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(11/05/15 12:55am)
The Middlebury football team has experienced an up-and-down October, and while the team has emerged with a winning record, its ultimate goal is now out of reach.
A cake walk victory back in Week 2 over Colby was soon followed by a handy defeat at perennial title contender Amherst. The Panthers bounced back by defeating Williams 36-14 on Homecoming weekend, making them 3-1 as they prepared for a battle in Lewiston, ME with Bates. A second-half offensive explosion lead Middlebury to a 41-27 victory and set up a pivotal game with Trinity on Halloween. Unfortunately for Middlebury, the game, knotted at 14-13 for much of the first half in favor of the Panthers, slipped through their hands in tragic fashion as a couple of late turnovers resulted in a 26-14 Bantam victory. Middlebury now stands at 4-2, with its championship hopes completely out the window. With Amherst and Trinity both 6-0 and set to meet this weekend, one or the other will finish no worse than 7-1 on the year and in sole possession of the NESCAC crown.
The Panthers fought back-and-forth with the Bates Bobcats on Saturday, Oct. 24, eventually securing the victory despite a mere four-point lead at halftime. Bates opened the scoring with a long first quarter drive that resulted in a field goal, but Middlebury responded with a quick strike and a 84-yard TD drive culminating in the fourth touchdown catch of the year for WR Matt Minno ’16. Bates would take the lead late in the first when slot back Frank Williams broke loose for a 39-yard touchdown run. The next four series were ugly for both teams, as Middlebury surrendered an interception and a fumble and Bates lost a fumble and missed a field goal attempt. The Panthers then went on an eight-play, 80-yard scoring drive, on which Conrado Banky ’19 caught a 34-yard TD down the left sideline by out jumping his defender in the end zone. The score would stay 14-10 going into halftime.
Milano had 276 of his passing yards in the first half to go along with two scores and two interceptions.
The second half belonged to Middlebury, which outscored its opponent 27-17 after the break. Minno, Tanner Contois ’18 and Ryan Rizzo ’17 all caught touchdown passes, making it five scoring strikes on the day for Milano. The scoring was capped off when QB Jared Lebowitz ’18 kept a read option and darted up the gut for a 40-yard scoring run.
Milano finished the day 31-53 for 405 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. Minno had 10 catches for 138 yards and two scores, his second two-touchdown game of the season, and second-consecutive 100-yard receiving game. Banky also had 100-plus yards through the air and a score, and the defense had three interceptions, one apiece from Kevin Hopsicker ’18, Wesley Becton ’18 and Dan Pierce ’16.
The victory over Bates prepared Middlebury to host the undefeated Trinity Bantams with the knowledge that this game would be do-or-die for the Panthers’ championship hopes.
The Panthers began the game severely short-staffed, with starters Banky, RB Diego Meritus ’19, TE Trevor Miletich ’16, LB Addison Pierce ’17 and CB Andrew McGrath ’18 all out with injury. On Middlebury’s first drive the panthers lost receiver Rizzo to a season-ending knee injury, and late in the contest Contois went down with a serious injury, as well.
Despite these hurdles, Middlebury struck first. Contois’ first quarter TD reception gave the Panthers an early lead, which would last until early in the second quarter when Trinity’s electric return man Darrien Myers took a punt 74 yards for a score to make it 10-7 in favor of the Bantams.
Middlebury attempted to tie the game in the second quarter, but Charlie Gordon’s ’19 31-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Trinity’s Brandon Blaise, representing the sixth blocked kick against Middlebury this season.
Middlebury did put another score on the board late in the second quarter, however, as TE Dan Fulham caught an eight-yard score from Milano. That touchdown made it 14-13 with Trinity having converted on two field goal attempts.
The next 27 minutes of football were scoreless. Middlebury tried to strike first, but Gordon’s 30-yard field goal attempt in the third quarter sailed wide right, seemingly deflating the Panthers. However, Becton rose to the occasion two plays later and gave the ball back to Middlebury by intercepting a Trinity pass. On the ensuing possession, the Panthers drove 37 yards to the Trinity five, but with the issues in the kicking game and the Panthers’ confidence that they could convert, Head Coach Bob Ritter elected to go for the touchdown. Milano found an open target in the end zone but the ball was dropped, and it remained a one-point game.
The two teams traded punts back-and-forth for much of the fourth quarter, but the fateful mistake came with 4:18 left in the ball game on the Middlebury 34. RB Jon Hurvitz ’17 coughed up a fumble that Trinity was able to recover. It took just three plays for the Bantams to convert and score the go-ahead touchdown, taking a five-point lead after the two-point conversion attempt failed.
The Panthers had just 2:52 to go 75 yards and only two timeouts remaining. A defensive pass interference and a completion to Fulham took Middlebury to the 48-yard line, but the Panthers’ momentum was quickly reversed when Trinity safety Spencer Donahue picked off Milano and returned the ball 13 yards to the Trinity 41. With two timeouts left, the Panthers were able to force a Trinity punt with over one minute left in the game.
Middlebury began its last-ditch effort from its own 28 with 1:17 remaining and no timeouts. On the drive’s opening play, Milano found Minno wide open 15 yards down the middle of the field, but the usually reliable wideout failed to reel in the pass, making it second down. On the next play, needing to connect deep down the sideline in order to stop the clock, Milano targeted Emilio Ovalles-Misterman ’19, a running back-turned slot receiver thanks to all of Middlebury’s injuries, on a long corner route. Trinity cornerback Archi Jerome could not have been in better position, and hauled down Milano’s errant throw over his shoulders before planting his foot in the ground and sprinting up the right sideline for a 50-yard touchdown return and sealing the win for Trinity.
Special teams and injuries ruled the day. Trinty’s Kyle Pulek punted the ball nine times, pinning Middlebury within its own 14-yard line six times, and Myers’ punt return touchdown was momentous. As for Middlebury, the Panthers left, at minimum, nine points on the board by failing to convert in the red zone, and Middlebury is now missing five of its Week 1 starters for the season.
The Panthers, now 4-2, will look to extend their 19-game winning streak against the Hamilton Continentals at home this Saturday, Nov. 7 on Middlebury’s Senior Day.
(11/05/15 12:51am)
Middlebury volleyball wrapped up its regular season with a split this past weekend against two NESCAC foes, losing to Connecticut College on Friday evening, Oct. 30 (25-27, 20-25, 26-28) but bouncing back Saturday, Oct. 31 with a big win against Tufts (22-25, 25-23, 25-20, 25-19). Finishing at 7-3 in the conference, the Panthers secured the fourth seed in the NESCAC tournament in Brunswick, Maine, where they will square off against the Jumbos once more on Friday in the quarterfinals.
This past weekend’s games, combined with those from the prior weekend at the New England Challenge at MIT, brought the team’s regular-season record to 17-6. In Boston, they had come up short against MIT (20-25, 19-25, 22-25) and Wellesley (22-25, 25-17, 19-25, 23-25) but defeated Babson in straight sets (25-19, 25-18, 25-22).
In the week leading up to the New England Challenge, Head Coach Sarah Raunecker was excited to see her team tested.
“This weekend we’re going to play three very good teams in our region, but all non-conference, which will be great,” Raunecker said. “MIT is the top ranked team in NE, Babson is in the top 15, as we are, and Wellesley is always a good team, so the competition should be great all weekend. It’ll be fun to see what we can do against these teams.”
Even though the Panthers didn’t manage to win a single set against MIT, they put together a number of strong runs throughout the match and showed that they felt comfortable against premier competition (MIT was ranked no. 23 in the nation at the time). The game against Wellesley was more or less the same; Middlebury started strong out of the gates, taking the first set, but unfortunately struggled to stay in a consistent groove over the final three.
Against Babson, however, the Panthers controlled the match from start to finish, coming away with a decisive victory in straight sets over a team currently ranked #5 in New England.
In the eyes of middle blocker Gabi Rosenfeld ’17, with just a little extra push, the two games that the team lost might have come out quite differently.
“We had a lot of really great moments this weekend,” Rosenfeld said. “Our serve receive was extremely consistent, which allowed us to run our offense well. We showed that we can beat any team if we’re playing our best and staying positive, but if we don’t play with intensity, we lose to teams that we really should beat. The matches against MIT and Wellesley kind of just slipped away from us because we weren’t playing our own game.We let the other teams set the pace and could never take back the momentum.”
Notably, outside hitter Becca Raffel ’18 earned a spot on the all-tournament team for her play over the weekend, pouring in 35 kills over three matches to the tune of a .272 hitting percentage.
The NESCAC matchup against Conn College last Friday, Oct. 30 turned out to be an especially frustrating one for the Panthers, who stretched both the first and third sets past 25 points but never seemed to be able to take the reins against the Camels en route to a three-set loss. On a more positive note, team captain and setter Hannah Blackburn ’17 surpassed the 2,000 assist mark for her career. She notched 29 to bring her total to 2,003, good for fourth place all-time at Middlebury.
Outside hitter Charlotte Devine ’17 thought the team’s play felt choppy and a tad sluggish against the Camels, but praised the squad’s ability to make adjustments before Saturday’s match against Tufts.
“On Friday in our game against Conn., we were lacking the energy and flow that have allowed us to come together and play cohesively so much this year,” Devine said. “On Saturday, we really found that enthusiasm, and our defense and offense worked beautifully together to play a clean match against Tufts. So while we had our ups and downs on the weekend as a whole, I’m really proud of our ability to pinpoint what needed fixing on Friday and to come ready to play our game on Saturday.”
In fact, Saturday’s game had major implications for the Panthers’ playoff seeding. Had they lost, they would’ve shared the fifth spot in the NESCAC with Conn College (6-4). However, the Camels would’ve had the tiebreak, meaning the Panthers would be facing an uphill battle as the sixth seed.
Instead, Middlebury fought through a tough loss to Tufts in the first set to take the next three and come away with the win. The Panthers hit .227 to the Jumbos .166, with a number of players getting in on the action: outside hitter Isabel Sessions ’19 led with 15 kills and Raffel poured in 13, while middle blockers Eliana Schaefer ’18 and Melanie English ’17 combined for 18 kills and 6 blocks.
Still, Devine stressed that, regardless of whether the team had won or lost Saturday’s game, the team would need to focus on its own play rather than their opponent in the NESCAC tournament.
“We can take any team in the conference when we play our game: this season has proven that,” Devine said. “We’ve had some of the best teamwork on the court that I’ve seen in the three years that I’ve been playing here, and I know every single person on our team is committed and willing to place the team above everything else.”
The Panthers will face Tufts at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6. If they win, they will face the winner of the Bowdoin-Bates matchup on Saturday with hopes of making it to Sunday’s championship game.
(11/05/15 12:47am)
The Men’s Water Polo Club team took second place at the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Division III National Club Championship at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota last weekend (Oct. 31-Nov. 1) with a performance to finish off their 2015 season on a high note.
During the regular season, the team participates in the CWPA New England Division, which allows them to face off against Dartmouth, Boston College, Boston University, Yale, and the University of Connecticut (whose team is co-ed). Boston University and Yale hosted tournaments on the weekends of Sept. 26-27 and Oct. 10-11 respectively. Middlebury hosted the league championship tournament on Oct. 24-25, and finished fifth in the league.
The Panthers’ status as the only Division III team this year in the New England Division earned them an automatic spot in the Division III National Club Championship. There, Middlebury represented New England as one of the nine teams that contended for the National title.
The team entered the weekend hoping to improve upon their third place finish in last year’s tournament at Bowdoin College.
“Though we all knew it was a long shot, we flew to Minneapolis to win Nationals,” said Brian Rowett ’16, one of Middlebury’s three captains.
The Panthers came out strong in their first game against Emory University on Saturday, Oct. 31 to notch a 21-11 win. Middlebury’s strong teamwork gave them an edge in this game; nearly half the team — seven of 15 players — contributed to the scoring effort.
J Whelan ’16, one of Rowett’s co-captains, led the team with seven goals. These combined with Jacob Epstein ’16’s five goals, Kevin Benscheidt ’17’s three, Rowett’s two, Ben Weaver ’16, the other co-captain’s two goals, as well as single goals from Jack Ravery ’17 and Eli Jones ’16 for a total of 21.
This momentum carried over to the Panthers second, closer, victory that day against Grinnell College (16-13). Epstein and Whelan again scored five and seven goals respectively, and were named co-players of the game. Rowett (2), Benscheidt (1) and Weaver (1) also outsmarted Grinnell’s goalie to cushion Middlebury’s win.
“[The] team played [their] best game of the year against Grinnell,” said Head Coach Brian Goodwin. “They looked really good in all areas.”
On Sunday, Nov. 1, the Panthers played Washington University in St. Louis (Wash. U), the defending co-champion for the first-place trophy. (Wash. U split last year’s championship with U.C. Santa Cruz after a power outage at Bowdoin prevented the final game from being played). The Bears, however, defeated Middlebury 14-9 for their second straight National title (which they now hold on their own for the first time).
Taylor Moore ’18 used his speed to win each of the four sprints, and secure possession of the ball for Middlebury at the start of each quarter. Benscheidt kept the Panthers in the game from the start, scoring his first of two goals in the first quarter.
Middlebury trailed by just one point at the end of the first, but Wash. U seized the chance to pull ahead in the second, making it 7-1 by the half.
Middlebury fought back for the rest of the game. Working to score two goals each, Whelan and Rowett brought the score to a close 9-5 by the end of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Benscheidt and Epstein added one goal apiece. Whelan’s last two goals, one of which came from a penalty shot, rounded out Middlebury’s scoring as the game wound down.
Despite Weaver’s defense in the center position, the Panthers could not stop player of the game Mike Lee, who notched 7 individual goals for the Bears.
Goalie Ethan Strayer ’16 anchored the Panther defense, saving seven of Wash. U’s 21 shots on goal, and adding to his 26 total saves in the tournament.
The Panthers’ failure to capitalize on offensive opportunities — as highlighted by their conversion of just two out of five extra-man situations — placed them at a deficit they couldn’t come back from. The game ended with a score of 14-9.
“This was likely the team’s best chance in many years to bring home the title, so naturally it was disappointing to lose in the championship game,” Rowett said. “That said, we played incredibly well for the vast majority of the tournament.”
“It was a tough loss in finals,” Coach Goodwin echoed, “but we ... played very well to get to the championship game.”
Middlebury’s runner-up finish in this tournament marks the program’s second-best performance at a National Collegiate Club Championship ever, besides their first place finish in the 2003 National Championship.
The CWPA chose Epstein and Whelan for the First All-Tournament Team, and Goodwin, who has been with the program since it was founded in 1999, was named the Outstanding Coach of the tournament.
“I’m proud to bring home the second place title and to be part of a very dynamic team,” Rowett concluded.
(10/21/15 11:09pm)
This week’s Performing Arts Spotlight features guest writer Su Zheng, Associate Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. She previews the upcoming concert by Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet, Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA).
“The pipa is a lute-like instrument with a history of more than two thousand years. During the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.–220 A.D.), instruments with long, straight necks and round resonators with snakeskin or wooden soundboards were played with a forward and backward plucking motion that sounded like “pi” and “pa” to fanciful ears. Hence, all plucked instruments in ancient times were called “pipa.” During the Tang dynasty, by way of Central Asia, the introduction of a crooked neck lute with a pear-shaped body contributed to the pipa’s evolution. Today’s instrument consists of twenty-six frets and six ledges arranged as stops and its four strings are tuned respectively to A,D,E,A. The pipa’s many left and right hand fingering techniques, rich tonal qualities and resonant timber give its music expressiveness and beauty that are lasting and endearing.”
— notes by Wu Man, “What is a pipa?”
The pipa was a major instrument in the teaching of Buddhism in early China, as witnessed by its portrayal in numerous murals in the Buddhist caves near Dunhuang, along the ancient Silk Road in western China. Throughout Chinese history, the pipa has also been a prominent instrument for female entertainers at the imperial courts in rich households, and at teahouses or pleasure houses, where the performers were known as singsong girls. Depictions of these singsong girls’ expressive performances and graceful voices constitute an important aspect of classical Chinese literature. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911), literati (or scholar-bureaucrats) began to take an interest in playing pipa and, as a result, more elaborate compositions were created and preserved in the earliest pipa music collection, published in 1818.
What kinds of new sounds and songs will emerge when a classical string quartet is in conversation with the ancient pipa? What emotions will this music evoke for childhood friends and schoolmates who meet again on tonight’s stage, and for those in the audience? To find out, I spoke with Wu Man, widely recognized as the world’s premiere pipa virtuoso and as a leading ambassador of Chinese music in the West.
When she was just 13, Man was accepted into the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. It was there that she met Yi-Wen Jiang, the Shanghai Quartet’s second violinist.
“He was my classmate at the conservatory,” Man said. “A few years later, I met Honggang Li, the viola player, at the same conservatory. Through him, I met his brother Weigang Li, a very talented violin player.”
But Man didn’t collaborate musically with her friends back then.
“We took many cultural and required political doctrine courses together, but we never played music together,” she said. “We belonged to different departments. They played Western instruments, and I played a Chinese instrument. We were separated by two different musical worlds.”
After conservatory, Wu Man came to realize that her lifelong creative journey would be to combine her instrument, her voice and her body to create unprecedented sounds and new modes of performance for the pipa. “I feel pipa is my voice,” she said. “I communicate with people through my pipa.”
The year 1992 marked the first time in history for musical dialogue between a string quartet and a pipa, and a new musical form was born. One of the most memorable performances is Man’s collaboration with the Kronos Quartet on Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera in 1995.
What is unique and exciting about Wu Man’s present tour with the Shanghai Quartet is that it not only promises the cross-cultural and genre-defying musical experiences that Man is now well known for around the world, but the collaboration has also been a deeply personal one for the performers.
“We have the same cultural heritage,” she said. “We are so familiar with the repertory. We have a visceral understanding of the meanings of these folk songs and contemporary compositions because we grew up in China in these sounds. In rehearsals, we were able to ‘jump into’ the music immediately. We were transported back to our childhoods by the music; all the memories came back with the music. It is something very special to us.” After a brief pause Wu Man added, “very emotional.”
Wu Man and the members of the Shanghai Quartet are particularly looking forward to sharing their musical journey and emotions with college students.
“I love to answer [students’] questions about pipa,” she said. “I love to share my creative processes with them, and it’s so inspiring to see the sparkles in their eyes. I am always thrilled by their curiosity.”
Wu Man’s adventurous journey with the pipa seems to have radically departed from the aesthetics of those pipa masters recorded in China’s historical texts. Her journey could never have been imagined by innumerable pipa singsong girls throughout China’s long history. Yet, Man plays a pipa that belonged to one of her teachers and that was bestowed upon her when he passed away, a significant gesture to recognize her central role both as a guardian of the pipa tradition and a pioneer of a new path for this ancient instrument.
Tickets are $25 for the general public; $20 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, alumni, emeriti, and other ID card holders; and $6 for Middlebury College students. Visit go/boxoffice or stop by the box offices in McCullough or the MCA.
(10/15/15 12:36am)
The Middlebury football team ran into a brick wall in Amherst, Mass. on Saturday, Oct. 10. While both teams entered the match previously undefeated, only the Lord Jeffs maintained their sterling record after wearing down the Panthers over the course of four quarters. Amherst eventually capped the 24-7 win with a 30-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter that was a direct product of Panthers’ fatigue on defense.
The game was competitive throughout, and Middlebury nearly struck first on a long bomb down the seam from quarterback Matt Milano ’16 that bounced off the hands of his receiver. Middlebury was forced to punt, and Amherst responded with a 10-play, 2:53 drive that resulted in a field goal and the first points of the game.
The Panthers responded emphatically. The second Middlebury drive of the game began with a 13-yard catch and run by rookie running back Diego Meritus ’19. Three plays later, Milano hit tight end Trevor Miletich ’16 for a 35-yard gain down the middle of the field. After a pair of short-yardage runs, Milano connected with his favorite target, wideout Matt Minno ’16 — who missed last week’s game with an injury — for a 22-yard score. Minno fended off two defenders like they were flies, and hauled down the Milano pass to give Middlebury a 6-3 lead.
“[Having Minno back] was a big impact for us,” Head Coach Bob Ritter said. “For Matt Milano, I think he has good chemistry with Matt [Minno]. He feels confident throwing the ball up to him.”
The next six drives all resulted in punts, as both defenses showed their mettle and toughness. On their first drive of the second quarter, Amherst charged deep into Middlebury territory. On 4th and 1 from the Middlebury ten-yard line, Amherst ran a dive, expecting to easily pick up the first. However, LB John Jackson ’18, making a big impact for the second straight week, came flying off the edge to pancake the ball carrier and earn it back for the Middlebury offense. At the time it felt like the spark the Panthers needed to get the offense rolling.
“That was a huge play and got our bench excited,” Ritter said. “Jackson’s a dynamic player. The defense calls for him to come hard off the edge, hard and flat, just for that reason, trying to stop the inside run and he did a great job.”
Unfortunately for Middlebury, it was not to be. The following drive ended quickly after Milano was forced to scramble on third and four and had to slide down short of the first down marker.
With 4:27 left in the half, Amherst took the ball and marched down the field, eventually scoring on a three-yard rushing touchdown from the powerful senior Kenny Adinkra. With that, the Lord Jeffs took a 10-7 lead going into halftime and never looked back.
Amherst opened the second half with the ball, but gave it back to Middlebury in short order when Gil Araujo ’16 forced a fumble along the sideline that was picked up by teammate Carsen Winn ’17. The Middlebury offense threatened early and often in the third quarter, carrying a pair of drives into that no man’s land portion of the Amherst side of the field. Too long for a field goal but too short for a punt, the Panthers elected to go for it on a fourth and ten and then on a fourth and four, but were unsuccessful on both occasions.
Another great defensive play in the third quarter felt like the spark that would ignite the Panthers. From the Middlebury 27 with just under five minutes to go in the third quarter, Charlie Gordon ’19 punted the ball away on fourth down. The coverage team sprinted down to pressure the return man and was rewarded when the Amherst returner muffed the punt and the ball was recovered by Jimmy Martinez ’19 at the Amherst 34.
Here Middlebury had a chance to take advantage of a short field and possibly take the lead, but the Amherst defense continued its aggressive style and dragged down Milano for a nine-yard sack on first down, dooming that drive.
“It certainly felt like, ‘Let’s take advantage of this right now,’” Ritter said. “Then they catch us with an A gap blitz that we don’t really have an answer for. That’s one of those where if we get the screen off but if they get the sack it’s a big play [for them].”
Through three quarters the Middlebury defense played inspired football, holding the LJs to just ten points and really only one sustained drive all day. But, the air seemed to go out of the Panthers — on both sides of the ball — in the fourth quarter.
It began with a muffed punt that gave Amherst the ball at the Middlebury three-yard line early in the fourth quarter. Araujo and Dan Pierce ’16 made stops on first and second downs, and the coverage on third down was good enough to force an incomplete pass. Smelling blood, Amherst went for the touchdown on fourth down, and QB Reece Foy found receiver Jackson McGonagle in the back of the end zone for a touchdown.
The Panthers’ offense could do nothing on the subsequent drive. A three-and-out resulted in a punt, and the gassed defense was forced back on the field. The Lord Jeffs moved the ball down the field with ease, and eventually first year running back Jack Hickey took the handoff, got wide to the left sideline and then niftily cut back towards the center of the field on a relatively easy 30-yard touchdown run, putting the nail in the coffin for the Panthers.
With Middlebury in desperation mode and Amherst able to expect the pass, the next two Middlebury drives resulted in interceptions, snuffing out any remaining hope of a come back.
This loss changes Middlebury’s record to 2-1, forcing them to relinquish some control in the fight for the NESCAC crown.
The issue all day for the Panthers was the Amherst pressure on Milano, as the gunslinger was sacked five times and brought down a few more.
“We got caught with some sacks that we don’t normally have,” Ritter said. “Some of it was our play calling and them catching us at the right time. Blitzing the A gaps on a screen, they got it on a boot … sometimes you hit those things and they’re big plays and sometimes they’re a second earlier and it turns into a big loss.”
On both sides of the ball, Amherst’s physicality proved more than Middlebury could handle.
Milano finished the game 26-46 (56.5 percent) for 249 yards and a touchdown, and if not for the late interceptions his stat line would have looked like a typical Milano game. Minno was his usual self even as he nurses that injury, racking up 76 yards on five catches and a touchdown. Conrado Banky ’19 was not far behind with five catches and 70 yards of his own.
Defensively, Araujo led the defense with 11 tackles and forced the fumble that was secured by Winn.
Amherst controlled the game and the clock, holding on to the ball for 34 minutes and 50 seconds. This failure to win the possession time battle has now begun to characterize this Panther team; Middlebury is last in the NESCAC in rushing yards per game and time of possession. The Panthers’ 38 percent success rate on third down is fourth in the league, but not even close to Amherst’s 54 percent success rate, and that was what helped the Lord Jeffs’ sustain longer drives and beat up the Middlebury defense.
“I told the team,” Ritter said, “one of the things we have to do a better job of is converting third downs, and then getting off the field on third downs [defensively].”
The Panthers return to action this weekend with their Homecoming tilt against the visiting Williams College Ephs (2-1) on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 1:30 p.m. on Alumni Field.
(10/07/15 11:20pm)
“Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Michael Caine intoned, bringing the great words of the 20th-century poet Dylan Thomas into the cultural mainstream as mankind’s last hope shudders through space and time. This Wednesday, Oct. 7th, adventurers and innovators will once again invoke Thomas’s words to describe their explorations into the human experience.
The evening of Oct. 14 will feature several unique but cohesive performances. Before we mothernaked fall is choreographed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance, Scotty Hardwig, and explores the poetic processes and expressionist sensibilities of poet Dylan Thomas. Meanwhile, This is your Paradise, a composition by Salt Lake City-based dance artist Molly Heller, confronts struggle, resistance, hope and faith. “A Duet Called Blue” is a collaboration between Heller and Hardwig that follows the creation, disconnection and cracking undercurrent of energy that runs beneath the sea of human sensation.
Before we mothernaked fall references Thomas’s interest in the male form and its place in the world. Hardwig adapts the sentiment for modern times by sketching the homosensual body in an attempt to create a space “where the individuals identity melts into a group body,” according to dancer Doug LeCours ’15.
“It’s not about sex or identity but sensation, a shared sameness among the three bodies on stage moving through a physical experience together,” LeCours said.
LeCours will return to campus as one of the piece’s three performers. Noting that he has always had a strong advisor-advisee relationship with Hardwig, he is proud to make his professional debut at the College.
The sound score from the performance features text by poet Dylan Thomas. Unlike contemporaries such as T.S Elliot and W.H Auden, who focused on specific social and intellectual issues, Thomas is celebrated for writing that is emotionally lucid yet narratively obscure. By conveying the feeling of his subject more clearly than its definite form, his work possesses a quality that corresponds naturally with dance. Thomas’s storied life funnels into often-metaphysical idolatry, with a percussive rhythm that hammers lines in time with the reader’s heart, covering topics ranging from death to the human condition to lost childhood and the sea of coastal Wales. Hardwig played his works aloud as they worked to generate content, drawing from both his delivery and subject.
Both Hardwig and Heller have unusually organic and communicative creative processes, in which the final performance evolves organically from a continual dialogue between dancer and choreographer. Heller views the process as collaboration, both in terms of movement and the exchange of energy. A successful project invokes a strong sense of catharsis.
“Choreography helps me understand that I’m not any label; I’m no perimeter, I’m no thing. I am experience,” Heller said. “I actually believe that we are our experiences. The energy produced by a situation translates into our body and it’s felt and it’s manifested physically and we are those things, so we are our DNA and we are also our experiences. Identity is our way of negotiating those two things.”
Heller works and studies in Salt Lake City, UT, where she uses dance as a medium for healing. Her movement seeks to mend trauma through a heightened awareness of energy channeled through the physical body. Supported by Zen beliefs surrounding introspection and mindfulness, she also operates a teahouse, with the goal of supporting the individual within a greater community.
Her research into the healing powers of dance is interwoven into her pedagogical beliefs. The differences between her passions – dance and tea culture – allow her to expand the ways in which she perceives the world and to further appreciate ritual, sacred spaces and inner stillness.
This particular performance is bursting with a passion so potent it is felt tangibly amongst the audience. Explicit consciousness on behalf of onlookers or the dancers only impedes the journey to the liberation that this raw expression allows. Instead, the audience is encouraged to relax their minds and embrace the stillness of honest movement.
The first performance will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Oct. 14 in the Mahaney Center for the Arts. All performances are free and open to the public.
(10/01/15 2:59am)
This past Saturday, Sept. 26, the Tour de Farms bike ride kicked into gear with a new route including more of the northeastern part of Addison County. Now in its eighth year, the Tour de Farms is an annual 37-mile bike ride around the Vermont countryside that stops at various farms, features local foods and benefits Addison County Relocalization Network (ACORN), a local non-profit.
The ride began at the recreation fields behind Mt. Abraham Union High School. The ACORN website suggests bikers plan at least five hours for the ride, which includes ten minutes at each stop, though many may want to stay at the farms longer.
At the start, there were two tents set up for registration. Representatives from two local bike shops were there as well, ready to provide free assistance to anyone who needed bike repairs along the way.
Noah Klammer ’17 volunteered at the start before doing the ride himself.
“I was actually signed up to just do set-up on that very morning, so that was like 7 to 8, so as it turned out, the ride didn’t start till 8:30 or 9 anyway, so I helped with parking,” Klammer said.
“We had a lot of cars,” Klammer added, “which was kind of cool, because … people were hanging out, and not really tail-gaiting, but hanging out, fixing up bikes [and] talking.”
As bikers started out on their ride, they headed north from Bristol up through Monkton and soon left the pavement behind for gravel roads. The ACORN website specifies that 13 miles of the ride will be on gravel road and suggests – in all capital letters – that bikers use “a mountain bike, hybrid bike or road bike with wide tires.”
“The terrain is hilly with a mix of paved and dirt roads so a mountain bike or road bike with wide tires is recommended,” explained ACORN in a press release.
Sophie Vaughan ’17 seemed to appreciate the varied terrain and views along the ride.
“It was gorgeous. The ride had a lot of different landscapes. At one point we were sort of riding along the base of the mountain in Bristol, at other times we were passing rivers, and other times we were seeing mountains in the distance,” Vaughan said.
This route was different than that of the past seven years. The old route used to go out by Shoreham and spend more time on paved roads.
Traffic was more of a problem since riders spent more time on the narrow shoulders of fast-paced roads.
“This was a great route because I think they really planned it so that you can take back roads. You’re on gravel about half the time,” Klammer said.
“Traffic really wasn’t an issue, which made it really fun to just ride and not be worried about that.”
Not only did the new route keep bikers off busy roads, it made them ride on back roads they may never have reason to travel.
“There’s this whole area that’s between [route] 7 … and [route] 116 that people don’t go to. It’s like Monkton, and Monkton Pond, and then Hinesburg, all this area,” explained Klammer, using his arms to show the north-south orientation of Routes 7 and 116 and pointing to the area in between. “Most of New Haven is actually east of [Route 7].”
Along the ride, bikers stopped at a total of eight different farms. There they had the chance to sample different foods and drinks from 18 different farms and restaurants. Various businesses set up stands at the farms where the bikers did stop. Farmers and businesses hailed mainly from Bristol, Monkton, New Haven and Hinesburg.
“You eat a lot of different types of food from vegetables to apple cider and cider donuts … at one station they had these maple donuts with cream – maple cream – on them, which I very much enjoyed. A lot of good roasted vegetables,” said Vaughan as she recalled all the delicious foods she had tasted.
“If this was like Top Chef, you know, I’d rate it ‘Most Creative,’” Klammer said, referring to one of his favorite foods along the ride. “At one of the farms – where they raise vegetables and they raise pigs – they had … pulled pork in coleslaw, but it was in a collard green wrap. It was kind of a challenge … the leaf was really, really thick and you had to wrap it up, but it was kind of good! It was kind of like eating the pork inside of a coleslaw.”
About 300 people participated in the event. Several students were among them. Bike and food enthusiast also came from far and wide – at least a few hours – for this event.
“People come from all over New England,” commented Vaughan. “I was talking to a guy who came all the way up from Boston just for the day.”
Every year, the Tour de Farms requires the help of at least 20 volunteers on the day of the event. In exchange for giving their time, volunteers, such as Vaughan and Klammer, get to ride for free. For the majority of riders who did not volunteer at the event, the cost of registration is $35 in advance or $55 the day of. All proceeds benefit ACORN and the farms.
According to the ACORN website, 25 percent of the fees for registration go to the farm partners. Various businesses also sponsor the race. The Tour de Farms is ACORN’s major annual fundraiser.
According to the home page of their website, “ACORN’s mission is to cultivate connections that promote the production and use of healthy, local food in Addison County, Vermont.”
“We are working with growers, schools, businesses and community and statewide partners to double the consumption of locally-grown food by 2020,” stated the press release about the event. ACORN takes a project-based approach to tackling issues of local, healthy food production and consumption. They provide mentoring, networking and financial support for those who have a project idea in line with their mission.
Many people seemed to be having a jolly time participating in the event and supporting a good cause.
“It was really nice to see the fall color change and just spend a Saturday outside, six hours or so, riding a bike, enjoying the community with people beyond the Middlebury campus,” Vaughan said.
“100 percent,” said Klammer when asked whether he would do it again. “I’ve been trying to encourage people to look into it. I think one thing is people [students] are reluctant to pay any kind of entry fee, like being at Middlebury where we get so much free stuff … But also you can do what Sophie and I did … They usually need a couple dozen volunteers, and then that’s a way you can ride for free.”
“The Tour is a one-of-a-kind experience,” said Jonathan Corcoran, ACORN’s Executive Director, in a press release. “People keep coming back to share a relaxing day with family and friends to experience the flavors of the fall harvest, the beauty of the land and its fall colors and the great people who make our local food community special.”
Traffic wasn’t really an issue, which made it really fun to just ride and not be worried about that.”
Not only did the new route keep bikers off busy roads, it Klammer, using his arms to show the north-south orientation of Routes 7 and 116 and pointing to the area in between. “Most of New Haven is actually east of [Route 7].”
Along the ride, bikers stopped at a total of eight different farms. There they had the chance to sample different foods and drinks from 18 different farms and restaurants. Various businesses set up stands at the farms where the bikers did stop.
Farmers and businesses hailed mainly from Bristol, Monkton, New Haven and Hinesburg.
“You eat a lot of different types of food from vegetables to apple cider and cider donuts … at one station they had these maple donuts with cream – maple cream – on them, which I very much enjoyed. A lot of good roasted vegetables,” said Vaughan as she recalled all the delicious foods she had tasted.
“If this was like Top Chef, you know, I’d rate it ‘Most Creative,’” Klammer said, referring to one of his favorite foods along the ride. “At one of the farms – where they raise vegetables and they raise pigs – they had … pulled pork in coleslaw, but it was in a collard green wrap. It was kind of a challenge … the leaf was really, really thick and you had to wrap it up, but it was kind of good! It was kind of like eating the pork inside of a coleslaw.”
About 300 people participated in the event. Several students were among them. Bike and food enthusiast also came from far and wide – at least a few hours – for this event.
“People come from all over New England,” commented Vaughan. “I was talking to a guy who came all the way up from Boston just for the day.”
Every year, the Tour de Farms requires the help of at least 20 volunteers on the day of the event. In exchange for giving their time, volunteers, such as Vaughan and Klammer, get to ride for free. For the majority of riders who did not volunteer at the event, the cost of registration is $35 in advance or $55 the day of. All proceeds benefit ACORN and the farms.
According to the ACORN website, 25 percent of the fees for registration go to the farm partners. Various businesses also sponsor the race. The Tour de Farms is ACORN’s major annual fundraiser.
According to the home page of their website, “ACORN’s mission is to cultivate connections that promote the production and use of healthy, local food in Addison County, Vermont.”
“We are working with growers, schools, businesses and community and statewide partners to double the consumption of locally-grown food by 2020,” stated the press release about the event. ACORN takes a project-based approach to tackling issues of local, healthy food production and consumption. They provide mentoring, networking and financial support for those who have a project idea in line with their mission.
Many people seemed to be having a jolly time participating in the event and supporting a good cause.
“It was really nice to see the fall color change and just spend a Saturday outside, six hours or so, riding a bike, enjoying the community with people beyond the Middlebury campus,” Vaughan said.
“100 percent,” said Klammer when asked whether he would do it again. “I’ve been trying to encourage people to look into it. I think one thing is people [students] are reluctant to pay any kind of entry fee, like being at Middlebury where we get so much free stuff … But also you can do what Sophie and I did … They usually need a couple dozen volunteers, and then that’s a way you can ride for free.”
“The Tour is a one-of-a-kind experience,” said Jonathan Corcoran, ACORN’s Executive Director, in a press release. “People keep coming back to share a relaxing day with family and friends to experience the flavors of the fall harvest, the beauty of the land and its fall colors and the great people who make our local food community special.”
(09/30/15 9:50pm)
The Panthers overcame deficits of 12 and four points in a nail-biting victory in Middletown, CT against Wesleyan on Saturday, Sept. 26. When the outcome seemed in doubt with just minutes to play, Middlebury took a 28-25 lead on a screen pass from 2014 NESCAC Co-Offensive Player of the Year Matt Milano ’16 to Diego Meritus ’19. The first-year back took it 43 yards to the house thanks to a couple of huge blocks from right tackle Andy Klarman ’17 and slot receiver Conrado Banky ’19. Linebacker Wesley Becton ’18 put the final nail in the coffin with an interception with just over 1:00 left to play.
Milano and Co. started off like gangbusters, driving 78 yards on the game’s opening possession for a touchdown on a six-yard scamper by the quarterback. After that, though, neither team could tally another score in the first quarter.
With the second quarter under way Wesleyan began gaining ground at will on the way to three scores by the middle of the third quarter.
The score should have been 21-7 in favor of Wesleyan, but 2014 All-NESCAC Second Team defensive lineman Gil Araujo ’16 just got enough of a hand on the Cardinals’ first PAT to keep it out of the uprights. Later the Cardinals’ kicker was unable to convert after Wesleyan’s third TD, leaving the score at 19-7 in favor of the home team. Those points left on the table would come back to haunt the Cardinals.
The third quarter brought new life to Milano, the team’s top returning pass-catcher Ryan Rizzo ’17, and Milano’s new favorite red zone target, tight end Trevor Miletich ’16. Rizzo racked up 126 yards on five receptions, the second-most yards in the NESCAC on Saturday, and Miletich hauled in two touchdowns, the first of his career.
“What was nice to see [from Miletich] was that the sophistication of his route-running was beyond his experience,” Head Coach Bob Ritter said. “We rely on that position a lot, and Matt [Milano] does have a good rapport with him, so we were pretty excited to see that he came up big for us.”
The Cardinals continued to pound away on the ground en route to compiling 296 yards rushing in the game, but the Panthers defense kept Wesleyan out of end zone until late in the fourth quarter.
Wesleyan was able to break the plane with 5:49 left in the contest to take a four-point lead, 25-21. Because of the two failed extra points earlier in the game, Wesleyan elected to attempt a two-point conversion, but the pass fell incomplete and the score stood pat. Had the Cardinals been able to make a PAT on each occasion, they would have led by seven and the game may have ended differently.
As it were, the Panthers started off its game-winning drive at the 25-yard line. Milano and gang made quick work marching down the field. Banky hauled in a 15-yard catch on the drive’s initial snap. On the next play, Meritus took the handoff and was gobbled up after just a two-yard gain, but a personal foul on the defense advanced the football to the Wesleyan 43. Meritus immediately followed that up with the dagger on his 43-yard trot to the end zone.
Now up 28-25, Middlebury was in a position to seal the deal by playing good defense. The Panthers did just that, forcing a three-and-out on the Cardinals next possession, but the offense was unable to move the ball and kicked it right back to Wesleyan after a three-play, five-yard, 58 second drive. The Cardinals took the ball with 2:06 remaining and 81 yards to go to the end zone, and the opportunity to kick a game-tying field goal.
The Panthers defense stepped up once again, forcing the Cardinals into a 4th and 13 situation with the game on the line. Becton closed the book on the Cards by picking off an errant throw from Hawkins. Even though the defense bent throughout much of the second and third quarter, it did not break when it counted.
“When you’re on defense,” Ritter said, “it’s always hard going into the first game, because there are scheme things you can’t anticipate or you haven’t seen before. And so I think our guys came up big when they had to and learned on the run as the game went on.
Milano finished the game 23-34 with 337 yards and a 3-0 touchdown-inerception record, while Rizzo led the team in receptions and receiving yards. Rookie kicker Charlie Gordon ’19 was a perfect 4-4 on extra points. Tim Patricia ’16 led the team in stops, with 12 stops and one interception, and was followed closely by safety Dan Pierce ’16 (11 tackles, one sack) and linebacker Addison Pierce ’17 (10 tackles).
The football team has now won its last six contests dating back to last season, and will play Colby (0-1) this Saturday, Oct. 3. The Mules were stomped by Trinity, 34-0, in their season opener last Saturday.
(09/24/15 12:55am)
Middlebury women’s soccer came away from its first doubleheader of the season with mixed results. After conceding a 2-1 defeat in the final 15 seconds of the game against Amherst on Saturday, Sept. 19, the Panthers bounced back with an emphatic 4-1 victory over Hamilton on Sunday, Sept. 20. The team also traveled to play local rival, Plattsburgh, on Tuesday, Sept. 22 (RESULT).
When Amherst played host to Middlebury’s second in-conference game last Saturday, the opening half proved to be a hard-fought affair. Both teams became entrenched, unable to score any of the combined nine total shots on goal. Despite this back-and-forth action, the half was highlighted by just two main attempts, one from each side.
Amherst’s chance emerged when Megan Kim fed the ball to Rubii Tamen, whose shot to the right corner forced Middlebury’s keeper Kate Reinmuth ’17 to make a diving save. Middlebury’s best opportunity came with just a minute left in the half, after Emma Shumway ’18 made contact with the ball in a scuffle in the Amherst box, sending her shot just wide.
The Lord Jeffs broke the deadlock in the 58th minute off of a corner kick. Emily Hester collected the ball off the corner and passed to Guzzi at the top of the box, who sent it rocking into the back of the Panther net.
The Panthers were unable to respond for another 20 minutes, after the rebound from Katherine Hobbs ’17’s shot found the feet of Shumway, who drilled it into the back of the net.
With the game heading into overtime, the Panthers were caught sleeping in the final minute of the game. After Amherst sent the ball down the right sideline, Hester clinched a narrow victory for the Lord Jefferys by beating Reinmuth with her shot from just inside the box. Amherst held the advantage in both shots (15-9) and corner kicks (8-5).
Despite losing in such disappointing fashion, Head Coach Peter Kim was quick to derive positives from the game.
“We had some lapses in the Amherst game, but at many times we were the better team and it could have been either team’s game,” Kim said. “They preserved and caught us unaware at the very end of the game, but there were positives to take out of it. So even though it stung a lot, I feel like we’re right there with a lot of the teams in the conference.”
Kim said that at the final whistle of the Amherst game, the team already knew that it had to learn from its mistakes and move on to prepare to play Hamilton the next day.
Middlebury found its rhythm early, and was patient in building play around the midfield. A few early chances came for Middlebury’s offense including a shot skewed high and wide by Adrianna Gildner ’17, after Day Robins ’17 had faked out a defender and found Gildner in the box.
Panther fatigue was evident, however, as Hamilton looked dangerous only when capitalizing on Middlebury’s mistakes in its own half.
The first goal came for Middlebury in the 21st minute after earning a free kick when a Hamilton defender illegally sat on the ball. Grace Woroch ’17 quickly touched the ball to Jamie Soroka ’16 who coolly placed the ball into the upper right side of the net.
Soroka continued to wreak havoc on the Hamilton defense, scoring again just three minutes later. After the ball was lofted into the box, it found the head of Alissa Huntington ’18, who nodded the ball towards goal. Soroka had the killer touch, heading the ball into the Continental net.
Hamilton was sluggish to respond, and the Panther’s third goal came with ten minutes left, after Amanda Hotvedt ’17 found herself with time and space on the edge of the box and scored from 18 yards out.
The Continentals came back with heightened urgency, and looked certain to score with six minutes left in the half. After outrunning the Middlebury defense, Ali Clarke sent a ball towards goal, but Amanda Dafonte ’19 dove and put her body on the line to stop the shot. Hannah Withiam’s follow-up was then deflected away. Hamilton was finally rewarded in the 42nd minute after Reinmuth could only palm away Clarke’s effort. Reinmuth reflected the ball into the path of Darbe Philbrick, who forcefully placed it into the back of the net.
Hamilton started the second half the better team, playing slick passes behind the Panther defense to its quick strikers. Reinmuth had to race out to make a diving save three minutes in from an oncoming Hamilton player. Just minutes later, a Continental shot just hit the outside of the net. Middlebury was also lucky to escape a penalty after Reinmuth came intertwined with a striker that had sidestepped her in the box.
After a slight lapse in play, Middlebury got on the scoresheet for the fourth and final time. Shumway played Hotvedt at the top of the box, who capitalized on a keeper out of position, and one-touched into the top-left corner of the net.
Play quieted down in the final quarter of the game, with the ball bouncing back and forth between the teams. Middlebury started to play to the corners to neutralize any Hamilton threat.
The Continentals ended the game the stronger team with a 13-12 shots advantage.
Despit a slightly sloppy effort by the Middlebury Panthers, their firepower was put on display against Hamilton.
“Our goal scoring was very excellent [against Hamilton],” Kim said. “As a team, we didn’t play the game we like to play; it was something we had to dig out in these brutal doubleheader conference weekends. It’s a lot to ask the players, so even if it wasn’t the prettiest, full marks to those two for some great goals and some nice set-ups as well.”
On Tuesday Sept. 22, the Panthers fell in double-overtime to Plattsburgh State, conceding a 2-1 defeat.
Middlebury took a 1-0 lead just 7:46 into the game as Robinson scored her second goal of the year. In captain made goal, Hobbs fed Robinson, who then took one touch before firing the ball into the left side of the net.
The Panthers continued to be the better team until well into the second half when they conceded a Cardinals goal to even up the game. Anissa Hartmann calmly slotted a penalty kick after a Middlebury foul in the box.
Hartmann finally broke the deadlock four minutes into the second overtime to give the Cardinals the win. Hartmann latched on to the ball from a corner kick and blasted it into the net.
Plattsburgh held a 15-11 shot advantage and 5-1 advantage in corner kicks.
The Panthers will next travel to Maine to take on Bowdoin on Saturday, Sept. 26.
(04/29/15 6:35pm)
The third-seeded Middlebury men’s lacrosse team fended off a strong sixth-seeded Williams side in a NESCAC quarterfinal game on Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium on Saturday, April 25. Not only did the victory mean that the Panthers’ season would continue into the semi-final round — a matchup with second-seeded Tufts at Amherst on Saturday, May 2 — but it means the squad successfully exacted revenge on a Williams team that had handed them a loss to end the regular season only three days before.
After each side scored to open the game, Middlebury went on a four-goal run started by Cal Williams ’15, who, after losing defenders with quick cuts in the heart of the Williams defense, tossed in a backhanded shot at 7:47. Naturally, however, the Ephs refused to go down easily and ended the quarter with a two-goal run of their own, the second of which came from attackman Steven Kiesel — who would go on to score seven on the day for the visitors — with a mere 13 seconds left to play.
Middlebury answered right back to start the second quarter when Sean Carroll ’16 converted in a man-up situation at 9:32 — a trend that has not always held true for the Panthers — off a Joel Blockowitz ’15 pass. Yet again the Ephs, led by Kiesel and his first half hat trick, answered right back with two more to close the quarter and set the score line at 6-5 in favor of the Panthers at halftime.
Just as the game had started, the second half began with the two sides scoring one apiece until Middlebury began to pull away, this time to the tune of three unanswered goals.
After a Jack Rautiola ’16 goal, Jack Cleary ’16 shook the defense by dodging left, something he rarely does. After Carroll’s second on the day, the Panthers held a comfortable four-goal lead that would last for mere minutes. Williams answered with a trio of their own — marked by another from the unstoppable Kiesel at 4:44 after a sloppy Panther turnover in their own zone — and one more from the senior, this time a simple dump-in on the crease with 22 seconds left, to end the quarter at 10-9 Middlebury.
In almost expected fashion, the historic NESCAC rivals yet again traded goals to open the final stanza. Kyle Soroka ’16 put the home side up by two at 14:06 until the answer at 11:52, a feed from behind the net finished by Eph Eric Kelley cut the lead right back down to one.
Following the goal, the imposing John Jackson ’18 — who earned NESCAC Player of the Week honors after two stellar games against the Ephs — stepped up for the Panthers to win yet another faceoff and groundball. On the day Jackson set career highs in each category by winning 27 of 30 faces for a ridiculous 90 percent success rate and scooped up an equally phenomenal 20 ground balls.
After Jackson took it all the way to score, Middlebury followed with two more as Henry Riehl ’18 cooly cleaned up a rebound at 10:30 and defenseman Eric Rogers ’18 scored his first career goal, one that would prove to be the decisive mark, off of a Jon Broome ’16 feed with 7:01 left in the game.
Yet again, the stubborn visitors answered with a three-goal run highlighted by Kiesel’s seventh with 1:56 left to keep the game close at 14-13. In the final minute of the game it was goalie Will Ernst’s ’16 turn to step up as Williams sprung Kiesel open for a clear mid-range look off a set play. After Ernst made the crucial save with only 30 seconds left, the Panthers were finally able to kill the clock and advance to the semis.
Middlebury advances to play Tufts in the semifinal round of the conference tournament. The Panthers fell 17-10 to the Jumbos in their season opener way back on Feb. 28. Since then, the Tufts squad — after winning the national championship a year ago — has fallen slightly in the national rankings after losing to both Bates and top-seeded Amherst during the regular season. The Jumbos were 15-12 winners over seventh-seeded Hamilton in another quarterfinal matchup.
(04/22/15 9:42pm)
On April 13, Executive Director of Food Services and Operations Dan Detora attended Community Council in order to discuss council member Anna Jacobsen ’16’s proposal to substitute community service work for fines and fees when students violate student life policies.
As the former Director of Dining Services at Union College, Detora shared details about a similar program to Jacobsen’s proposal at Union in which the Dean of Students would contact his office about a student who had violated a policy. That student would then work in dining services, performing tasks such as washing dishes, wiping down tables and catering.
“The program worked fairly well…it made [the students] appreciate what we do in the dining halls,” said Detora.
In the program, students typically had two weeks to fulfill their service. They did have problems with students failing to show up, which resulted in a fine or an increase in the service time. Council members worried if the College implemented a similar program, it would interfere with the regular staff or place a burden on the deans who may be responsible for ensuring students complete their service.
“[The program] did not interfere with regular staff hours…if anything, they got extra help,” said Detora in reference to Union College’s program.
According to Detora, students performed tasks that were not “out in the open” where other students could see them. Some council members were uncomfortable with making a student’s infraction public by putting them in the open; however, other members thought that by not putting students in the open, students may not be discouraged from repeating the violation.
“We are either in or out…if we are going to go for it we don’t necessarily have to think about students only in the ‘backgrounds,’” said Community Council Co-Chair, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of the College Katy Smith Abbott.
The council passed the proposal, recommending to the administration that students who violate certain codes, such as fire safety violations, are subject to community service instead of fines.
On April 20, Community Council continued its conversation about security cameras with Associate Dean of the College and Director of Public Safety Lisa Burchard. Council member and Telecom Manager and Technology Support Specialist Solon Coburn pointed out that “for every college that has cameras—basically every college but ours—they have very specific guidelines.”
Coburn said the College would not implement cameras without guidelines specifying who could view footage and in what circumstances. Burchard said the cameras would be used “to deter crime and to help with the investigation in order to determine who did it.”
Cameras would be placed outside dining hall entrances where most thefts have been occurring. Jacobsen questioned the use of security cameras, wondering if the simpler solution would be to get rid of the backpacks that line up outside of the College’s dining halls.
“I have always been opposed to security cameras, granted I have never had my thesis material stolen…there should definitely be a forum to discuss it,” said Council member Durga Jayaraman ’16.
On April 21, Student Co-Chair of Community Council Ben Bogin ’15 sent an email to the College community announcing that a forum will be held this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in MBH 220 to discuss surveillance cameras. According to the email, there have been a total of 21 stolen backpacks worth approximately $12,000, 19 of which were stolen outside of dining halls during this calendar year.
(04/22/15 4:56pm)
The Middlebury Area Land Trust (MALT), the nonprofit organization dedicated to the maintenance of open land around Middlebury, initiated a conversation with the College about the continual preservation of the Sabourin Farm property. The 108 acres of land currently owned by the College contains a half-mile portion of the Trail Around Middlebury (TAM).
The Sabourin property is located along Route 7 near the southern end of the Battell Woods. MALT and Middlebury’s Parks and Recreation Department have discussed the potential purchase of the land to ensure the TAM’s longevity. MALT officials fear for the future of the public trail if the College should someday choose to put the property on the market and a private party decides to develop.
“MALT has had an interest in this property because of the Trail Around Middlebury. We believe that keeping that corridor open and undeveloped would be good for the town,” Carl Robinson, MALT’s executive director, told the Addison County Independent.
The Parks and Recreations Committee have also proposed the creation of new functional town spaces on the Sabourin land.
“The Parks & Recreation Committee is excited and anxious to realize new recreational opportunities while conserving an important piece of Middlebury’s open space in addition to more entrances and experiences of the Battell Woods,” Middlebury Parks and Recreation Director, Terri Arnold, and President of the Parks and Recreation Committee, Greg Boglioli, wrote to the Middlebury Select Board.
A popular proposal is the creation of a local dog park.
“This would allow an opportunity for all dogs to be off-leash, to run and play with no threat from cars,” town member Jane Steele told the Addison County Independent.
David Donahue, Special Assistant to President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz, wrote an email response to the Addison Independent about the Sabourin property.
“At this point, [Middlebury College] has had no formal proposal. We have had various groups approach us about this piece of land during the past year with a variety of ideas of what might be possible. When I was approached, I suggested they consult with the town planner as part of any process to develop a proposal. We are not looking to sell the land but we would consider serious proposals,” Donahue wrote.
The Sabourin acreage is not the first parcel of College-owned land MALT has shown interest in acquiring. In fact, on September 13, MALT purchased 103 acres in Weybridge from the College to protect the habitat of birds, bobcats, coyotes, deer, and other animals.
As a nonprofit, MALT relies heavily on donations and volunteers. Its main work is in the upkeep of the TAM.
“We have no paid maintenance staff, and our volunteers come from a broad spectrum. Many of them are Middlebury College students,” Katie Reylley, MALT office manager, told the Middlebury Campus in a previous interview.
The 16-mile TAM loop, which runs through the towns of Middlebury, Weybridge, Cornwall, and New Haven, provides a popular running route for students and town residents alike.
“I really enjoy running or walking on the TAM, because it’s an easy way to escape and get out in nature for a couple of hours. The TAM is an excellent resource for community members and college students, because it’s so convenient,” Emily Robinson ’18.5 said.
Born and raised in Weybridge, Robinson grew up running the TAM with her family. She supports the creation of new recreational opportunities for the town.
“I think it would be a really great incubator space for people with common interests to come together and conserve something that is very important to the community and town of Middlebury,” Robinson said.
(04/22/15 1:50pm)
The Middlebury Panthers’ 11 game-winning streak was snapped by number-one Trinity on Saturday, April 18 on Trinity’s Sheppard Field. The 16-7 drubbing extended Trinity’s nation-leading winning streak to 13. It also gave the Bantams sole possession of first place in the NESCAC.
Trinity came out blazing with two quick goals. The Panthers fought back with goals from Mary O’Connell ’17 and Hollis Perticone ’18 to tie the game 2-2 with about 20 minutes to go in the first half. Trinity responded with a trio of unanswered goals to bring the score to 5-2. Bridget Instrum ’16 scored for Middlebury to cut the lead to two, but that was quickly countered by another Trinity goal. A goal from Laurel Pascal ’16 just before halftime made the lead 7-4 Trinity going into the break.
Trinity struck quickly after halftime with four goals to increase the lead to seven at 11-4 with 24:39 left in the game. A response from Middlebury’s Chrissy Ritter ’16 got the Panthers on the scoreboard in the half, but Middlebury could not rally on the defensive end to keep Trinity at bay. Another pair of Bantam goals increased the lead to eight at 13-5. The teams traded goals for the remaining minutes — with Katie Ritter ’15 and Pascal chipped in goals during garbage time — and, at the final whistle, the scoreboard read 16-7 in favor of Trinity.
“We are trying to turn the lopsided loss to Trinity into a learning experience,” Chrissy Ritter said. “We didn’t play to the best of our ability on Saturday and didn’t show Trinity what Middlebury lacrosse is all about. In such a high-intensity game, a lot of our players tried to beat Trinity by themselves.”
Despite the loss, the Panthers are looking forward to the upcoming games and believe that the team will approach the games stronger after the loss to Trinity. Jessie Yorke ’17 agreed with Ritter, saying that the team will need to improve in order to achieve their goals down the road.
“We strayed from playing as a unit,” Yorke said. “We are mentally focused on playing to our strengths. Hopefully the focus on the team game will result in the team bouncing back even stronger.”
Despite the loss, Middlebury is set up well for a playoff run in 2015. Still among the nation’s best teams, the Panthers will look to improve upon last year’s postseason, in which they were upset by Colby in the conference quarterfinals before falling in the NCAA round of 16 to Gettysburg.
“Today and tomorrow we will be working a lot on offensive sets, moving the ball quickly and efficiently as a team, instead of what we did against Trinity, which were a lot of desperate, individual efforts,” Chrissy Ritter said.
Next Saturday the second-ranked Panthers will play their first game of the playoffs at home, against an opponent yet to be determined.
“We are excited to have a home game because it is so nice to be able to play on our turf,” Chrissy Ritter said. “The home field advantage gives the team an advantage mentally just because of the support we feel when we are at home.”
(04/15/15 4:07pm)
The most recent winning streak of the Middlebury men’s lacrosse team came to an end on the afternoon of Saturday, April 11 with a road loss to a hot Bates team, who improved to 8-4 overall and 5-4 in the NESCAC following the win. With the loss the Panthers fall to 10-3 overall and 6-2 in NESCAC play, yet remain in the national top ten with a current ranking at number nine.
Fresh off an unexpected 12-8 victory against then top-ranked Tufts on Tuesday, April 7, the Bobcats came out with intensity on both sides of the ball. The first quarter turned out to be a push as both sides dumped in two, with the Bobcats opening up the game with an Andrew Melvin goal from a Charlie Hildebrand assist at 8:41 to go along with an unassisted Charlie Fay score to end the quarter.Middlebury saw goals from Cedric Rhodes ’17 on a 4:48 man-up assist from Henry Riehl ’18 as well as an unassisted effort by Tim Giarrusso ’16.
As the second quarter began, however, it became increasingly clear that the day simply belonged to Bates. Their stifling defense allowed only one Middlebury goal in the entire quarter, which came on another unassisted effort by Giarrusso who seemed to be one of the few Panthers playing at his highest level. In the same quarter the Bobcats pumped in four as Fay, an unstoppable force for the Bates’ attack, had three of his own to put him at four on the day by halftime to go along with Jack Strain’s quarter-opener at 9:29. At the half the contest sat at 6-3 in favor of the home side.
Unfortunately for the Panthers, Bates refused to become complacent with the halftime lead and instead came out just as hungry as they had in the previous quarter. Yet again their defense was able to shut down the Middlebury attack unit, which could only manage to add two goals in the quarter, one coming off an unassisted effort by Jon Broome ’16 and a second in the same fashion by Kyle Soroka ’16, who attempted to salvage some positives from the quarter with just 12 seconds left. The opposition had by far the most prolific quarter of the day on the other side of the field as the Bobcats scored seven in the quarter. This time the attack was led by Melvin, who with a goal and an assist in the quarter moved to five points on the day, and Kyle Weber, who scored three in a row starting at 9:27.
Though the final quarter was the Panthers’ best, marked by two opening goals from Broome to give him a hat trick for the game and a third by Jack Cleary ’16, it simply was not enough to overcome the 13-5 lead the Bobcats had built by the end of the third quarter. With yet another Melvin goal at 4:20 and a garbage time score from Sean Carroll ’16 at 1:57, Bates ultimately took the game, their first win over Middlebury in 28 contests, by a score of 14-9.
The Panthers will look to rebound and get back to their winning ways on Saturday, April 18 with a big home NECAC game against 4-8 Trinity who will be seeking only their third league win of the year. Yet, with only two regular season games left for the Panthers, the squad knows this is a big one.
(04/08/15 10:55pm)
Over spring break the Middlebury men’s lacrosse team traveled to Baltimore to play the second-ranked Rochester Institute of Technology at Homewood Field, the home of the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays. Though the trip was ultimately an unsuccessful one, resulting in a 21-11 defeat to end the Panthers’ six game winning streak, it marked only the second loss of the season. with the first coming at the hands of first-ranked Tufts.
The then 13th ranked Panthers were dominated in the game, as the Tigers won both the shot battle and the ground ball fight while successfully clearing at a phenomenal 80 percent rate. Though this marks the first win for RIT over Middlebury in three games in the all-time series between the two schools, it was no fluke, as it marked RIT’s 32nd consecutive victory.
The team, however, seemed to use the sting of defeat to forge a new level of motivation. In a quick three day turnaround the Panthers traveled to play Amherst on Saturday, March 28 where a NESCAC bout, against yet another nationally ranked top 10 team, proved to be the perfect scenario for a bounce back statement.
After sitting at a 4-4 tie with the 5th ranked team in the nation following the first quarter, the Panthers stepped on the gas pedal and never looked back. Led by Jon Broome ’16 and his astounding four goal, four assist effort, the team maintained the lead after Henry Riehl ’18 scored at the 13:34 mark of the second quarter. The Panthers would ultimately stomp their NESCAC rival by a 17-11 margin and in so doing hand Amherst its first loss of the year while taking over second place in the league.
Returning home to play Hamilton on Wednesday, April 1, the team did not resort to complacency and retained their coveted spot near the top of the NESCAC. After going down 6-2 at halftime, the Continentals, in rather typical hard-nosed NESCAC fashion, refused to go away easily and stormed back with three goals in the third quarter while shutting out the Panthers.
Hamilton continued to play very solid defense in the fourth quarter, requiring just as much grit and hustle, two aspects embodied by face-off specialist John Jackson ’18 who won 11 face-offs while scooping up five ground balls on the day. The Panthers also exhibited their skill in the offensive end, led by Riehl and Jack Cleary ’16, who had three and two goal games respectively. The Panthers ultimately came out on top by 11-8, retaining their number seven national ranking and second place in the league.
With a horde of fanatical parents packing the stands of Alumni Stadium on Saturday, April 4, seventh-seeded Middlebury took on the Colby Mules to try to improve upon its winning streak. Though Colby sits near the bottom of the NESCAC, no one considers the Mules a pushover.
Both teams got out to a hot start, pouring in five goals apiece in the opening quarter. The trend continued into the second quarter as Middlebury, led by Tim Giarrusso ’16 who earned his third point on the day after an assist to Joel Blockowicz ’15 at the 11:16 mark, dumped in three more to Colby’s lone goal to take an 8-7 lead heading into halftime. The Mules responded right away to open the second half with three straight goals, building its largest lead at 10-8 with 10:34 remaining.
The Panthers responded with three of their own: one notched by David Murray ’15 and another by Joey Zelkowitz ’17. Broome added his second of the day to round out the scoring and produce the seventh lead change of the game. Colby’s Kevin Seiler tied the contest up at 11-11 late in third, however, the Panthers took over yet again to end the quarter as Broome earned his hat trick at with under a minute remaining followed by Zelkowitz who netted his second goal of the game with a mere 18 seconds remaining. After a relatively slowly fourth quarter marked by a goal for each side, the Panthers won by a score of 14-11.
Following the victory Middlebury improved to 9-2 on the season and 6-1 in NESCAC play. The Panthers return to action at home on Wednesday, April 8th when they attempt to win their fourth in a row against the 4-6 Springfield College Pride in a non-conference matchup.
(03/19/15 3:02am)
The Middlebury men’s lacrosse team extended its winning streak to five games last Saturday, March 14 with a convincing 11-9 victory against Wesleyan and an upset win over Endicott on Tuesday, March 17.
Instead of surviving early blows and relying on half-time adjustments to come out with a victory, as had seemingly become the norm, Middlebury stepped on the gas pedal early and never looked back.
The Panthers came out flying as they got up to a quick 2-0 lead in the first quarter following goals from Joel Blockowicz ’15, a beautifully bounced shot off a Tim Giarrusso ’16 assist, and Jack Cleary ’16. Yet the Panther defense failed to completely stifle the potent Wesleyan offense, which scored 13 goals against fourth-ranked Union College just three days earlier, as Cardinal Lyle Mitchell pumped in a goal in the closing minutes from a Matt Prezioso assist.
In the second quarter Middlebury continued to dominate early and often. The quarter again opened with the Panther offense taking it to Wesleyan. Blockowicz and Giarrusso each doubled their point totals on the day with a goal apiece, both unassisted. Though Wesleyan managed to stop the bleeding with a Niall Devaney goal at 4:14, Midd would simply not be stopped. Less than a minute later at 3:20 Sean Carroll ’16 scored his second of the year off a David Murray ’15 assist to give the Middlebury squad a 5-2 half-time lead.
Though Murray continued his strong play with a couple of nice fakes ultimately culminating in a goal to start the third, Wesleyan refused to be blown out. First-year Cardinal attackman Harry Stanton responded with two goals little more than a minute apart to pull Wesleyan back to within two. To end the quarter, however, Middlebury broke many a Wesleyan heart as Kyle Soroka ’16 capitalized on a Henry Riehl ’18 pass to convert on the man-up opportunity with only eight seconds left in the quarter.
Though Wesleyan would go on to score five in the final quarter, the last two came in garbage time when the game was far from their reach thanks primarily to an unprecedented single quarter hat trick from attack man Jack Rautiola ’16, who received assists from three different Panther teammates. One of these teammate was first-year faceoff sensation John Jackson ’18, who pulled off a tremendous 19-24 day at the faceoff x. This 79 percent mark in faceoffs was a key factor in pushing the Panthers to a conference win.
On Tuesday, The Panthers beat eighth-ranked Endicott 11-10. The game started off very even with both sides scoring two in the first quarter, however, Endicott surged ahead. The Panthers, however, are by no means strangers to fighting back from behind as two of their five victories on the year have come in such fashion. As such, the squad answered right back with four straight goals from four different scorers tying the game up before the Gulls dumped one more in at 1:19 to end the half with a 7-6 lead.
The third quarter proved to be more of the same with an early Endicott charge and an on par Middlebury response led by Giarrusso, who had a hat-trick on the day. Rautiola notched the game-winner with 3:26 to play and despite the Gulls’ attempts, the Panthers were able to maintain the narrow lead.
The team returns to action this Saturday when they face Bowdoin at home.
(03/12/15 2:44am)
It was a harsh Vermont winter in December 1963 and, in the midst of the subzero temperatures, a landmark student life initiative had also frozen over. “The ‘question of honor’ at Middlebury College seems to have plenty of support as an ideal and not so much as a working system,” read a December 5 front-page Campus article. The article, which included student concerns about a code’s implications, foreshadowed the proposed Honor Code’s defeat in a student vote for the second time that May.
Over the past year, the Campus has investigated the untold story of the creation of the Honor Code. Although the story of the origins of the Honor Code at Middlebury is often that of a system fashioned by students and for students, the historical picture is much murkier.
A lengthy search in the College Archives and interviews with those who witnessed the process firsthand reveal that the Honor Code had a slightly turbulent history from the start.
It was a story that dominated the early 1960s at the College: a group of students and administrators who saw the Honor Code as an important opportunity for students to take ownership over their education. And yet, they received surprisingly strong pushback from students on the language and specifics of the proposed code.
The code’s proponents even dropped a compulsory peer-reporting clause, a hallmark of honor systems at Princeton University and elsewhere, from the Middlebury Honor Code in order to ensure its passage via a student vote. Moreover, after two failed student referenda on the Honor Code, evidence found in the Archives shows that at least one administrator recommended enacting the Honor Code without a student vote of support. However, in March 1965 the Code received sufficient support in a student vote to pass. Faculty opted for a streamlined approval process to avoid sending the Honor Code back with revisions to be subject to another student referendum, which they thought could be tantamount to its defeat.
The question of student votes on the Honor Code has renewed relevance of late. On Sunday, the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate voted in favor of amending the Honor System’s Constitution to put the code to a biennial student referendum with the options to maintain, revise, or eliminate the Honor Code. The amendment now must receive 2/3 of the vote in a referendum in which 2/3 the student body votes and must also be ratified by the faculty.
Change in the Air
Middlebury’s academic Honor Code, far from a lone initiative, was the product of social changes on campus that created profound shifts in student life during the 1960s. The College of the 1930s-50s was on its way out in several ways that precipitated the creation of an Honor Code.
Historians of the College have written much about the changes that took place in the 1960s. Among these reforms were major social changes to the institutional rules surrounding student freedoms. The influential Dean of Women Elizabeth ‘Ma’ Kelly oversaw a period in the ’60s when the ground shifted under students’ feet regarding their freedoms and rights as young men and women.
In the ’60s, parietal hours — the now seemingly antediluvian rules that governed when men and women could visit opposite-sex dorms —were gradually phased out. The College began to offer help to students with questions about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases. Finally, the fraternities and sororities, long the bastions of the social life of yesteryear, became less and less of a mainstay of the campus party scene.
Historian of the College David Stameshkin said the ’60s were a period of remarkable change, bar none.
“Students wanted to be treated as adults. The administration wanted to treat the students as adults in certain ways but not others,” Stameshkin said in an interview. “It was incredible how things changed in the time [James] Armstrong was President.”
These changes, taken together, amounted to a climate of dramatically increased student responsibility in social life. Naturally, this trend simultaneously made its way into the academic realm.
As discussions were underway about a potential code, the Campus polled 254 students in October 1962 and found 80 percent approved of a code in theory. The newspaper also polled students and found that 35 percent of those surveyed had experience with an honor system at their high school. However, “a majority indicated they would not speak directly to a student if they found him cheating.”
The first instance of bringing the Honor Code to a vote occurred on November 19, 1962, when it failed. Harold Freeman ’62, the Student Association (SA) President, informed the Campus that the vote to inaugurate an Honor Code was defeated, 623-512, a combination of students voting “no” as well as “No-with-Qualification.” 235 voted no, 388 voted no with qualification and 512 voted yes. The students in favor did not reach the 85 percent threshold of “Yes” to send the measure to the faculty for a vote.
However, Freeman gave hints that the fight for a code was not over. “Freeman observed that by adding together the Yes and No-with-Qualification votes, almost four-fifths of the students were in favor of at least some form of Honor Code,” reported the Campus. Nonetheless, it would not be easy to convince the students who voted No-with-Qualification.
The SA, in a postmortem, theorized that a main cause for the defeat was the clause requiring students to report observed violations. This clause was considered a hallmark of longstanding honor codes at universities, including Stanford and Princeton.
Peer-Reporting Controversy
These qualms about the code reared their head repeatedly in the next two years. Surveys revealed approximately 80 percent of students supported an honor system as an ideal, but blanched at the proposal under consideration. “The main objection was to the obligation to report an offense committed by another person,” reported this newspaper.
Helen Gordon, president of the Panhellenic Council, “agreed that an honor code would be a benefit to Middlebury, but thought reworking of the ‘obligation’ clause necessary,” according to the Campus.
Gordon said, “It’s unrealistic to assume that human nature will [report others] but I don’t think they ought to leave out entirely this kind of an idea because it denies the opportunity to a person who’s really honest.”
The peer-reporting requirement would remain an issue through the end of the 1960s and beyond. As the clause became a sticking point in the debate, those in support of the Honor Code pushed back on the idea that peer-reporting meant “tattling” or being a “rat.”
In a December 1963 issue, Campus Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey J. Joseph opined that “whenever one brings up the subject of an Honor Code, the listener politely nods, makes a disparaging grimace, and quickly manages to say something like: ‘You going to the hockey game tomorrow night?’”
For all of the social life changes happening contemporaneously with the Honor Code debate, a large number of students felt comfortable enough with the status quo to stymie any efforts at instituting an honor system. Joseph explained that many students thought of the proposed Honor Code as either a way to end fraternities or to increase social code regulations and theorized that these factors led to its defeat.
“Let’s face it,” he wrote, “if someone wants to cheat, he cheats. If someone wants to ‘tell’ on him, he should be allowed to ‘tell.’ It is important to realize that a provision for ‘telling’ on someone is not included for the main purpose of making enemies out of friends. It is there to protect every honest student by presenting to the cheater a possibility that he will be caught. If you have any qualms about ‘telling’ on your buddy, keep your head down in your paper where it belongs.”
Despite the support of students like Joseph, the SA leadership began to contemplate foregoing the peer-reporting requirement. The Vice President of the SA was reportedly “willing to drop the stipulation that students report others, adding that ‘the maturity of Middlebury students ought to be able to make an honor code successful.’”
In December 1963, the chair of the student Honor Code Committee, Michael McCann ’65, cautioned against pushing the code too vigorously without almost unanimous student support. Two months later, the SA polled students on a potential honor code in what would be the run-up to a second push to pass it via a student body vote. A point of particular emphasis in the questionnaire was intended to gauge how students would feel about peer-reporting. The article stated that “McCann stresses the importance of questions dealing with student and faculty reports of offenders.”
The survey occurred concurrently with the 1964 election of a SA President, in which candidates weighed in on an honor code. Both John Walker ’65 and Peter Delfausse ’65 made an honor code a part of their platform.
Delfausse, who would win the election, said to a Campus reporter, “We on this campus are treated as adults in everything but the integrity of our academic work. Shouldn’t this be the first area in which we should be trusted? Nothing can force the student body into accepting something which isn’t wanted, but if an honor system is desired, we will find the right words with which to express it.”
Nevertheless, concurrent discussion about combating student apathy regarding the SA gives the impression that the Honor Code was an issue important to the members of its committee, but perhaps was less relevant to the wider student body. Richard Hawley ’67 was the Editor-in-Chief of the Campus, and said other issues captured the student body’s attention more than the Honor Code, particularly parietal hours — although he nonetheless appreciated the code when it was instated.
“I remember feeling a kind of relief,” Hawley said in an interview. “What a relief it was to take your exam to the library and do it there. I remember thinking, ‘This is wonderful.’ But I don’t remember student passion about it.”
Princeton on the Otter
Within the next few months, a figure who would be pivotal to Middlebury’s history weighed in on the code. College President James Armstrong, who had stepped into the position in 1963, approved of the proposed Honor Code in a meeting with McCann.
Armstrong said in a comment to the newspaper in April 1964, “Herding of students into the fieldhouse like animals, with proctors standing over them like jailkeeps, is not in keeping with the ideals of a liberal arts education.”
The influence of the college president and other key members of his administration may have been crucial to the Honor Code’s passage. Before arriving at Middlebury, Armstrong had spent his entire academic career at Princeton, an Ivy League school with one of the nation’s oldest academic honor codes — passed in 1893, with an obligatory peer-reporting clause. Armstrong earned his B.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton and then served as a faculty member and dean until he was appointed Middlebury’s 12th President.
“When Armstrong came as president from Princeton, he started bringing people from Princeton,” Stameshkin said in an interview. “In fact, the joke on campus was it was ‘Princeton on the Otter.’ That’s what they used to call Middlebury during the ’60s because Armstrong kept bringing people there.”
Another Princeton man, Dennis O’Brien was previously an assistant dean there before arriving at Middlebury in September 1965 to serve as the Dean of Men. His experience with the honor system at Princeton impacted his view of a potential Honor Code at Middlebury.
“Because myself and Jim came from Princeton, we had lived with it and we found it comfortable,” O’Brien told the Campus in a recent interview. “It seemed to establish a different relationship between faculty and students. Faculty were not always snooping over students’ shoulders to make sure they weren’t cheating; we were more like mentors. To suddenly switch over from being the person who is teaching someone to someone who is monitoring your honest behavior seemed not to be the image the faculty wanted to have.”
On top of a Princetonian as president, Middlebury’s stature as an institution was on the rise during the ’60s. O’Brien believes the Honor Code was part of the improvements.
“I think there was clearly a kind of an upgrade in terms of the quality of the students and the quality of the faculty that we were able to attract at that time,” he said, “and so it seemed like a much more senior, adult institution than one having proctored exams.”
The desire for an upgrade to Middlebury came from both above, with the administration, and also below, from students of the ’60s, particularly those who were tired of the fraternities’ hold on campus life.
“There was a genuine feeling that there should be more seriousness at the College intellectually,” Stameshkin said. “And the same thing was happening at Williams and other schools. This idea that there should be more intellectualism and more feeling of scholarship was also happening in the early to mid-60s.”
Nonetheless, the vocal support of Armstrong and O’Brien did not help the Honor Code at the ballot box at first. The proposed code failed in May 1964 to clear the 85 percent hurdle of students voting in favor, and the referendum did not receive even half of the student body’s participation. The result was devastating for those students who had worked tirelessly on behalf of a code.
“After two full years of preparation, an academic honor code was put before the student body Monday via a yes-or-no ballot – and failed to gain the needed support,” said a front-page article in the Campus. The measure received 69 percent “yes” votes from the 45 percent of the student body that voted. The rejected code included “that the test-taker pledge that he had neither given nor received aid” and that students report those they suspected of cheating within 48 hours.
The aforementioned Honor Code Committee displayed dogged, even stubborn, persistence to pass the measure. McCann told this newspaper, “This year’s balloting was far more encouraging than last year’s and there will be another honor committee next year trying to get this thing through.”
Victory, at a Cost
Despite McCann’s optimism, the outlook was grim: two votes and two defeats for an Honor Code within three years. But finally, in March 1965, the Honor Code was approved in a landslide. With 1,000 “yes” votes to 313 “no” votes, it was a marked improvement from the previous two tries in the fall of 1962 and the spring of 1964.
However, the code approved by students contained no compulsory peer-reporting clause such as that of Princeton, due to the fact that the committee viewed the clause as the reason for previous defeats. The Middlebury code stated that students with knowledge of an infraction should confront the student and if he or she does not report themselves to the honor board within 24 hours, the observer should. In O’Brien’s words, it was a passive reporting clause, with no teeth to punish a student who observes cheating and does not report it. The code that passed, unlike the previous versions, said students “should” report those they observed cheating, not “must” or “shall” of previous drafts.
The compulsory reporting clause had also been under fire in the opinions pages of this newspaper. In a Letter to the Editor on Feb. 25, 1965, William Michaels ’66 wrote: “Under the present system of exam proctoring, the College denies us the privilege of attempting to live up to the ideals of moral responsibility … this would also be the case if an honor code were passed which possessed a mandatory student reporting clause, since the student is not thus delegated the responsibility of looking after his own morality: it is merely shifted from the proctors to the other students.”
It was also a significant change that the threshold for victory was lowered to 75 percent from a lofty 85 percent, what it had been in 1962 and 1964. Some students grumbled about the idea of voting for an Honor Code for a third time, suggesting that other factors may have been at play in its success. A joke printed in the Campus poked fun at the code’s long-awaited victory. “Did you favor the Honor System at the recent election?” a student asks. His friend replies, “I sure did. I voted for it five times.”
President Armstrong was understandably pleased following the successful vote, as it was an initiative he had supported since the past spring, and he immediately set to work assigning administrators to it. In an October 1965 letter to the four members of the new subcommittee of the Faculty Administration Committee on the Honor Code, including Dean of Men O’Brien, Armstrong said, “Although I do not think you will be called upon for heavy duty quantitatively, I know you understand how important I believe the Honor Code is for the College and that a guiding hand from the faculty will be important and possibly crucial.”
Armstrong also probably worried that a lack of faculty support might end the last chance for the Honor Code to become a reality. He was present in a meeting of the Faculty Educational Policy Committee (EPC) in March 1965, after the code had been approved by the referendum.
“The honor code statement worked out by the students and brought to us with a large supporting student vote … was discussed,” states the meeting’s minutes. “It was felt best not to subject the statement to the scrupulous kind of inspection the EPC would normally employ in surveying a faculty document, but vote on it yea or nay as it stood; some felt that return of the document for a second student consideration and vote would defeat the proposal. Vote was a unanimous pro.”
It appears the EPC’s worries about the Honor Code failing in the student body led them to streamline its approval process, despite reservations that undoubtedly existed among the faculty.
The faculty also approved a key word choice in the code in April 1965. During the faculty meeting in which they approved the code, according to the article in the Campus, the faculty “did not demand a change to ‘must’” in the reporting clause.
Students Not Sold
There is a small piece of evidence that the College may have enacted an honor code regardless of the student vote. Dean of the College Thomas H. Reynolds wrote in his annual report dated July 1, 1964:
“There is an excellent chance that an almost unanimous student vote will be achieved next year. In the event that this kind of a program does not succeed next year, I recommend the College take some action towards bringing an academic honor system into effect.”
While Reynolds never ended up having to make that recommendation, O’Brien disagreed with his premise.
“I don’t think you should impose it without a successful student vote. I think that would have been a mistake to try to do that,” O’Brien told this reporter. “I think the whole idea of an honor code, to a certain extent, is to get away from the high school syndrome of, ‘You have to be proctored and not entirely trusted.’”
The following year, as new Dean of Men, Dennis O’Brien’s first annual report was pessimistic, illuminating the reasons why Reynolds or others might have pursued an Honor Code if the student body would not.
“By the time the student reaches the last half of his college career we have pretty much either got him involved intellectually or we have lost him for good … they may be active in fraternity life, extracurricular life, athletics, they may be valuable citizens in other ways, but academically they run along on minimal requirements seeking the gut courses and paying only lip service, if that, to the intellectual community,” wrote O’Brien in his annual report in June 1965.
He went on in that report to comment on the lackluster implementation of the Honor Code.
“The Honor Code was approved by students in early March,” O’Brien wrote. “I may have missed something, but I think no further initiative toward its implementation came from students until practically exam time, if then.”
O’Brien also observed how the administration was involved from the very beginning and that students were not yet invested in the code:
“Many students are far from ‘sold’ on the Honor Code. They feel that the Administration has been determined to have an Honor Code here no matter what and that the students finally let the Administration have its way. These students have a sort of uninvolved, ‘play it cool’ attitude. They intend to wait and see how ‘they’ will work it out. If students who felt that way could see the minutes of the Ad Hoc Committee on Honor Code for May 27, 1965 they would feel that their perception was largely confirmed. These minutes make it clear that the Honor Code Committee, chaired by the Dean of the College, consists of several professors and administrators and that to the meeting of this committee were ‘invited’ several specified undergraduates.”
O’Brien also cited a study from Columbia University that said for honor codes to be effective, the motivation should come from students and should appear to be coming from students. The difference between the honor codes at Princeton and Middlebury, he told this newspaper in October 1965, was not Princeton’s “obligatory clause for reporting, but a strong and firm belief in the system by faculty and students.”
Of the code, “it was held with a great deal of pride,” O’Brien said. “Most complaints of the new Middlebury system that I have heard have not been substantive, but procedural. And I think there are some false expectations about the system by a few students.”
A Reversal in Student Perception
Two years later in another report, O’Brien suggested that the honor code might have already backfired soon after its implementation.
“The Honor Code seems to be functioning well although there is still a certain amount of feeling against signing the pledge,” he wrote. “I personally feel that the distaste for the pledge grows out of a hypersensitivity on the part of students today that they are not trusted. As they are not trusted to close their dorm doors during parietal hours, so they feel they are not trusted in the matter of honor in examinations.”
This reversal in opinion was extraordinary. The push for the Honor Code, at least from students, was based on the idea that it would give the students more responsibility and was in the same spirit as a move away from parietal hours. Based on O’Brien’s report, the code had the opposite effect, making students feel like the administration trusted them less than before.
Whether the code was truly being followed is difficult to assess based on available records, but O’Brien writes that “a student was convicted of a violation of the Honor Code this year and suspended for a semester,” a low number of convictions by any standard.
Although during the 1960s the social rules at colleges and universities like Middlebury were being chipped away from all sides, it still took a great deal of effort on the part of members of the SA to pass an honor code via a student vote. Additionally, the faculty minutes and annual reports of the College show that at least one top member of the administration was ready to intervene to institute an honor code and held back probably because of concerns of its effectiveness if instated and operated by Old Chapel.
O’Brien’s 1967 assessment is revealing. There had been two unsuccessful votes from students amid vocal support from the administration and faculty; as a result, many students identified the Honor Code as an administrative device. A corollary explanation is that the social changes in the 1960s cut both ways on an honor system: while these sweeping changes helped make the code a possibility, they also changed the way a code was viewed in the years afterward. Increased freedom for students allowed them to pass the code; however, the perception of the code after 1965 was that it was an administrative measure — not a student-owned freedom.
“It’s very important that the students read the honor code as an administrative imposition as opposed to something that boiled up from the students,” Stameshkin said. “The students felt often as if the administration was kind of the enemy. They wanted to be adults and they felt the administration was treating them like children—you have to be in at this hour and all that — it wasn’t paranoia, but the students felt that way about a lot of things.”
The Campus reported in March 1968, three years after the code passed, that the student Honor Board was worried about the new system’s efficacy. The board had only heard six cases since 1965, and three of those were in the 1967-68 year. Two cases resulted in convictions, and only one of the six cases was because of a report submitted by another student. “This the board felt suggests either that only two students have cheated in the last three years, or that students have not accepted the responsibilities implicit in the system,” reported this newspaper.
The Honor Board, as a result, began to consider changing the constitution of the new Honor Code from passive acceptance of the code to hold responsible a student who did not report a violation.
A decade later, in January 1976, the student body approved by a landslide the revisions proposed by a committee on the honor system. There were dual changes: students now had a moral obligation to report cheating, moving away from the ambiguous language of the original code, and also proctors would be allowed in some cases with the specific authorization of the Judicial Review Board. Even under the best of circumstances, O’Brien said in a recent interview, getting students to report their peers may be asking too much.
“My guess is that [peer-reporting] never works terribly well, unless you’re in a highly codified organization like the military academy,” O’Brien said. “I’m not even so sure how well it worked at Princeton … it’s a nice thing to have: there’s a certain moral responsibility, and I love the idea of going up to somebody else and saying, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ But I suspect it doesn’t happen very often.”
It is difficult to assess whether the code cut down on cheating, as suggested by research that shows colleges with an honor code have less self-reported cheating by students. On that front, Emeritus Dean of Advising and Assistant Professor of American Studies Karl Lindholm ’67 said the Honor Code did not hurt and probably helped.
“I remember thinking it was a great idea. I don’t think there was any greater level of cheating than when the exams were tightly proctored,” Lindholm said. “It was almost a challenge to see if you could beat the system then,” with stories of notes written on hands and crib sheets hidden during an exam. “With unproctored exams, I don’t recall any greater level of cheating,” he said.
Approaching Another Vote
In a January survey by the SGA, 33 percent of the student body said they support the Honor Code in principle but that there need to be changes. 59 percent of the 1438 survey respondents said they support it in its current form and about 7 percent said they don’t support it.
Additionally, the Campus published (“Cheating: Hardly a Secret,” Oct. 30, 2013) the results of a survey by Craig Thompson ’14 for the course Economics of Sin where 35 percent of 377 students surveyed admitted to violating the Honor Code at least once in the 2012-13 academic year. 97 percent were not punished.
On Sunday, the discussion came to a head when the SGA Senate approved, in a nearly unanimous vote, the decision to move ahead with a bill that would subject the Honor Code to a biennial student referendum. Per the Honor System's Constitution, 2/3 of the student body must vote, and 2/3 vote in favor, for the change to take effect. The amendment would then need to be ratified by the faculty at large. If the amendment passes, a spring 2016 referendum would give students three options: to vote to maintain the honor code as it stands, to eliminate it or to revise it. A majority in favor of revision would cause the Honor Code committee to survey opinions during a two-week revision process. Students would then vote on the revised Honor Code to either approve it, to maintain the original code, or to eliminate the code.
Student Co-Chair of Community Council Ben Bogin ’15 was an impetus behind the SGA proposal and said fighting atrophy was a goal. “The idea behind our method is to encourage people to continue talking about the Honor Code after they sign it as a first-year,” Bogin wrote in an email. “The Honor Code only works if it’s a living, breathing document that people cherish and take seriously. We’re trying to breathe a little more life into it.”
SGA Director of Academic Affairs Cate Costley ’15 added that the idea is to reclaim the Honor Code as a document students care about and take ownership of.
“Through conversations and debates, we settled on a schoolwide vote to try to solicit the voices of our peers and to see what they think,” Costley said. “And having an edge to it with the possibility of eliminating the Honor Code is to say to people, ‘Let’s not take this document for granted.’”
Vice President for Student Affairs, Dean of the College and Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture Katy Smith Abbott said she believes discussion has also been sparked by the decision in the Economics Department to proctor exams in introductory classes starting last spring.
“It’s not that proctoring hasn’t been an option for faculty — it has been — but it’s required a certain kind of approval process that most people thought was not necessary or wasn’t in the spirit of the Honor Code,” Smith Abbott said. “And I think when that decision was made (thoughtfully, and at great length) by the Economics Department, it meant that a larger number of students were being exposed to the question of whether the Honor Code is working.”
Smith Abbott also said that the code could possibly fail in a referendum, based on what she has heard from students.
“I think some of my lack of a firm sense of how it would go is based on the variety of opinions out there right now about whether or not the Honor Code is working,” she said. “I think if we have entered into a period where more students, through their own experience or inherited wisdom, think the Honor Code isn’t working, we could see it fail.”
Several on Community Council, according to Smith Abbott, have raised doubts about the wisdom of a biennial survey in which the Honor Code could be eliminated.
“I think a lot of folks on Community Council — and I have mixed feelings about this — felt that those are insurmountable odds that, if two years later, you have two classes of students who have never lived with an Honor Code,” Smith Abbott said. “What’s their investment in bringing it back? Why are we putting that on them by saying, ‘[An honor code] worked for some people and didn’t work for others, but it’s on you to decide to overwhelmingly vote it back into existence?’”
Bogin, however, said that that he is not worried about failure and that the discussion of the code’s relevance is worth having through a referendum.
“I think that it’s incredibly unlikely that the Honor Code would fail in a vote. According to our most recent student survey, in which about 60 percent of the student body voted, 92 percent supported the continued existence of the Honor Code,” Bogin wrote. “I also think that it’s important to say that if something isn’t working, and everybody agrees, we should be able to get rid of it. It’s hard to say that the Honor Code is student owned if students don’t have the power to get rid of it.”
Hawley, who was at Middlebury during the Honor Code debate, said renewed attention to the code is not a bad thing.
“I think the cycle of concern is probably the best thing, whatever the outcome, because it’s heightening student awareness of how it’s my responsibility to do my own work. I don’t think there’s anything that would prove that a certain kind of honor code produces more honor,” Hawley said. “It’s sort of what Jefferson said about the American Constitution: it should be revisited; there should be at least a thread of revolution every 20 years to keep attention fresh on what the values are. I think raising the climate of concern about it is probably the most important thing with respect to honor, not necessarily what code you have written down.”
(03/11/15 2:28pm)
This Saturday, two French/Catalan sisters, a Swede and a Scot cross the puddle to give the College one of the most vibrant and impassioned quartet performances of the millennia. The Elias String Quarter has risen like a meteor through the chamber music universe and into our own Performing Arts Series.
Too often students report the cost of arts events as barriers to their attendance. To that end, this concert will be completely free and open to the public. Be sure to come to the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA) Concert Hall slightly before 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, for great seating.
The Elias quartet is a relatively young ensemble, having debuted in 2012, but have been playing together for the past 17 years. This weekend they have chosen to perform Beethoven’s late quartets, three complex and incredible pieces.
The first piece that the Elias quartet will play tonight is the 11th quartet in F-minor. Beethoven started to write this piece in 1810, a particularly tumultuous time in Vienna, where he lived for most of his life. 1810 was the height of the Napoleonic campaigns across Europe, and Vienna, the capital of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, was under constant bombardment.
All of Beethoven’s composer-friends left the besieged city but him, although he complained endlessly about the constant noise of the bombardment. An eyewitness account from the time tells that the composer hid in his brother’s basement and covered his ears with pillows to protect the little hearing he had left at the time. Out of this chaos came the short but incredibly powerful 11th quartet, labeled Serioso by the publisher.
Beethoven never intended for this quartet to be played to the public, but rather planned for it to circulate in small settings amongst his composer and royal friends. When you hear Elias play it, you may understand why. The war brought out the character changes that transformed Beethoven’s heroic middle period into the genius late period.
This quartet, among other late pieces, does things that musicians at that time would not have dreamed of in their wildest dreams. Rapid outbursts, rapidly evolving motifs and an unprecedented use of silences characterize this wartime quartet. It is a piece that demands not only technical mastery, but also vibrancy and intensity. This piece matches the Elias quartet’s best traits.
Following the 11th, the Elias quartet will play the 16th quartet in F-major. This is the last significant work that Beethoven finished; he died in March of 1827, about five months after he completed the 16th quartet in October 1826. The most striking movement of this quartet is undoubtedly the finale, named by Beethoven Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß — “the difficult decision.” It starts with slow, dark chordal progression labeled muss es sein — “must it be?” and resolves into a nimble answer, labeled es muss sein! — “it must be!”
The 16th is a very flexible piece throughout. It moves from misty, bemused chordal cadences into complex, rapid counterpoint without fluttering an eyelid. It is another genius piece from Beethoven’s late period.
We step back a very small step in Beethoven’s biography to play the 14th quartet in C-sharp minor, completed in early 1826. Although any musicians reading this probably detest C-sharp minor (four sharps!), this is Beethoven’s favorite key. It is stoic, dramatic, complex and elusive, like the composer himself.
This quartet is almost twice as long as the 11th that Elias will begin the concert with, and many times it is more sophisticated. It captures leftover energy from Missa Solemnis, the grand choral mass written a few years earlier, that lends it a spiritual, puzzling tone. There is powerful melancholy present behind every note, written with a mastery that puzzled great composers for generations to come. After Franz Schubert heard this quartet, he said: “after this, what is left for us to write?” Robert Schumann remarked: grandeur [...] which no words can express. They seem to me to stand ... on the extreme boundary of all that has hitherto been attained by human art and imagination.”
Come to the MCA Concert Hall at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, for this entirely free performance by one of the best quartets in the nation. Associate Professor of Music Larry Hamberlin will offer a pre-concert lecture at 7:00 p.m. in Room 221 for all interested.
(03/11/15 1:43am)
The track teams were in action this past weekend in the final round of meets before the NCAA Championships. Several Panthers were making last-ditch efforts to qualify for the NCAA meet while others sat tight and hoped they were not bumped by other competitors around the country.
The top 15 men, top 17 women and top 12 relays in each gender that declare for the NCAA meet qualify. A group of runners was sent to the Tufts Final Qualifier on Friday, March 6 and another group elected to compete at ECAC Championships at the Armory in New York City on March 6 and 7.
After the dust settled, the men qualified one individual and the women qualified four individuals and one relay team for the NCAA meet.
As has been the case for the last few years, the Tufts Final Qualifier was a disappointment for the Middlebury competitors. Kevin Wood ’15 was third in the 5000m, running 14:57.17, which was not an improvement on his indexed best time of 14:46.42, a time leaving him ranked 23rd — ultimately not good enough to get into the Big Dance.
The men’s distance medley relay of Sam Cartwright ’16, Alex Nichols ’17, Luke Carpinello ’16 and Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 finished seventh by running 10:11.74; again, not an improvement on their indexed time of 10:06.09, ranking them 17th and leaving them on the outside looking in.
Down at the Armory, Hannah Blackburn ’17 broke her school record in the pentathlon by scoring 2931 points, good for seventh place in the ECAC.
“Every pentathlon is different, and this one started off poorly with high jump,” Blackburn said, “but then I actually learned how to run an 800, so that was good. Plus there were only a few of us at the meet, so it was also a great opportunity for bonding before the spring break trip.”
Kevin Serrao ’18 concluded his successful rookie campaign by running 1:55.79 in the 800m to finish 11th. Also in the 800m was Addis Fouche-Channer ’17, who ran 2:23.67 to finish 17th. Taylor Shortsleeve ’15 made his last indoor high jump as a Panther, clearing 1.92m (6’3.50”) for a 12th-place finish.
This year’s NCAA Championships will be held at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, NC, on March 13 and 14. Schaaf was the lone Middlebury male to qualify for the meet,and will be running the mile for the second year in a row. He is seeded eighth this year and looks to improve on his ninth place finish last year in Lincoln, NE.
For the women, Alison Maxwell ’15, Summer Spillane ’15 and Sarah Guth ’15 will all run the mile and are all seeded for All-American positions, entering the meet as the second, sixth and eighth seeds, respectively.
Adrian Walsh ’16 is seeded 13th in the 5000m, an event she finished ninth in last year while competing for the Hamilton Continentals. The distance medley relay squad of Maxwell, Alex Morris ’16, Paige Fernandez ’17 and Erzsie Nagy ’17 is seeded sixth. The Middlebury DMR finished seventh last year after a third place finish in 2013 and victories in 2011 and 2012.
(03/11/15 1:42am)
The Middlebury men’s lacrosse team earned its first NESCAC victory of the season with a 13-9 win at Connecticut College on Saturday, March 7.
After surviving a strong early push from the Camels, which involved a four-goal first quarter, the Panthers went on a tear in the second half that included a 6-0 run, eventually leading to the 13-9 win.
With the defeat Conn. College pick up their first conference loss of the season as their season record drops to 0-3. In so doing the Middlebury squad won their second consecutive game and improved to 2-1 on the season, and 1-1 in conference play.
Early in the game Conn. College’s Tucker Mscisz ’18 made a large impact, scoring the first two goals of the contest unassisted. Additionally, Ross Thompson ’17 recorded a goal and an assist in the game’s early stages to power the Camel offense. Leads, however, are not built exclusively on the offensive end.
In the first half, the Camels played a stifling zone defense which gave the Middlebury offense significant problems. Conn. also demonstrated stellar play between the pipes throughout the first half, which contributed to Middlebury’s struggle to find the back of the net. Middlebury had the last scoring chance of the half, but Conn. goaltender Bobby Bleistein ’16 made a terrific stick save in response to a Jon Broome ’16 shot from point blank range, allowing the Camels to enter the halftime break with a 6-4 advantage.
The second half, however, was an entirely different story as Panthers on both ends of the field steadily began to exert influence and take control of the game.
To start the third quarter Jack Rautiola ’16 continued his solid play with a goal assisted by senior Joel Blockowicz ’15, who would ultimately lead the Panther offense with six points on the day. In his first career start sophomore attackman Nate Smith-Ide ’17 notched two goals and two assists in the second half. Smith Ide’s contribution was certainly vital to the squad’s ability to play from a deficit and regain the advantage.
Just as Conn. College exhibited strong defensive play in the first half, the Panthers stepped up defensively in the second half to shift the narrative of the game.
After allowing six first-half goals, the defense tightened up to let in only three after the halftime break. When asked about this dramatic shift, defenseman Eric Rogers ’18 talked about an overall shift in the team’s mentality. According to Rogers the defense simply “started winning individual matchups” while the offense “maintained more possession due in large part to more faceoff wins.” The freshman defender also gave credit to Middlebury goaltender Will Ernst ’17, who solidified the Panther backline with 14 saves on the day.
The team extended their winning streak to three games on Tuesday, March 10 with a 13-11 victory over St. Lawrence University. Mid-week games are never easy, especially when a three and a half-hour bus ride is part of the equation, however, the Panthers were up to the task against a solid Saints squad who had won two of their last three matchups. In so doing, Middlebury avenged last year’s 14-7 loss with a 13-11 victory. Though not a NESCAC matchup, St. Lawrence competes in a high-quality conference, making the win crucial to the Panthers’ momentum as they continue their season.
In what is becoming a rather adverse trend, the Panthers went down in the first half but managed to pull out the victory through a second half comeback. Though they built an early 3-1 lead with goals from Joey Zelkowitz ’17, Jack Cleary ’16, and Jack Rautiola ’16, the Saints quickly stormed back with two goals apiece from Jeremy Vautour ’16 and Tommy Hovey ’15 as well as a first half hat-trick for Conor Healy ‘17. Had it not been for Tim Giarrusso ’16 with two early second quarter goals the game could have been out of reach at the half.
In a similar fashion to their last bout with Conn. College, Middlebury tightened up defensively in the second half to shut the Saints out in the third quarter and allow only three goals in the remainder of the game. On the other side of the ball, the squad dumped in four in the third quarter, as Cleary and Rautiola both scored their second goals of the day. First-year midfielder Henry Riehl ’18 added one goal as a part of the man-up unit, and Nick Peterson ’18 also got on the board, scoring his first career goal. With another solid day in net from goaltender Will Ernst ’17 and a quality day at the face-off X for John Jackson ’18, the Panthers ultimately pulled out another win to go to 3-1 on the year.
The Panthers return to action on Saturday, March 14 when last year’s regular season NESCAC runner-up Wesleyan travels to Middlebury.
