the length of the first fairway. Do they call them fairways, on The Other Course, I wonder as I watch my four companions “pulls” — Frisbee-speak for drive. It’s immaterial, ultimately, as the five of us saunter down the campus’s main walkway, our backs to the setting sun — there are too many other things I want to ask.
“I’ve noticed the air is so much better in the fall,” says Sam Hage ’16, a sophomore member of the Middlebury Pranksters, the College’s ultimate frisbee team.
“No, summer nights are the best,” contests Jeff Hetzel ’14, the captain of the Pranksters, the reigning D-III national champions. “Air is huge — we got a great night for air.”
The Other Course is made up of a crisscrossing circuit of “holes” stretching as far South as McCullough, as far East as Old Chapel, reaching Munroe at its northern-most point and Proctor terrace at its Western tip, before concluding where it begins, at the entrance to the chapel. It’s an eccentric course that requires participants to map the flight plans of their Frisbees — you call them discs if you want to be taken seriously — through tree branches, around buildings and, at times, over people.
“When we were here this summer, during language schools, we got yelled at by some old Russian professors,” senior Ben Savard ’14 says. He puts on his best Russian accent: “This is not for you … this is not your place!”
“On the eighth hole you have to drive over the picnic tables outside Proctor and we took adequate precautions to make sure no one got hit,” Hage says.
“This is not your place!” Savard repeats, for good measure.
Hetzel begins his round with a pair of birdies by hitting the fourth lamppost from the top of the hill in three tosses and then, from there, striking the face of the clock outside McCullough in as many throws. He does so using primarily backhands — preferred for distance — save for the sharp-angled shot to connect with the clock face, which is better suited for a forehand. Hetzel quips that he is on pace to set the course record; it doesn’t quite work out that way.
Teddy Smyth ’14, who has already dropped off the pace after two holes, owns the course record, nine under, which he set in May of this year. Or at least what they think is the course record. Because, like everything else the group shares with me about the history of frisbee golf at Middlebury, the course record dates only as far back as the individual who shared it with them. In this case it’s John “Waldo” Cox ’11, who set the previous low-round playing with two discs, one all-forehand, one all-backhand, shooting a seven-under with both — or so the story goes. There is no Middlebury ultimate archive online, no post-tournament recaps on the athletics website, no college press release when, last year, the Pranksters were the only team, varsity or club, to win a national championship.
“Are you guys vandals?” inquires a faux-suspicious student. The others are too busy attempting to land their discs on the top step of Old Chapel to answer, so I tell her they’re playing disc golf. My answer seems to perturb her more than if they really had been vandals.
We finish the rest of the round without further incident — the angry Russian professors are months and continents away — save for a few altruistic students, determined to return the discs to their owners. They can’t realize they’re just another element — another hazard, if you will — of The Other Course. And how could they? The course is unmarked, goes unrecognized by tour guides and, unless the faithful few who play it are in the middle of a round, reverts to its resting function: as your footpath to the library; the reminder that you’re five minutes late to your class in Axinn; the stone steps where Otter Nonsense initiated you to Middlebury on prospective student day.
-Damon Hatheway ’13.5 is a sports editor from London, U.K.
(10/02/13 6:01pm)
The WRMC Sports play-by-play broadcast of key moments from Saturday's game is hyperlinked throughout the article below.
With the game tied at 10 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Middlebury needed someone — anyone — to make a play. After opening the first quarter with a quick-strike 10-point lead, there had been overthrows, dropped touchdowns — both offensively and defensively — and botched backfield exchanges. Very little had gone as planned for the Panthers, whose 10-point lead had evaporated over two deflating quarters. Colby, which entered the game 1-0 after a 31-8 evisceration of Williams the week before, had possession of the football to start the game’s final frame, looking to take its first lead of the afternoon. The Mules had outgained Middlebury 204-165 over the game’s interquartile range, tying the game in the process and, if you believe in such phenomena, seizing all momentum from the Panthers.
And then, in the span of time it took Colby quarterback Justin Ciero, who had been stellar to that point, to make an ill-advised throw, the Mules’ momentum, the near-capacity crowd’s rising anxiety, and, most crucially, the tie all evaporated.
On third-and-11 from his own nine-yard line Ciero dropped back to pass and, after scanning for an open receiver over the middle of the field made a twisting throw across his body to the far sideline. Sitting on the route, senior linebacker Matt Crimmins ’14 stepped in front of Ciero’s intended target, plucked the ball out of the air and rumbled 15 yards into the end zone, giving the Panthers a touchdown lead that seemed to count more on the field than it did on the scoreboard.
A demoralized Colby team never threatened again and Middlebury tacked on a pair of scoring drives for good measure to seal the victory, moving them into a four-way tie atop the NESCAC at 2-0.
“The defense won the game for us, just in terms of how they kept Colby at bay,” said head coach Bob Ritter. “When we have our miscue and don’t get in the end zone to go up 17-10, that’s when it starts to get worrisome. So when Matt Crimmins came up with the interception for the touchdown it released a little bit of pressure from everybody and let us play more with the flow than we had earlier.”
For the second straight week and 13th time in 17 career games, McCallum Foote ’14 eclipsed the 300-yard mark on Saturday, adding two touchdown passes, while drops deprived him at least two more. Defensively, first-year cornerback Nate Leedy ’17 shone, totaling 10 tackles — seven solo — two tackles for a loss and a pass breakup. Linebackers Jake Clapp ’16 and Tim Patricia ’16 had similarly dominant performances, combining to make 11 tackles and each registering a sack of the elusive Ciero.
Middlebury was effective in all three phases of the game early, limiting Colby to just one first down on the Mules’ first three drives while leading scoring drives of their own that netted a 33-yard Mike Dola ’15 field goal and a touchdown pass from Foote to Billy Sadik-Khan ’14, who leads the NESCAC in receptions (18) and touchdown catches (three) from his hybrid tight end position. On the first play of the game, Foote connected with Matt Minno ’16 for a 37-yard gain.
“We game-planned that all week because their corners sit on the bootleg,” Minno said. “It was a great ball by Mac. We faked the run to the left and then we had everyone crossing under and I’m running deep. It was great to start the game with a 30-yard pick up.”
On the next offensive possession, Foote found Sadik-Khan running down the seam for the touchdown and a 10-point lead.
Colby responded early in the second quarter, as Ciero found his dynamic wide receiver Luke Duncklee for a seven-yard touchdown throw and catch as Duncklee ran a zone-breaker across the face of the formation, sneaking inside the pylon for the score. Senior strong safety Jared Onouye ’14 had a chance to kill the drive and give his team a commanding three-score lead, but the California native dropped a sure pick-six, giving the Mules new life.
The Panthers missed another scoring opportunity — which became one of the game’s central narratives — on the ensuing drive. Foote led a methodical 11-play drive into Mules territory. Then on a fourth-and-six from the Colby 28-yard line, Foote threw a rocket, leading Sadik-Khan into a hole in the defense where his tight end made a diving catch for the first down. After a botched exchange in the backfield, Foote targeted Minno on third-and-12, but the quarterback and his receiver were crossed up and the pass fell incomplete. Rather than attempt a 35-yard field goal, head coach Bob Ritter elected to go for it. This time, with a first-year cornerback in coverage, Foote threw a back-shoulder throw that Minno high-pointed but could not bring down for the completion, resulting in a turnover on downs.
The Mules then tied the game on their opening drive of the second half, capping off a 14-play, 65-yard drive with a 27-yard field goal, knotting the game at 10.
The Panthers had an opportunity to retake the lead on the subsequent possession, but again left points on the field.
After Matt Rea ’14 picked up 13 straight yards on three plays, first-year running back Joey Zelkowitz ’17 checked in to the game and made an immediate impact, catching passes on back-to-back plays for 13 and 21 yards, respectively. After an incompletion, Foote went back to Zelkowitz, who picked up 13 more yards, setting up first-and-goal from the Colby six-yard line. Following a pair of incompletions, Foote found Brendan Rankowitz ’15 cutting across the formation for an apparent touchdown. Instead, Rankowitz was marked out of bounds inches short of the end zone, leading to a fourth-and-goal situation. After a Colby timeout, Ritter drew up a play-action play out of a jumbo package, isolating a wide-open Clapp in the end zone. Foote’s pass, however, glanced off of Clapp’s hands for a turnover on downs.
“It’s really a goal line run formation,” Ritter said. “The decision to throw it there — Colby had put all 11 guys in the box and were going all out. We felt comfortable with Mac out on the edge and Jake has caught that ball 50 times in the past three weeks.”
Despite the turnover, Middlebury held the field position advantage. On third-and-seven from their own three yard-line, the Mules drew up a go-route for Duncklee, matched up against Leedy in single coverage with no safety help.
“Coach Mandigo had been telling me all week, ‘You’re a first-year, Duncklee is their best guy, they’re definitely going to test you on the fade ball,’” Leedy said. “So it’s third-and-seven, and this was the one of the first times it was just me and him and no one else out there, so I figured it was coming. Based on his alignment—he was lined up inside, which gave them a much better chance to throw it to the sideline—I was anticipating that and I got a good [jam] on him, turn and ran with him and made a play.”
Despite great field position following the ensuing punt, the Panthers could not break the tie, punting the ball back to Colby, inadvertently setting the stage for Crimmins’ game-defining play.
Following Crimmins’ interception return, the Mules mounted one final successful drive, taking the ball 55 yards on seven plays before facing a fourth-and-six from the Middlebury 20-yard line. Colby unsuccessfully attempted to convert a 38-yard field goal and Middlebury took over at the 20-yard line. On the second play from scrimmage, the Panthers broke the game open as Foote found a streaking Minno who eluded one defender before sprinting 77 yards, untouched, into the end zone.
“That is one of our favorite plays versus man,” Ritter said. “It was more of a move-the-chains type of play and we caught them in man and the route adjustment is to stay on the run, which was the exciting part because we haven’t seen much man, so Mac and Matt have not been in that situation very much live. Matt did a great job of continuing the route and Mac recognized him and led him.
“There was no safety there, which is usually a tell that it’s man coverage,” Minno said. “I felt the corner on my back and kept running. Luckily Mac and I were on the same page and he hit me in stride. Coach Ritter preaches getting north-to-south every time you catch the ball, so basically I turned and took off running.”
Minno recorded five catches for 141 yards and a touchdown. The sophomore receiver leads the NESCAC, averaging 106.5 yards per game.
Middlebury eliminated any chance of a Colby comeback minutes later, sapping the clock with a nine-play drive that took nearly five minutes, concluding with a 27-yard Dola field goal, creating the final score line — a 17-point Middlebury victory.
The Panthers travel to Amherst this weekend in a matchup of 2-0 teams. Middlebury beat the Lord Jeffs 24-3 last season.
(10/02/13 5:47pm)
On Saturday, Sept. 28 the Middlebury men’s soccer team celebrated its 500th win in program history in style. The Panthers roared their way to victory with a dominant 5-0 over bottom-ranked Colby.
The Panthers’ failed to match their offensive output from Saturday’s game in a 2-1 home loss against Williams on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
Middlebury wasted little time getting the scoring started. Just 12 minutes into the first half, Adam Glaser ’17 buried the ball in the bottom left corner after receiving a slick through ball from co-captain Adam Batista ’14 near the midfield line. Middlebury continued an attacking trend throughout the first half, with several similar chances created by balls up the middle.
Colby had a few chances to even the score in the first half with three corner kicks and several free kicks just outside the penalty box. However, the Panthers defense remained stalwart and took the ball outside dangerous territory each time the Mules threatened.
Middlebury senior goalie Ethan Collins ’14 is confident in the back line playing in front of him.
“The defense has being playing incredibly well,” Collins said. “A big part of this has to do with the work ethic and drive of our defenders in the back. They fight incredibly hard to win every tackle and 50-50 ball. The guys in front of me have also been communicating very well which helps them shut down the opposition.”
Middlebury wasn’t satisfied scoring just one before the halftime whistle, and with 1:22 left, forward Dan Skayne ’15 put an unassisted strike behind the goalie, after beating a defender above the box.
Coming into the second half with that confidence ensured an immediate and electric continuation to Middlebury’s scoring exploits. Only five minutes into the half, Batista sent a rocket of a throw-in from deep in Colby’s territory into the penalty box. Midfielder Greg Conrad ’17 delivered a header to the feet of Glaser, who drove the ball high above the goalie’s head into the opposite top corner.
Just 12 seconds later, Glaser, still hungry for another goal, was able to beat two defenders and the goalie, putting the ball into the bottom corner of the net after yet another assist from Batista. Glaser’s three goals were the first of his young Middlebury career.
“Netting the first goals of my career was huge for me,” Glaser said. “I used to feel so anxious about getting the first one, worrying that my game wouldn’t translate to the college stage but I feel like a huge weight is now off my back.”
Despite Glaser’s hat-trick, Batista’s impressive supporting role did not go unnoticed.
“Adam has got that ability as well, he’s a very dynamic player,” head coach David Saward said. “It’s early days, but even in practice he’s just hungry to score … he’s a predator who’s going to get in and around the penalty box.”
Middlebury kept up the intensity for the remainder of the match, with the defense shutting down Colby’s attack down at every given chance, including three more corner kicks. Collins had a particularly impressive sequence, earning two of his four saves by diving from the ground for each after a Colby striker was able to get the ball at his feet twice in a row.
Before the final whistle blew, Middlebury first-year Jory Makin ’17 put one more on the board for the panthers. He cleanly and powerfully struck the ball from the top left corner of the penalty box, and sent it gliding over the goalie’s fingertips into the top right corner of the goal.
Saward believes that confidence is imperative for his team going forward into tougher competitions.
“Everyday we strive to get a little bit better,” Saward said. “You’ve got to have a little bit of swagger in order to have self-belief and to believe in the guys next to you and around you … there’s no substitute to building that confidence than winning, and winning convincingly.”
Glaser echoed his coach’s sentiments.
“We should have great momentum going into the rest of the week, and hopefully with such a great result this weekend there’ll be lots of support there,” Glaser said. “Looking forward, this team is capable of anything. The combination of talent and senior leadership will be very dangerous.”
Tuesday’s game against Williams presented an early test of Saward’s hopes for a more confident team. While the Ephs only managed three shots on net, two found the back of the goal despite the best efforts of the Panthers defense and goaltender Ethan Collins ’14.
Middlebury went down early when Williams’ junior back Andres’ Burbank-Crump scored on a low laser from 25 yards out. That score held for the majority of the game. In the 49th minute Collins made an impressive diving stop to keep the game close.
Greg Conrad ’17 made things interesting in the 85th minute when he scored his first career goal by sneaking a free kick into the top left corner of the net to knot the score at 1-1. Conrad deferred the credit to his teammate.
“[The] free kick … came because of Tom Bean’s [‘17] hard work to get in a dangerous position,” said Conrad.
Less than two minutes later Williams’ Matt Muralles responded with a goal to ruin the Middlebury comeback and give Williams a 2-1 victory.
“Ninety minutes is a long game and emotionally that can take its toll on the team after a while,” said Conrad. “We just made a few small mistakes that they just capitalized on.”
The Panthers now sit at 3-2-1 and 2-2-1 in NESCAC play, which will resume this Saturday at Tufts (5-2-1, 3-2).
(09/25/13 7:57pm)
McCallum Foote ’14 threw for 362 yards and three touchdowns and the defense forced four turnovers and allowed just three points as the Middlebury football team kicked off 2013 where it left off in 2012 with a 27-5 victory over a toothless Polar Bear team. The Panthers lacked the polish and the dominance they exhibited a season ago, hardly surprising given the substantial turnover the team sustained, having lost 13 starters — six on offense and seven on defense — from the 2012 team.
After Middlebury received the opening kickoff, Foote engineered a ruthlessly efficient first drive, completing five of six passes for 62 yards, targeting his tight end Billy Sadik-Khan ’14 three times — all completions — for 34 yards, including an eight-yard touchdown toss.
Sadik-Khan, a wide receiver who had struggled with preseason injuries throughout his career made the transition to tight end during the offseason.
“During the offseason we thought it might be worth looking at him at tight end, given what we ask tight ends to do, and it’s worked out great,” said head coach Bob Ritter. “He’s always had good abilities, good hands and he’s gotten stronger in the offseason so he can handle some of the blocking assignments that we have.”
While the offense sputtered after the first drive, Middlebury’s defensive unit made a number of crucial stops early to maintain the lead. After penalties derailed Bowdoin’s first offensive possession, the Polar Bears picked up a pair of first downs on their second possession before Middlebury linebacker Zach Faber ’14 crashed down off the edge on a third-and-three play to halt Polar Bears’ running back Trey Brown in his tracks, six yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Bowdoin recovered with a superb special teams play, downing the subsequent punt inside Middlebury’s two-yard line after a 49-yard boot from punter Andrew Murowchick.
Facing the prospect of moving the ball from the shadow of his team’s end zone, head coach Bob Ritter called a running play that was snuffed out by First-Team All-NESCAC linebacker Griffin Cardew resulting in a safety and the game’s first points for the Polar Bears.
Bowdoin then executed its most successful drive of the game, taking the free kick after the safety and marching 55 yards on 14 plays, including a crucial fourth-and-one conversion before stalling at the Middlebury five-yard line and settling for a field goal — the team’s only offensive score — to cut the Middlebury lead to two.
The Bowdoin threat seemed to reignite Foote and the Middlebury offense, which unveiled a new wrinkle in first-year running back Joey Zelkowitz ’17, who caught a pair of passes from Foote in a span of three plays, employing a series of cuts and jukes to weave his way through the Bowdoin defense. Two plays after catching a swing pass that he turned into a 12-yard gain, Zelkowitz slipped through the Bowdoin front four, setting up a well-timed screen pass from Foote, and waltzed, untouched into the end zone for his first career touchdown, increasing the Panthers’ lead to 14-5.
“We expect a lot from Joey,” Foote said. “He’s a little water bug, definitely a quick kid. He adds an element to our offense that we haven’t seen in years past.”
“He’s a really quick-twitch, very great straight-ahead speed, but also can make guys miss — he’s very hippy,” Ritter said. “We haven’t really had a back like that in a long time. When he gets in some space it’s going to be fun to watch.”
The Middlebury defense held Bowdoin to just 27 total yards over the next two series, but the offense failed to capitalize on two opportunities to put the game out of reach. Foote threw interceptions on consecutive possessions, the second on a screen pass to Zelkowitz, who tipped the ball into the air and into the waiting arms of Bowdoin linebacker Joe Cleary.
While the offense struggled, the Middlebury defense continued to make plays, taking the ball back less than two minutes later as outside linebacker Jake Clapp ’16 separated Bowdoin running back Brown from the ball and safety Matthew Benedict ’15, who later registered an interception and made seven tackles, fell on the fumble.
“Matt’s just always in the right place at the right time, which is why he makes so many [plays],” Ritter said.
The offense, however, failed to capitalize, gaining just two first downs before punting with just over three minutes remaining in the half.
Once again, the defense picked up the slack. On second-and-long after an incompletion, Bowdoin quarterback Mac Caputi targeted a receiver cutting into the middle of the field. Instead, Matt Crimmins ’14, who was sitting underneath the route, made an acrobatic interception, giving Foote and the offense the ball with 2:41 left in the first half and excellent field position.
Following three straight scoreless drives, Foote orchestrated the Panthers’ third touchdown of the game, hitting Zelkowitz for a 20-yard pick up. Then, after consecutive incompletions on first and second down, Foote hit Sadik-Khan for gains of 10 and 20 yards respectively, the latter a strike down the seam, which Sadik-Khan hauled in at the goal line for a touchdown, his second of the game.
“That’s a play we run, looking off the safety one way or the other,” Foote said. “Their middle linebacker ran with him and when we get that look I’m going to give him a shot at it and let him be a basketball player and go up and catch it.”
The Panthers went into the locker room leading 21-5 and seized control of the game for good early in the third quarter. Facing a similar situation that led to the first-half safety — backed up to their own three-yard line after a Bowdoin punt — Foote led the offense on a mammoth 17-play, 76-yard drive that didn’t produce any points, but ate over seven minutes of clock and flipped the field position battle. Ultimately the drive ended when the offense failed to convert a fourth-and-three from the Bowdoin 21-yard line, turning the ball over on downs. Though the drive did not result in points, its impact on the game was substantial.
“That was probably our best drive of the game,” Foote said. “We converted a bunch of fourth downs and took five or six minutes off the clock, so that was a great drive for us.”
While the offense missed a litany of opportunities, including three failed fourth down conversion attempts, the defense was on point to deliver the knockout blows, which came via two second-half turnovers. First, Faber knocked the ball free from Bowdoin running back Zach Donnarumma’s hands, leading to a Middlebury recovery. Then, with just under 10 minutes remaining, after a Matt Rea ’14 touchdown run from a yard out, Benedict stepped in front of a Romero pass, putting an emphatic final mark on the game.
“In the fourth quarter they were down big and I knew they would be taking shots down the field,” Benedict said. “When I went back into my drop I saw the quarterback throwing a go-ball and I got a made break on it and got my hands on it.”
Middlebury outgained Bowdoin 459 to 290 en route to their 27-5 victory. Defensively, reigning NESCAC Rookie of the Year Tim Patricia ’16 led the Panthers with eight tackles, including one-and-a-half tackles for a loss. The Panthers also received a significant contribution defensively from first-year defensive back Nate Leedy ’17, who accumulated five total tackles and a pass breakup in his first career game.
“The defense did a great job,” Ritter said. “Obviously whenever you can keep a team from scoring a touchdown and create four turnovers you’re making a big impact on the game.”
The Panthers host Colby in their home opener Saturday, Sept. 28. The Mules (1-0) are coming off a 31-8 thumping of Williams at home. Middlebury has won three of its past four meetings with Colby.
(09/12/13 1:11am)
In a result strikingly similar to the last time these teams squared off in the NESCAC semifinals, the Middlebury field hockey team slid by Amherst in a 4-3 overtime victory, as NESCAC Player of the Week, Cat Fowler ’15 netted a hat trick. Though tumbling over the Lord Jeffs — as Fowler did on her game-winning goal — may have been a more accurate descriptor of a performance that bore all the signs of a season-opener in which Middlebury was missing all nine of its first-year players due to MiddView orientation trips.
“I don’t think either team was super on their game because it was the first game of the season and people didn’t really have their legs,” Fowler said. “We’re all in really good shape from the summer, but there’s a difference between going for a run and putting the ball into play and the nerves of the first game and the pressure of playing against another team. I call it game shape — it’s a different kind of running.”
Game legs or not, the Panthers jumped out to an 2-0 lead, as Fowler scored twice in the opening 32 minutes, the first off a penalty stroke, set up by one of Middlebury’s seven first-half penalty corners. Under head coach Katharine DeLorenzo, the Panthers send their defenders — with their short, powerful sticks — into the circle to attempt to redirect the penalty into the back of the net, or, in this case, into the body of an Amherst defender, granting Middlebury a penalty stroke. With Lauren Greer ’13, the team’s long-time stroke-taker, on the bench in her role as an assistant coach, Fowler was named the team’s stroke taker just minutes before the opening faceoff.
“We hadn’t really practiced strokes this season yet,” she said. “[The team] talked about it briefly before the game and they said, ‘You’ll take it,’ so I practiced 10 before the game. Emily Knapp was in goal and she wanted to practice strokes, too, so it worked out perfectly.”
Fowler converted on the stroke — her first ever in regulation play — and extended the Middlebury lead less than eight minutes later off a feed from teammate Bridget Instrum ’16.
The lead disappeared as quickly as it materialized, however, as the Lord Jeffs responded with a pair of goals in a span of 3:19 to tie the game.
“Early on we were up so it was exciting, especially since we didn’t have any of our [first-years],” Fowler said. “But Amherst answered back almost every time we scored. We’d get so hyped up, get to the center and then they’d score. So we talked about fixing that in practice yesterday.”
The trend continued, with Middlebury jumping back in front minutes later off a strike from Hannah Deoul ’14. Just 47 seconds after the restart, however, Amherst found an equalizer to knot the score at 3-3. Following more than 24 minutes of scoreless play to start the game, the two teams combined to score six goals in a period of 16:40.
“The goals that we scored were off of corners, essentially,” Fowler said. “I think it would have been a different story if we had to run up from the midfield, into the circle and then shoot the ball. But for the most part they were pretty static set plays that [led to our goals].”
Despite the deluge, neither team found the back of the net for the remainder of regulation, sending the game into overtime. The Panthers failed to win a single penalty corner in the second half and attempted just two shots, while the Lord Jeffs racked up 14 shots on 11 corners, forcing Knapp into nine second-half saves. With the game seemingly slipping away, Fowler and her teammates found resolve in the overtime period.
“Every time it comes to overtime, we’re so confident,” she said. “We play a possession game; we don’t give the ball away. So once it came to overtime, we felt like we had it. It’s our thing — we love to win in overtime. So that gave us the boost we needed when we were tired.”
True to form, just over six minutes into extra time, Fowler took a broken play — a poorly executed penalty corner — and turned it into the game-clinching goal.
“Alyssa sent me a pass down near the end line and I received the ball and realized no one was on me,” Fowler said. “So I pulled around the goalie and I ended up tripping over the goalie — she dove to try to get the ball — and as I was falling made a last ditch effort, swiped at the ball and it went in. Over.”
Fowler’s overtime heroics left the Lord Jeffs reeling, having now suffered overtime defeats in each of their past two matchups with the Panthers. For third-ranked Middlebury, the win gave them an early boost in the NESCAC standings, while simultaneously increasing the confidence of a team already in little need of reinforcement.
“Knowing that we can win with a small bench in our first game of the season is a good little kick into the rest of the season, giving us momentum,” Fowler said. “And now we’re adding so much talent from nine first-years. If we can beat Amherst with 14 people, we can beat anyone.”
Fowler’s heady assertion will be tested for the first time when the Panthers host Connecticut College on Saturday, September 14, with a NESCAC showdown looming against Bowdoin a week later.
(09/12/13 1:11am)
Cross Country
Both the men’s and women’s team claimed second place at NESCACs last year, as well as first and third place for men’s and women’s respectively at the NCAA regional. Men finished eighth at the NCAA championships while the women finished 11th.
Both squads begin their competitive seasons at the Aldrich Invitational hosted by Williams on Saturday, Sept. 14.
After losing All-Americans Addie Tousley ’13 and Jack Davies ’13, two of the most successful runners in program history, Coach Nicole Wilkerson will be looking for returners and first-years alike to step up and fill the gap.
“Right now our greatest weakness is that we do not have a frontrunner, as we have in years past,” captain Sam Craft ’14 said. “Our strength, however, is that our top runners are already running as a tight pack. Our team as a whole is very deep and if we can continue to run as a pack, that will more than make up for our lack of a clear frontrunner.”
NCAA competitors Katie Carlson ’15, Alison Maxwell ’15, Sarah Guth ’15 and Summer Spillane ’15 return for the women while Greg Krathwohl ’14, Nate Sans ’14, Wilder Schaaf ’14 and Sebastian Matt ’16 bring experience to the men’s team.
Under strong leadership from Regional Coach of the Year Nicole Wilkerson, a relatively young team with nine first-year runners looks to emulate its success from 2012.
“As a team, we want to finish at the top of the NESCAC and the New England. We also want to improve on our finish at NCAAs last year,” Craft said.
Field Hockey
It took a goal 75:40 into an overtime loss at the hands of Depauw in the NCAA Regional game at Middlebury to end the 2012 field hockey team’s perfect season. The then number one-ranked Panthers ended with an 18-1 record overall, including a 3-2 shootout win in the NESCAC championship against Bowdoin.
In other words, this year’s Panthers have some big shoes to fill.
Despite losing only four seniors, the team lost some significant contributors. Most notably, starting goalie Madeline Brooks ’13 and leading-scorer Lauren Greer ’13 graduated after successful seasons. Greer in particular led an outstanding campaign, landing All-American honors and being named National Player of the Year.
“[As the] first girl on the top of the formation, she was a true role model for everyone who came after her,” said Mary Claire Eccelsine ’16. “Her absence has been a popular topic of discussion amongst our team simply because we have to develop a new plan to score the goals that Lauren tallied up last year.”
In order to make up for Greer’s 90 points, the Panthers will rely on Katie Theiss ’14 up front and Ellie O’Brien ’14 and Cat Fowler ‘15 in the midfield.
“[O’Brien and Fowler] are the two rocks of our team,” said Eccelsine. “They are both incredibly talented field hockey players and have game sense like I have never seen before.”
Looking ahead to this season, the Panthers have their sights set on the Bowdoin matchup, set for Saturday, Sept. 21.
“We are really excited to keep the tradition alive this season with an undefeated regular season, a NESCAC championship and of course a NCAA win,” said Eccelsine.
Football
Having graduated a number of playmakers on both sides of the line of scrimmage after a 7-1, NESCAC-runner-up 2012 season, the football team enters the 2013 season with a number of holes to fill. That list does not include quarterback, however, as senior captain McCallum Foote ’14 returns for his final season, a year removed from setting virtually every single-season Middlebury passing record. While Foote’s 2012 season was superlative, only one of his top five pass catchers returns in 2013.
Three members of his conference-best offensive line from 2012 also graduated, including First Team All-NESCAC tackle Ryan Moores ’13. The offensive line will be a position to watch this season, bolstered by the tutelage of offensive line coach and 2012 American Football Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year Joe Early.
On the outside, meanwhile, wide receivers Brendan Rankowitz ’14 and Matthew Minno ’16 figure to see the majority of Foote’s targets.
“Our offense won’t change much from last year, but where we distribute the ball might change a little bit ... we’ll spread things out a little bit more,” Foote said.
Defensively, Doug Mandigo enters his third season as the defensive coordinator with a unit that made a marked improvement last season, jumping from the conference’s worst scoring defense in 2011 to the third best mark in 2012.
Tim Patricia ’16 is the leader in the middle, returning for his sophomore campaign after totaling the second most tackles in the conference en route to being named Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2012. The Panthers defense features a pair of experienced safeties in Jared Onouye ’14 and Matthew Benedict ’16, who will need to shore up a secondary that will feature a pair of unproven cornerbacks.
On special teams, Mike Dola ’15 returns to handle punting and kicking duties. The Panthers open the season Sept. 21 at Bowdoin.
Golf
The Middlebury men’s and women’s golf team look to build on a strong spring season after promising season openers for both teams. The men look to improve on a third place finish at NESCACs while the women hope they can better their 14 place finish at NCAAs. Both the women’s and men’s best competition will likely come from Williams, as both teams return with strong sides this year.
As well as a strong returning team, the men welcome three first-years in Fitzgerald Bowen ’17, Jacob Dana ’17, and Matt Marra ’17 hoping to make their mark on the program. Last year’s top finishers for the men include Max Alley ’14, Chris Atwood ’14, Rob Donahoe ’14, Eric Laorr ’15, and John Louie ’15.
“We’ve all been playing competitively through the summer so it just takes getting back into the right mindset here at school with the team to play well and win tournament,” Alley said.
The men began their season with a win at the Bowdoin Invitational Tournament on Saturday Sept. 7 and Sunday Sept. 8. The women also began their season this past weekend with a third place finish at the St. Lawrence Invitational.
While the women only welcome one new face, first-year Theodora Yoch ’17, captain Caroline Kenter is still optimistic about her team’s chances and teamwork.
“We lost a great player and a great friend when Keely Levins ’13 graduated in May,” Kenter said. “Since we have such a small team, it’s really important that we’re friends first and teammates second. We’re really excited about Yoch joining us this week and we’re sure she’ll bring a lot to the team.”
Men's Soccer
The Middlebury men’s soccer team looks to improve on last year’s 6-7-1 record despite losing its top goal scorer in Alvand Hajizadeh ’13 and starting goalkeeper Zach Abdu-Glass ’13, amongst a total of 12 departing seniors.
A rash of season-ending injuries and bad luck worked against the Panthers last year, notably Sam Redmond ’15 and Jon Portman ’13. With a few good bounces and good health this year’s squad could surprise the NESCAC.
Senior Ethan Collins ’14 did enough to earn the starting job in net during the preseason.
“He’s worked hard and earned his stripes,” said head coach David Saward.
A handful of first-years also are looking to make an impact this season.
“They better do well,” said Saward. “They’re a very savvy soccer group, and they’re going to get chances to play.”
Adam Batista ’14, Harper Williams ’15, Noah Goss-Woliner ’15, Sam Peisch ’13.5, Graham Knisley ’14 and Deklan Robinson ’16 look to build on strong seasons last year to carry the Panthers squad.
Williams was second on the 2012 team in scoring, while Batista started nine games but was bit by the injury bug. Goss-Woliner started 13 games last year and Saward calls him “Mr. Steady.” Peisch also started 11 games a year ago. Knisley started every game last season, and Robinson led all first-years last year with eight starts.
Saward hopes that a team effort will replace the scoring lost with the departure of top-scorer Hajlzadeh.
“Batista, Peisch, Williams are a pack of midfield players that have got to come up with some goals,” said Saward. “Tyler Smith ’14 moves to forward from his more comfortable position of center back to assist in the offensive attack. First-year Adam Glazer ’17 has the ability to score goals as well. [Glazer] shows a real natural instinct to go to goal … and he can finish,” says Saward.
Women's Soccer
The Middlebury women’s soccer team hopes that its opening loss to Amherst is not an indicator of the season to come, and looks to build on last season when the Panthers went nine games without a loss to begin the year and finished 13-3-1, reaching the NESCAC Quarterfinals and earning an NCAA Regionals berth.
After losing a talented senior class, 11 first-years come in to the team looking to re-enforce the midfield as well as add more goal-scoring opportunities to the side that scored 1.65 goals per game last year. Coach Peter Kim believes that his team is well-balanced and has experience in the most important places.
While the new faces on the team will prove to be valuable in later games, Kim presently sees inexperience as an obstacle.
“We’re young and have to integrate into one team,” said Kim. “We have many players who have never played against NESCAC competition.”
The team is led by veterans Lindsay Kingston ’14, Moria Sloan ’15, and Julia Favorito ’14, who bring composure and experience to a young team. Top scorer Scarlett Kirk ’14 is also looking to add more goals to her name, while Elizabeth Foody ’14 provides steady hands in goal after claiming nine clean sheets last season. Kim hopes that strong upper-class leadership will be a key to his team’s success.
While winning NESCACs is the ultimate goal, Kim has a set of more fundamental expectations for his team.
“We want to play the beautiful game which is difficult to do with new faces, so our first goal is getting up to speed so we’re playing our own style,” Kim said. “We have diligent, hardworking, and intelligent players so we can definitely get there.”
Tennis
The Middlebury men’s tennis team is poised to replicate last year’s winning season with many of its core contributors returning.Last year’s campaign, resulting in a 20-5 team record as well as an NCAA quarterfinal loss to top ranked Claremont, was indisputably a triumph for the Panthers, who seek to build upon a solid foundation. With no incoming first-years, the team is dependent on upperclassmen leadership. Key returnees include Alex Johnston ’14 atfirst singles, as well as Andrew Lebovitz ’14, who teamed up with Johnston in the NCAA doubles tournament. Play for the Middlebury men’s tennis team resumes Sept. 14 with the Middlebury Invitational. The truncated fall season will provide valuable experience for younger players on the team before the championship season begins in the spring.
“The fall is a critical developmental time for the team to make tactical and technical improvements and adjustments,” said men’s head coach Bob Hansen.
The Middlebury women’s tennis team also seeks to duplicate a successful season, which also saw them exit in the NCAA team quarterfinals to fourth-ranked Emory. The women’s team, reaching a ranking ofeighth nationally with a 13-7 record, also sent multiple team members to the NCAA singles championships. However, their success this season will rely more on younger members of the program following several key departures from the team, including Lok Sze Leung, the team’s top player and NCAA Divison III singles champion, who transferred to Northwestern and the graduation of the All-American Doubles pairing of Brittany Faber ’13 and Leah Kepping ’13. In 2013-14 the team will look to underclassmen Ria Gerger ’16 and Margot Marchese ’16 to continue their impressive progression as players as well as a talented first-year class.
“The freshmen are certainly a great class of players, but they been fantastic team players and that is what has been most impressive,” said women’s head coach Mike Morgan.
Volleyball
After a successful preseason, the women’s volleyball team looks to jump off a NESCAC Championship as they begin competition this Friday, Sept. 13 and Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Johnson & Wales tournament.
Their first NESCAC match up will be the following Saturday, Sept. 21 against Colby at home. While another NESCAC championship and a long run in the NCAA tournament are the teams season goals, tri-captain Meg Anderson ’14 sees a short-term goal as beating long-term NESCAC rivals in regular season games.
“We are definitely hoping to repeat our NESCAC championship and to win NCAA regionals. On the way to reaching those goals, we hope to take down some of our league rivals,” said Anderson. “I think we could easily achieve our goals given the level of play I’ve seen in our first two weeks of practices.”
While the women lost six players last year, the addition of four promising first years and the return of several star players have the team’s captains hopeful for the impending season.
“We graduated some good players, but we have many strong returners and first years,” said Anderson. “Overall, the team looks really strong and has great team chemistry that will no doubt help us have an amazing season.”
The team finished last season 23-7, earning their fourth NESCAC Championship, with a 3-0 win over Connecticut College. Their season came to an end in the NCAA regional tournament with a 3-1 loss to third-ranked Clarkson, dashing the team’s hopes of a NCAA Championship. Clarkson went on to the quarterfinals of the tournament, losing to St. Thomas, the team who went on to win the National Championship.
(05/01/13 8:08pm)
Monday, April 29, Middlebury offensive tackle Ryan Moores ’13 received an invitation to attend the Atlanta Falcons’ three-day rookie mini-camp. The 6’6’’, 315-pound Moores, who went undrafted in last weekend’s NFL Draft, will travel to Atlanta Friday, May 3.
A number of different teams contacted Moores in the lead up to the NFL Draft last week and again in its immediate aftermath. While Moores ultimately reached an agreement with the Falcons, the Seattle Seahawks, who recently re-signed former Middlebury kicker Steven Hauschka ’07, were among the teams that expressed interest.
“During the last month [my agent and I] were in communication with about six teams,” Moores wrote in an email. “Once the draft ended Atlanta and Seattle showed the most interest. I ended up choosing Atlanta because it provides the best opportunity to make it to training camp.”
Offensive line coach Joe Early recognized Moores’s potential during his sophomore season when Moores first earned a starting role on the team.
“After [Moores’s] sophomore year, I new there was a chance … because you can’t teach his size,” Early said. “He was still learning to be a better player and moved from the left tackle to the right tackle, which was interesting because the NFL coaches I’ve spoken to say he’s a natural right tackle.”
Moores quickly established himself as one of the NESCAC’s best offensive lineman, earning second-team ALL-NESCAC honors his sophomore and junior seasons before being named a first-team All-NESCAC selection and d3football.com first-team All-American after his senior year.
The Massachusetts native acknowledged that attempting to make an NFL roster presented different challenges than he faced playing in the NESCAC.
“I think the biggest adjustment will be the level of competition — more specifically the speed and size of the players compared to what we face in the NESCAC,” said Moores.
Early echoed this sentiment, adding, “Seeing a guy who can rush him at 280 pounds is very different from a guy who rushes him at 230 pounds.”
While the speed of the players will test Moores, playing in Bob Ritter’s pass- heavy, up-tempo offensive has better prepared him for the tempo of the NFL. In eight games last year the Panthers ran 684 plays, an average of 81 a game. By comparison, the New England Patriots led the NFL while running just over 74 plays per game.
“His skill set is in pass protection,” said Early. “He picked a good program [in the Falcons] to go to that’s a little more pass friendly, but you still have to run the ball in the NFL the way you run the ball here.”
Learning a new offense, and the complexity of the protection packages involved will provide another significant test for Moores.
“The one thing that is going to be different is the verbiage,” said Early. “Our plays are much more condensed. It’s the same thing, but they call it elongated [in the NFL]. Learning the new offense is hard for everybody.”
Moores understands that his ability to learn the offense and execute it successfully might determine his future with the Falcons.
“In order to earn a pre-season roster spot, I need to impress the coaching staff by picking up the playbook quickly and giving 100 percent in every drill,” he said.
Though Moores is attempting to accomplish what few NESCAC players have in the past, ultimately the distinction makes little difference in the end.
“I think he’s going to prove that he’s tough, that he’s a 'yes sir, no sir'-type guy and at some point they’re not going to care that he went to school,” said Early.
(04/25/13 4:01am)
In his class "Segregation in America: Baseball’s Negro Leagues," Emeritus Dean of Advising and Assistant Professor of American Studies Karl Lindholm does not spend an inordinate amount of time discussing Jackie Robinson. Though he acknowledges the Robinson story is “the greatest there is,” he’s reluctant to devote it more time than is necessary. Lindholm’s reasoning is two-fold: first, there is little to add to the existing literature — an entire semester could be spent reading about Jackie Robinson; and second, because Robinson’s story is so often told and so well-known, the entire history of black baseball seems to be collapsed into the Robinson story.
42, the recently released biopic on Robinson, falls into this trap. Not only does the movie add nothing to our understanding of Robinson’s life, it also takes the simplest of paths to tell the story: Dodgers owner Branch Rickey has a plan to integrate Major League Baseball; Jackie Robinson is chosen to break the “color barrier”; Robinson faces racism; Robinson overcomes said racism. To further illustrate this point, in 42 there are three kinds of people: racist whites — many of whom quickly realize the error of their ways — benign whites, and blacks, who it is assumed are all supportive of Robinson. In fact, before Robinson even plays a minor league game, 42 coronates him as a hero to the black baseball community.
In reality, many Negro Leaguers saw Robinson as the wrong choice. At 26 years old, Robinson had yet to prove himself in the Negro Leagues while players such as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson — to name just two — had played their way into Negro League lore. Far from placing Robinson on a pedestal, therefore, many black ballplayers expected, and some perhaps privately hoped, that he would fail. Certainly Robinson’s success, and baseball’s eventual integration, sunk the thriving Negro Leagues, displacing many talented players who could not find work in integrated Major League Baseball, which was careful to limit the number of black players in the years following Robinson’s breakthrough. This is not an argument against integration, but rather a suggestion that the realities of integration, and black’s and white’s attitudes toward Robinson, were far more complicated than 42 acknowledged.
The movie’s greatest fault, however, is its failure to accurately convey the racial sentiments of the time. With a few notable exceptions, the ugly and systemic racism remains in the shadows, rearing its head just often enough to remind the audience that it exists, but without truly challenging viewers to confront their own perception of race relations during segregation. In the most disturbing scene, Robinson is showered with racial epithets by Philadelphia manager Ben Chapman every time he comes to the plate, eventually leading to an emotional breakdown in the tunnel below the Dodgers’ team dugout. Unfortunately, this scene ultimately serves to further the juxtaposition of white racism and white progressivism, as Dodgers owner Branch Rickey offers words of comfort and courage to Robinson who returns to the field to win the game for the Dodgers.
The film is an exercise in teleology; in 42 Robinson’s success and the eventual integration of baseball is pre-determined. In an impassioned speech, Dodgers’ manager Leo Durocher warns his dissenting players that Robinson is just the first black ballplayer and “more will be coming every day.” In 2013 it seems natural that Durocher would make such an assertion. In 1947, Durocher was confident only in Robinson’s talent (and did challenge his mutinous squad to accept him or be reassigned).
Crediting him with foreseeing baseball’s successful integration before Robinson’s first major league game, however, is an example of just how far 42 bends the historical record in order to fit its narrative. Consider that the Boston Red Sox did not integrate until 1959 — more than a decade after Robinson played his first major league game with the Dodgers — and Durocher’s certainty seems far more likely to be the construction of a director who knows what will happen than the clairvoyance of a man attempting to rally his team.
Ultimately, Brian Helgeland, 42’s screenwriter and director, is more concerned with how the film will be interpreted in 2013 than giving an unfiltered portrayal of what happened in 1947. Racism is used as a tool to define characters and how the audience should feel about them: The city of Philadelphia is racist, Brooklyn is not; teammates who don’t accept Robinson are traded to bad teams; and there is never any doubt that the goodness of equality will defeat the evil of segregation.
Though Jackie Robinson continues to inspire many to believe that a better life is possible, 42 never questions whether any other conclusion to the story was possible. In the seminal Rickey-Robinson moment, the Dodgers owner says he needs a player “who has the guts not to fight back” and explains that public perception will be just as important as Robinson’s performance on the field. Helgeland need not have taken the same approach to 42.
(03/25/13 3:32pm)
The Middlebury men’s basketball team fell 67-55 to North Central (Naperville, Ill.) in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, Friday, March 22. The 12-point loss marked Middlebury’s largest margin of defeat since the Panthers were ousted from the 2010 tournament by Rhode Island College, 75-59.
“I feel like we ran into a buzz saw of a team,” head coach Jeff Brown said. “They dominated us on the boards, we struggled to finish our shots and it was a real challenge for us to cover them defensively — areas where we’ve been strong all season long.”
Junior guard Joey Kizel ’14 led the team with 16 points, but struggled from the field, converting just five of his 13 field goal attempts as he and his teammates failed to finish good looks inside and open shots from the perimeter. A week after shooting better than 54 percent from beyond the arc in a 73-72 win over Ithaca, the Panthers made just four of 14 three-point attempts.
“We ran them off the three-point line,” North Central head coach Todd Raridon said. “When you look at their stats [some of those guys] shoot 40-something percent from three — that’s something we had to have.”
Middlebury opened the game with easy baskets inside as tri-captain Peter Lynch ’13 and Jack Roberts ’14 combined to score the first 10 points of the game for the Panthers. Twice in the first half Middlebury opened a seven-point lead, as Kizel scored eight of Middlebury’s next 11 points over 4:48 to spark the Panther run. Roberts gave Middlebury a 23-16 lead with 9:08 remaining in first half with his fourth basket in four attempts off a feed from tri-captain Jake Wolfin ’13.
North Central responded with a 24-14 run over the final 8:41 of the first half. Cardinals guard Vince Kmiec provided the catalyst, pouring in 12 points over a 4:24 stretch. The 6’4’’ junior guard gave his team its first lead since the Cardinals scored the first basket of the game, draining a three with 4:39 remaining in the half. The Cardinals never trailed from that point on as Kmiec, who scored 17 points in the first half and 31 points for the game, made key shots to keep the Panthers at arm’s length.
“Kmiec had a tremendous game,” said Brown. “We were so concerned about Raridon and Gamble that maybe we lost some focus defensively.”
With 1:33 remaining in the first half, tri-captain Nolan Thompson ’13 drained a three pointer to tie the game at 36, but back-to-back layups from North Central’s All-American Derek Raridon and big man Landon Gamble gave the Cardinals a 40-37 advantage at half time.
Kizel led Middlebury with 10-first-half points, but it was the Panthers’ inside scoring that kept them in the game as Lynch, Roberts and James Jensen ’14 combined to score 23 of the team’s 37 first-half points.
Consecutive mid-range jumpers from Thompson followed by an acrobatic reverse layup from Wolfin cut the North Central lead to one just over three minutes into the second half. The Cardinals then orchestrated a 16-2 run, opening a 60-45 lead with 11:12 remaining as Kmiec and company knocked down four treys during the run, while the Panthers missed 12 of their next 15 shots from the field.
Kizel engineered a brief 7-2 run for the Panthers beginning at the 6:51 mark, finding a cutting Hunter Merryman ’14 for a layup off the high pick-and-roll and culminating with Kizel contorting his body through traffic for a twisting layup at the 3:53 mark to reduce the deficit to eight.
That was as close as the Panthers would come, however, as the furious rally to tie the game or retake the lead that Panther fans have come to expect never materialized.
“In a lot of our games — especially when we’ve been down eight to 10 points — we’ve been able to put together a three or four basket run to close the gap,” Brown said. “We were reaching and trying to get that but never did because of North Central’s defensive intensity and focus.”
Middlebury made less than 36 percent of its shots in the second half, including two of its nine three-point attempts as a team en route to scoring just 28 second-half points. Kizel led the team with 16 points, while Lynch ad Roberts had 12 and 10, respectively, as the only three Panthers to reach double-digit point totals. A week after Thompson, Wolfin and Kizel combined to shoot 17-31 in the Sweet 16, Middlebury’s backcourt trio converted 11 of their 33 shot attempts. The offensive struggles in the second half were team-wide, however, as the Panthers’ frontcourt of Lynch, Roberts and Jensen totaled just 7 second-half points on two-for-eight shooting.
Middlebury’s loss in the NCAA quarterfinals brought an end to the careers of Thompson, Wolfin and Lynch, who finished as the winningest players in program history, compiling 104 wins and just 14 losses, including a NESCAC championship and a 15-7 postseason record.
“It has been a terrific class,” said Brown. “It has been a dream to coach them. The trio of seniors are really unselfish. I’ve probably never been involved with a team that throws the extra pass as much as this year’s team has on the offensive end.”
Thompson finished his career with the ninth-most points in Middlebury history and will be remembered as one of the best defensive players in school history. Thompson was named the NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year, while collecting first-team All-NESCAC honors.
Wolfin, meanwhile, is Middlebury’s all-time assist leader with 553 assists. Both he and Thompson were four-year starters for the Panthers.
After playing a reserve role for the better part of two seasons, Lynch developed into one of the NESCAC’s best big men and the most efficient scorer in Middlebury history, setting a new program record with a career 60.2 shooting percentage while leading the team this year, averaging 14.9 points per game.
While three senior captains graduate, the team returns Kizel, a two-time first team All-NESCAC selection, and a group of talented players around him for the 2013-14 season.