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(03/21/18 8:49pm)
The woman who in January accused notable alumnus and donor Kevin Mahaney ’84 of covering up rape dropped her charges against Mahaney from the civil lawsuit on Monday.
The plaintiff, who had been granted anonymity in the case, released a statement stating that Mahaney had no part in the assault, and that she was dropping all charges against him. The lawsuit will proceed against Howard Rubin, 62, who now remains the sole person accused in the lawsuit.
“Earlier this year, I decided that, to move on with my life, I needed to tell the story of what I endured and to seek justice through the court system,” the plaintiff said in the statement.
“As part of that effort, I brought a lawsuit against not only the man who committed the assault, Mr. Howard Rubin, but also against Kevin Mahaney, with whom I was friends at the time of the assault. I now realize my decision to include Kevin in the lawsuit was a mistake and that he bears no responsibility for what happened to me. Kevin played no role in the attack, assisted me in its immediate aftermath, and continued supporting me for months thereafter,” she said.
“I now understand Kevin does not know Howard Rubin.”
The plaintiff arrived at a voluntary discontinuance of the lawsuit, in which she agreed to drop the charges of aiding and abetting that she had submitted in early January. The lawsuit originally asked Mahaney for 17 million dollars in reparations, and accused him of helping to “cover up” the rape and torture that the plaintiff accused a wealthy Wall Street investment manager, Howard Rubin, of committing against her in 2015.
The lawsuit originally accused Mahaney of persuading the plaintiff to not seek legal or medical treatment in the wake of the alleged assault she experienced in a penthouse in Manhattan. Mahaney filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on March 12, claiming that he does not know Howard Rubin, and had no part in the alleged assault of the plaintiff.
Mahaney is the namesake of college’s Center for the Arts. Middlebury released a statement on Tuesday noting that the charges against Mahaney had been dropped.
The plaintiff’s lawyer did not respond to a request comment on the retraction of the civil lawsuit against Mahaney. All charges are still being held against Rubin.
Mahaney is president and CEO of the Olympia Companies, a real estate development company based in Portland, Maine. The Morning Sentinel, a newspaper in Waterville, Maine, reported on March 13 that Colby College had terminated a development project contract with the Olympia Companies in response to the lawsuit against Mahaney. Colby had hired the company in January to oversee the building of a hotel at the college.
When asked whether the college would reconsider the decision in light of the dropped charges, Kate Carlisle, a spokeswoman for Colby, said that they would not resume work with the Olympia Companies.
“We have already terminated the agreement, and are moving ahead to develop the property ourselves,” Carlisle said.
(03/14/18 5:50pm)
With six seconds remaining, Matt Folger ’18 grabbed an offensive rebound, dribbled to the three-point arc, and launched a three that bounced off the back of the rim, ending the men’s basketball team’s NCAA tournament run and its 2018 season last Friday, March 9. Middlebury lost to MIT 79–76 in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament at Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey. For the third straight year, the Panthers’ season ended with a loss in the NCAA tournament by four or fewer points in games that could have gone either way.
Seniors Jack Daly ’18, Adisa Majors ’18 and Nick Tarantino ’18 have all been a part of those three NCAA teams, including last season’s run to the Elite Eight, and two Nescac champion teams. After a 21–7 season as senior captains, Daly, Majors and Tarantino finished their Middlebury careers with an 83–29 record. They were parts of the first team to win back-to-back Nescac championships and the team that won 27 games last season, the second-most in program history.
For the third straight game, Middlebury threw the first punch on Friday evening, taking a 12–5 lead in the first six minutes of the game. In a game shaped by counterpunches, the Engineers responded with a 13–0 run to go ahead by six. But the Panthers came right back to score 13 out of the next 15 points and led 25–20 with 7:15 left in the first half.
Tied at 34, Daly set up a Folger three with three seconds remaining in the half, sending Middlebury to the locker room up 37–34.
The Panthers held the Engineers to below thirty percent shooting from inside the arc in the first half, as Folger rejected six shots, but MIT stayed in the game by hitting seven out of 17 threes from beyond the arc.
Jack Farrell ’21 stayed hot after scoring 19 in Middlebury’s win in the second round of the tournament, tallying 12 on five of seven shooting in the first half on Friday.
Over the first eight minutes of the second half, every time MIT got within two points, Middlebury answered to keep the Engineers at bay.
But, at the 11:31 mark, MIT tied the game at 54 and then at 57 less than two minutes later. The Panthers rebuilt their lead to five, 67–62, but then the Engineers made their move, scoring the next eight points to go ahead by three.
Farrell drilled a three to tie the game, then MIT went ahead by five to take a 75–70 lead with 3:50 remaining. Middlebury held MIT in check over the next two possessions, but could not score either until the 1:48 mark when Daly laid the ball in to cut the lead to three.
After an Engineer miss and a Folger rebound, Middlebury pushed the ball down the court and Daly finished in the lane to cut the lead to 75–74 with 54 seconds remaining. Out of their own timeout, the Engineers held the ball, but turned it over with 25 ticks left on the clock, as Farrell stole it.
Jack Daly ’18 got the ball and drove it into the lane, where he lofted a floater that rolled off the rim. MIT rebounded the basketball and made two free throws to take a three-point lead. Daly drew a foul at midcourt and sank two free throws, but MIT responded with two makes from the line. Behind 79–76, Daly missed the front end of a one-and-one after being fouled, which was the rebound Folger grabbed to launch Middlebury’s final chance.
In a game featuring four lead changes and seven ties, neither team led by more than seven points. In the second half, the lead was never greater than five—at no point in the second half were the two separated by more than two possessions. But some team had to win and MIT scored when it needed to most, outscoring Middlebury 17–9 over the final 7:10 to eke out a 79–76 victory over the Panthers.
For the second straight season, Middlebury came within four wins, they were within three last season when they made the Elite Eight, and lost in the last minute of each game, making the loss especially emotional for the Panther seniors.
“The closer you get to goals, like winning a national championship, the more crushing it is when you nearly miss achieving it two years in a row,” said Tarantino. “As a result, I think it’s been an emotional couple of days for all us.
“Nevertheless, I’m so proud of all we’ve achieved this year and over my last four years.”
The two Jacks led the Panthers on Saturday, as Daly scored 21 points and nabbed 13 rebounds, and Farrell added 15 points on three three-pointers. Folger tallied nine points, seven rebounds and six blocks.
Daly finished his career atop Middlebury’s career assist leaderboard with 611, and set the school single-season record this year by tallying 237. He also scored 1,067 points, placing him seventh in program history in that category, and grabbed 649 rebounds. Daly is believed to be the first player in Nescac history to tally 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists.
Head coach Jeff Brown has coached many of the best players in Middlebury men’s basketball history, including 1,000-point scorers Matt St. Amour ’17, Joey Kizel ’14, Ryan Sharry ’12, Ben Rudin ’09, Nolan Thompson ’13, Greg Poulos ’98, Jake Wolfin ’13, and Nate Anderson ’04. And now Daly, who Brown considers to be one of the best players he has ever coached an one of the best in program history.
“Jack will go down as one of the best players ever to play at Middlebury,” said Brown, citing Daly’s senior season as one he will never forget. “He is the only player in the history of NESCAC basketball to accumulate 1000 points, 600 assists and 600 rebounds. He started his senior season with a triple double vs Fitchburg State and had one in our first NCAA game vs Lebanon Valley. He led the country in total assists this season.”
Brown knows his point guard’s skill on the court propelled him to a tremendous career in the blue and white, and that Daly’s drive to win had just as much to do with his individual and their team’s success.
“He is one of the most passionate players that I have ever coached,” Brown concluded.
Majors and Tarantino also played their last game in the Middlebury uniform on Friday.
Majors’ career took off in his sophomore season when he burst into the Panthers’ rotation, starting 11 games and averaging 7.2 points per game in 16.1 minutes. He started 19 games his junior year, while averaging a career-best 9.6 points per contest in 23.2 minutes. Majors embraced coming off the bench in his senior season, playing five fewer minutes per game but still averaging 7.6 points per game on 52.4 percent shooting.
Majors was one of Brown’s many big men who powered Middlebury to the Sweet Sixteen. Coach Brown recognized how important he was to Middlebury’s success this season.
“Adisa made strong contributions the last three seasons,” Brown said. “He provided us with inside scoring and made a lot of medium range jump shots. This season his 15-foot jump shot on the baseline against Bowdoin with 5 seconds left was the game winner. He developed into a great passer for us.”
Tarantino, along with Daly and Majors, was a team captain this season and Middlebury’s starting center. After sitting behind more experienced Panthers his first two seasons, Tarantino started 18 games last season and all 28 games this season. He averaged 6.8 points and six rebounds in his junior year, and career-bests 7.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks this season.
Brown is proud of his Tarantino’s, and all of his seniors’, selflessness on and off the basketball court.
“Nick started every game for us in his senior season,” said Brown. “He provided inside scoring, rebounding and good defense at the rim. He was able to create a spark for us with an exciting dunk or block. He was very active and athletic on the court and very unselfish.”
Majors and Tarantino also left their marks on the Middlebury record book, as this year’s team set Middlebury’s single-season rebounding mark by grabbing 1,329. Tarantino secured 6.8 rebounds per game, while Majors corralled five.
As much as Middlebury will miss its three seniors, they will miss being Panthers just as much. Being a part of coach Brown’s team meant much more to Daly than what happened on the court.
“Basketball has been a huge part of my life at Middlebury, and my best friends have all played on the team,” said Daly after Friday’s loss. “That is the unique part about continuing to play at the college level. It’s led me to relationships that I may never have created and has led me to people I may never have met. I am so grateful that I have crossed paths with everyone these last four years, players and coaches.”
“I’m sad to say my basketball career is over, but my passion for it will never stop,” said Tarantino, echoing his classmate’s sentiments. “I’ve taken away so many life lessons from the sport and have met many close friends through it. I have all the gratitude in the world for my teammates and coaches for making these past years the best four of my life.”
Ending their collegiate careers with a loss was certainly difficult for Daly, Majors and Tarantino, but they know their final loss neither represents their careers as a whole nor clouds their memory of their awesome times at Middlebury.
“We’ve had so much success during my four years, from winning back-to-back Nescac championships, to hosting NCAA tournament games, to making the Elite Eight and the Sweet Sixteen,” Daly said. “I can proudly say that I left everything all out on the court and have no regrets, which is why I can keep my head held high because there is nothing more I could have done.
“Obviously it’s sad to not have your last game be a win, but life goes on, and you have to be able to reflect on the good times because they clearly outnumbered the bad times we’ve had on the court.”
Once again, Middlebury will be hard-pressed to replace its three outgoing seniors who helped guide the Panthers to consistent success over their four years here. But Daly knows Middlebury will be in the good hands of his teammates and coaches.
“I wish returners nothing but the best of luck, and I know they will continue to keep this program at a high level,” Daly concluded. “The future looks extremely bright.”
(03/14/18 5:43pm)
The men’s lacrosse team showed that they have depth and are capable of competing with the nation’s best last Saturday, March 10, and Monday, March 12. At the same time, there is plenty of room for growth in a season that is still young.
Although they split their two games, they played No. 20 Connecticut College closely last Saturday, ultimately falling to the Camels by a score of 8–6 on Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium but held 4–2 and 6–5 leads earlier in the game. Then, in their game on Monday, the Panthers laid it on St. Lawrence for a better part of three-quarters of an hour, leading 12–3 at the end of the third quarter, before having to hold on to barely beat the Saints 12–11.
In Saturday’s game against Conn. College, the Camels put Middlebury on its heels immediately by gaining the upper hand just 48 seconds into the first quarter. At the 9:57 mark, the hosts found an equalizer at the hands of Henry Riehl ’18. Midfielder Parker Lawlor ’18 found the back of the net with two minutes remaining in the first to give the Panthers a 2–1 advantage.
The Panthers continued to press until the very end of the quarter, scoring once more with 3.7 seconds left on the clock after the Camels committed a turnover. Michael McCormack ’19 burst into the crease and slotted the ball into the back of the net to put Middlebury ahead 3–1 at the end of the first quarter.
The visitors cut the deficit to one goal halfway into the second quarter. Then Frank Cosolito ’20 assisted a Riehl goal at the top of the crease to restore the two-goal advantage. But over the final four minutes of the first half, the Camels responded with two goals to knot the game at four going into the halfway point.
In the third quarter, Middlebury and Conn. College traded goals, before the Camels scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal with 2:20 left in the quarter. The visitors took its first lead 25 seconds into the quarter, but Alderik van der Heyde ’21 answered with his first career goal to tie the game at five. The Panthers regained the lead when A.J. Kucinski ’20 scored from the top of the crease. Kucinski’s goal was Middlebury’s last, as the Camels scored the last two goals of the quarter to take a 7–6 lead.
Conn. College scored an insurance goal with 10:34 left in the game. The Panthers had a few chances to score, ripping four shots at the end of regulation but could not find the back of the net. And Nescac foe Conn. College handed Middlebury its first loss of the young season, avenging its 8–6 loss to the Panthers last season.
Conn. College’s style and tactics proved a difficult code to crack for the Panthers of play proved. Defender Keaton Yates ’18 chimed in on the challenge the Camels posed for the Panthers.
“Their zone defense is a different look than we are used to going against,” said Yates. “It slows the game down and makes you move the ball patiently to get the looks that you want. Conn. College a is very disciplined team and works well within their system.”
After the tough loss at home, the Panthers had a one day turnaround to prep for the St. Lawrence Saints, in a game that was moved up from Tuesday, March 13, to Monday, March 12, due to the weather forecast.
Middlebury got off to a fast start against St. Lawrence — the Panthers scored six goals in the first 12 minutes, all by different players. Those who got in on the action were Lawlor, Cosolito, John Jackson ’18, Riehl, Danny Jacobs ’20 and van der Heyde. It was the first goal of the season for Jacobs, who scored 19 last year for the Panthers.
The Panthers went on to end the first half with a 7–1 advantage after Kucinski scored a goal assisted by Jacobs.
The fact that the Panthers have spread the goal-scoring around will prove to be a plus for the team going forward.
“On Monday, we had 10 different goal scorers, which is a testament to our depth and ability on the offensive end,” said Riehl, who led the team in scoring last season with 53 goals. “Each day in practice, we are becoming more comfortable as a unit and mastering our scheme a little bit better.”
A little over two minutes into the third, the Panthers held an eight-point lead following goals from Will Brossman ’21 and McCormack. The Saints responded with two rapid goals of their own, to which McCormack decided to score two additional goals to complete a hattrick for the game. Soon after McCormack’s double, Laurence Jackson ’21 was able to force a turnover and provide a goal for defender Eric Rogers ’18 with 4:53 left in the game.
The Saints answered back with a man-up goal and would hold the Panthers goalless in the fourth quarter. They were able to score seven goals in the final quarter but were unable to cap off their almost miraculous comeback.
Lapses on the defensive end and St. Lawrence’s sudden revival in the fourth put the Panthers into a corner during the final quarter.
“During that quarter there was a collective lapse in communication and some sloppy play on our defensive end,” said Yates. “We started to turn the ball over in the clear and allowed them to convert on possessions they had after those turnovers, which let them gain some momentum.”
Fortunately, the Panthers were able to salvage a win and will now prep for their first away game of the season for a Nescac bout against No. 9 Wesleyan.
“Wesleyan is a very good team and a challenging competitor every year,” Yates said, “but we are going to prepare for them like we would for any other Nescac game by making sure we are working hard and taking steps forward everyday in practice. It’s going to be important that on Saturday we win the ground ball battle and limit the time spent in the penalty box.”
The Panthers will head to Middletown, Connecticut, on Saturday, March 17, where the action against the Cardinals is set to start at 2 p.m.
(03/08/18 4:18pm)
A mural will be painted on the walls of McCullough student center between the mail center and the entrance to Crossroads Cafe in April, according to people familiar with the project. Artists Will Kasso Condry, Isaias Crow, Daniel “POSE2” Hopkins and Marthalicia Matarrita will hold a weeklong artists’ residency from April 8 to 15, which will include workshops and events in which Middlebury students can directly participate in the mural’s creation.
The project will have a specific focus on art as an introspective experience for communal and individual healing. The project will include a panel discussion on April 10 in Dana Auditorium in which the participating artists will talk about the ways that public art and murals foster conversation and healing. The week will conclude with a reception on April 13 in Crossroads Cafe.
The mural project was spearheaded by a planning committee comprised of students, faculty and administrators.
Artist Kasso Condry and associate director of the Anderson Freeman Resource Center Jennifer Herrera Condry, Sam Hurlburt and David Kloepfer from the student activities office, and director of intercultural programs Roberto Lint Sagarena lead the committee for faculty and staff. The students on the committee are Hannah Pustejovsky ’18, an intern in the student activities office, and recent additions Will Brossman ’21 and Jack Spiridellis ’21.
The planning committee members are especially excited about the collaborative nature of the project and its potential to benefit the college community as a whole, especially given the expertise of the participating artists in the arenas of art and community work.
“These artists are master muralists, educators and community organizers. Their work is rooted in using art for healing and community building,” Herrera Condry said.
“In the process, individuals from the Middlebury community will come together to develop a vision and work collectively to create the art,” Lint Sagarena said. “The mural itself will serve as a conspicuous reminder in the heart of campus that by working together the community can face challenges and heal.”
“I am personally excited to work with these outstanding artists, who are also great friends of mine,” Kasso Condry said. “I hope that having these artists here working with students to design and produce community murals will bring more creative energy to the entire campus at a time when it feels like Middlebury could use more TLC. Art is therapeutic but tends to be the missing link in conversations involving community organizing and connecting people.”
The project was presented to the CAPP advisory council by Kloepfer and the Condrys on Jan. 25. After approval from the advisory committee, the proposal was sent to the board of trustees’ CAPP subcommittee for final endorsement, as per protocol. The proposal received unanimous support and was approved by both committees.
The support was significant to those involved in the project’s planning. “It confirmed, and affirmed, that what we are doing is needed and valued,” Herrera Condry said.
“The proposal was very well worked out and contained a timeline and a process for involving the community,” said Pieter Broucke, director of arts and CAPP member.
“The creation of community murals in McCullough is consistent with feedback generated from students involved with the McCullough Working Group and the ‘Re-Imaging McCullough’ conversations between 2012 to 2014,” Herrera Condry said. “For many years, students expressed concerns over McCullough not ‘feeling’ warm and inviting or student-centered, and a desire for it to be a more lively place. Among many unfiltered wishes, having more art and murals was a recurring request.
Kasso Condry taught a winter term class this past January on graffiti and street art and produced a mural of Rosa Parks at Middlebury Union Middle School. The response to the murals Kasso Condry painted last year in the Anderson Freeman Resource Center (AFC) also increased the impetus to produce a mural in McCullough.
“Due to the positive social impact of the murals that Will Kasso Condry produced at the AFC in 2017, conversations were ignited about expanding this work to other student-centered spaces on campus,” Herrera Condry said. “I hope that the McCullough murals will help provide visual cues that represent vibrant and multidimensional interpretations of diverse student experiences at Middlebury.”
Students will be involved in the entire process, which was important to the planning committee as a significant part of the project’s focus on community building.
“As part of year-long campus-wide conversations on healing, well-being, and restorative practices, the mural project adds a new dimension that fosters creative expression and uses mural arts as a vehicle for healing and community building,” Herrera Condry said, emphasizing an event planned for the beginning of the week as an opportunity for this activity in particular.
“The weeklong artists’ residency will kick off with a half-day workshop in which students will focus on introspection, personal development, spiritual well-being, empowerment, team building, and communication,” Herrera Condry said. “Throughout the week, the artists will facilitate hands-on painting sessions with students who participated in the introspection and mural design workshop. The artists will paint alongside participants and refine the murals along the way to completion.”
Broucke and director of the college museum Richard Saunders see the mural as an important addition to the college’s current array of public art.
“I see this project as an opportunity to make Middlebury’s collection of public art more inclusive and thus, as a whole, more representative of our community,” Broucke said.
“I think what I like about the community mural proposed for McCullough is that its creation will be an inclusive process involving different members of the Middlebury community,” Saunders said. “For me campus art is really much less about whether one likes or dislikes a particular work, but rather much more about getting us — members of the Middlebury community — to pause and reflect.”
The project will receive support and funding from co-sponsors including Student Activities, the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Twilight Scholars Program, Director of the Arts and the Johnson Visual Arts Residency Program Fund, and Wonnacott Commons.
(03/08/18 12:54am)
MONTPELIER — The state of Vermont has a history of being socially and politically progressive. Vermont was the first state to outlaw slavery in 1777. Montpelier is the only state capital without a McDonald’s restaurant. Vermont was the only state without a Wal-mart until 1996.
More recently, Vermont has continued to lead the way in progressive reforms both politically and socially. It was one of the first states to legalize civil unions, push for a single-payer health care system and legalize cannabis. However, Vermont’s criminal justice system does not follow the same progressive trend.
Vermont has one of the worst track records when it comes to the criminal justice system. According to Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform (VCJR) white people are equally as likely to be involved with drugs as black people are, yet, “on average, black and brown people are incarcerated in Vermont state prisons at a rate 5.1 times higher the imprisonment of whites. Vermont has a higher rate of incarceration of black and brown men than any other state. 1 in 14 black and brown men in the state of Vermont are incarcerated.”
“Drug laws exist to police people of color,” said Joanna Colwell, a community activist. “That is a national issue, though, not just a Vermont issue. It’s a double whammy: the law itself is racist and then you have those racist laws implemented in a way that is even more unfair to people of color.”
According to the 2010 census, while only 1.1 percent of Vermont’s population is black, blacks make up 10.7 percent of the Vermont prison population.
A recent study published by the University of Vermont found that black and hispanic drivers are more likely than white or Asian drivers to receive a citation once pulled over. The black arrest rate is almost double the white arrest rate. When a demographic of people are stopped and arrested more often, a higher percentage of them will end up behind bars.
“Racism is a systemic issue, not just a matter of a couple bad police officers,” said Nico Armador, an organizer for the ACLU. “Multiple disparities that are impacting people of color create a higher likelihood that they will end up in prison at some point in their life. Disparities include economic disparity, high rates of unemployment, discrimination and ways in which people of color experience the school system.”
While it has become evident that Vermont’s criminal justice system is racist, there is an overwhelming consensus that the current administration is dedicated to reforming many aspects of the criminal justice system here in Vermont.
“The good things that have happened are the results of policies that the legislature and the administration have put in place over the past decade,” said Robin Scheu, a representative for Addison County who sits on the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions. “Ten years ago, the prison population was projected to be 2800 people in 2018. Today, the population is down to 1700 prisoners.”
This downward trend in inmate population comes in conjunction with policies that have been passed by recent administrations. The current governor and state legislature have made a conscious decision to transition towards a restorative justice criminal justice system.
Vermont is the only state to have community justice centers in every county in the state. The state has also passed legislation that focuses on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment: People can no longer be kept in prison for misdemeanors, and programs have been created that use youth age court diversions to keep people from entering the criminal justice system.
Youth age court diversion programs are used with first-time offenders for minor crimes, and encourages their sentencing to be kept at a minimum. Vermont’s restorative justice system also gives offenders the chance to perform certain restitutions to avoid punishment, and pretrial services exist that allow people to receive services they need before they ever actually enter a prison system.
In light of the study published by University of Vermont, which emphasizes discrimination in the criminal justice system, the state legislature passed a bill to create The Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel. The bill states that “the Panel shall review and provide recommendations to address systemic racial disparities in statewide systems of criminal and juvenile justice.”
The panel will be comprised of 13 members, five of whom will be appointed by the attorney general from “diverse backgrounds to represent the interests of communities of color throughout the State.”
In spite of these reforms, Vermont’s criminal justice system has a long way to go. All of the state-owned prisons in Vermont were built before the time of restorative justice. The prisons are designed to emphasize punishment as opposed to rehabilitation.
Colwell explained that the state of Vermont is currently paying Pennsylvania to house 262 Vermonters in a state prison, which not only makes it extremely difficult for relatives to visit inmates who are incarcerated but also inhibits prisoners’ access to rehabilitation programs.
The Vermont ACLU is pushing for cash bail reform and a reform to the role that prosecutors play in rates of incarceration. In order to alleviate the pressure from psychiatric hospitals and emergency rooms, the state would need to expand the number of beds in correctional facilities.
Although the creation of a panel to review the racial disparities in the criminal justice system is a good start, more reforms have been demanded to combat the systemic racism evident in Vermont’s justice system.
Editor’s note: This article is the first in a series.
(03/08/18 12:38am)
The women’s hockey team played for and won its third consecutive Nescac championship, edging Bowdoin 2–1 in the semifinal contest on Saturday, March 3, and shutting out Amherst 2–0 on Sunday, March 4, for its 10th championship in program history.
In Saturday’s contest, Middlebury and Bowdoin battled back and forth for advantage in the opening period. Although the Panthers took 13 shots on goal, it was one of Bowdoin’s seven that found its way into the net. Lin Han ’20 blocked the initial shot, and Jenna Marotta ’19 rejected another attempt, but a Polar Bear picked up the rebound and made sure the third time was the charm, giving the guests a 1–0 lead.
Behind by one goal, Middlebury went on the power play with 9:12 remaining in the second period. With a five-on-four advantage, Maddie Winslow ’18, from the right side of the ice, centered a pass to Jessica Young ’18, who blasted a shot that deflected off two Bowdoin players and slid across the goal line for her team-leading 16th goal of the season and a 1–1 tie.
The goal was another connection for this duo that has completed dozens of assists to one another over their careers in the blue and white.
In the final period, Bowdoin’s defensive unit was put to a test, suffering four penalties in a row. The first came on a hooking call, which led to shots by Katherine Jackson ’19, Sidney Porter ’19 and Winslow, all of which went wide. After Winslow’s shot went wide and the power play opportunity ended, the next penalty came on a tripping call, which sentenced the Polar Bears to another four-on-five disadvantage. A barrage of shots on goal followed, several by Anna Zumwinkle ’19 and Elizabeth Wulf ’18, but were blocked by Bowdoin’s goalie.
As the tripping penalty expired, the Polar Bears were called for another hooking penalty. Unable to prevent mistakes, Middlebury’s power play unit bore down on their opponents, sending shot after shot towards the goal. The last penalty came when Bowdoin had too many players on the ice and the Panthers capitalized on the opportunity.
On the fourth and final power play, Marotta and Madie Leidt ’21 worked together to set up a look for Winslow, who one-timed Leidt’s slap pass from the right point into the back of the net to put Middlebury ahead 2–1.
The Polar Bears pulled their goaltender late in the final minutes, but it was not enough to tie the game, as Winslow’s goal proved to be the decisive one.
Middlebury outshot Bowdoin 41–15, while the Polar Bears also spent 14 more minutes in the penalty box, 18–4. Even though Bowdoin was outshot by 26 and spent almost a third of the game in the penalty box, the Polar Bears matched the Panthers for 60 minutes.
“Bowdoin was very physical and tough. They really made us work,” said Wulf. “When we went down 1–0, however, we didn’t panic. We knew we could come back if we played together as a team. It took a lot of grit and mental toughness to come out with the win, and it was a total team effort. I think that game showed that we can overcome adversity when we play together. The Bowdoin game united us even more, and we used the momentum from that game to play for each other in the championship game.”
For the fourth consecutive year, the Panthers advanced to the championship game to compete against the Amherst Mammoths on Sunday, March 4.
Neither team scored in the opening period, even though the Mammoths had two opportunities to sneak the puck pass Han, who has had a spectacular season — she has recorded 335 saves.
On the hosts’ side, Marotta’s shot from the right side made it through traffic before hitting the roadblock that was the Mammoths’ goalie. Winslow aggressively dove at the rebound but was also denied, and the contest carried into the second period with goose eggs on the scoreboard.
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Middlebury pulled away, however, at the 8:56 mark with a play that started right outside of the Amherst blue line. Leidt worked to create a turnover and Young quickly took over position of the puck. Carrying it down the ice, as she has done for the past four years, she found some space and fired a laser shot past the goaltender’s shoulder to give the Panthers a 1–0 lead. Han preserved the lead with another glove-side save, and the hosts headed into the third and final period of the 2018 Nescac playoffs.
The hosts doubled their advantage in the third stanza when Hayley LaFontaine ’18 took a shot from the point, which was redirected by Wulf into the back of the net.
Amherst tried to make something happen with two minutes left, but to no avail. As the clock winded down, the crowd grew louder, yelling and screaming, and the excitement of a three-repeat reverberated through Kenyon Arena. With ten seconds left, the Panthers trapped the puck on the boards, let time expire and dog-piled in front of their net.
“It’s indescribable. I’m still speechless,” said Wulf after reflecting on her third championship in four years. “It’s so special and an incredible feeling. I can’t stop smiling!”
“To make history and do it with this class and this team is beyond amazing,” Wulf continued amid the postgame excitement. “It’s something we will remember forever. As a senior class, we were so happy to come out on top and win our last home game at Kenyon.”
Julie Neuburger ’18 chimed in to express her excitement and happiness:
“Winning is always an exciting thing, but it’s definitely more special when you can do it in your own house in front of all your fans,” she said. “We have some of the best fans this sport has to offer from both the community and college, and we definitely fed off all the energy they brought to Kenyon on Sunday afternoon. There really are no words to describe those last 10 seconds or even the last minute. You’re just counting down in your head until you can run out onto the ice and jump and celebrate and be surrounded by your whole team.”
The Panthers still have work to do, hoping to secure a national championship for the first time since 2006. They are back on the ice this weekend, gearing up to play No. 1-ranked Plattsburgh State.
“For NCAA’s the focus right now is all on Plattsburgh,” said Wulf. “We said we wanted to play them again in March after we lost to them earlier this season because we knew we had more in us and could beat them. We are a much different and better team now than when we played them last, so we are super excited about the game Saturday.
“As the reigning four-[season]-straight national champions, we know Plattsburgh is good, but we are confident that if play our best hockey, we can win.”
The women’s hockey team played for and won its third consecutive Nescac championship, edging Bowdoin 2–1 in the semifinal contest on Saturday, March 3, and shutting out Amherst 2–0 on Sunday, March 4, for its 10th championship in program history.
In Saturday’s contest, Middlebury and Bowdoin battled back and forth for advantage in the opening period. Although the Panthers took 13 shots on goal, it was one of Bowdoin’s seven that found its way into the net. Lin Han ’20 blocked the initial shot, and Jenna Marotta ’19 rejected another attempt, but a Polar Bear picked up the rebound and made sure the third time was the charm, giving the guests a 1–0 lead.
Behind by one goal, Middlebury went on the power play with 9:12 remaining in the second period. With a five-on-four advantage, Maddie Winslow ’18, from the right side of the ice, centered a pass to Jessica Young ’18, who blasted a shot that deflected off two Bowdoin players and slid across the goal line for her team-leading 16th goal of the season and a 1–1 tie.
The goal was another connection for this duo that has completed dozens of assists to one another over their careers in the blue and white.
In the final period, Bowdoin’s defensive unit was put to a test, suffering four penalties in a row. The first came on a hooking call, which led to shots by Katherine Jackson ’19, Sidney Porter ’19 and Winslow, all of which went wide. After Winslow’s shot went wide and the power play opportunity ended, the next penalty came on a tripping call, which sentenced the Polar Bears to another four-on-five disadvantage. A barrage of shots on goal followed, several by Anna Zumwinkle ’19 and Elizabeth Wulf ’18, but were blocked by Bowdoin’s goalie.
As the tripping penalty expired, the Polar Bears were called for another hooking penalty. Unable to prevent mistakes, Middlebury’s power play unit bore down on their opponents, sending shot after shot towards the goal. The last penalty came when Bowdoin had too many players on the ice and the Panthers capitalized on the opportunity.
On the fourth and final power play, Marotta and Madie Leidt ’21 worked together to set up a look for Winslow, who one-timed Leidt’s slap pass from the right point into the back of the net to put Middlebury ahead 2–1.
The Polar Bears pulled their goaltender late in the final minutes, but it was not enough to tie the game, as Winslow’s goal proved to be the decisive one.
Middlebury outshot Bowdoin 41–15, while the Polar Bears also spent 14 more minutes in the penalty box, 18–4. Even though Bowdoin was outshot by 26 and spent almost a third of the game in the penalty box, the Polar Bears matched the Panthers for 60 minutes.
“Bowdoin was very physical and tough. They really made us work,” said Wulf. “When we went down 1–0, however, we didn’t panic. We knew we could come back if we played together as a team. It took a lot of grit and mental toughness to come out with the win, and it was a total team effort. I think that game showed that we can overcome adversity when we play together. The Bowdoin game united us even more, and we used the momentum from that game to play for each other in the championship game.”
For the fourth consecutive year, the Panthers advanced to the championship game to compete against the Amherst Mammoths on Sunday, March 4.
Neither team scored in the opening period, even though the Mammoths had two opportunities to sneak the puck pass Han, who has had a spectacular season — she has recorded 335 saves.
On the hosts’ side, Marotta’s shot from the right side made it through traffic before hitting the roadblock that was the Mammoths’ goalie. Winslow aggressively dove at the rebound but was also denied, and the contest carried into the second period with goose eggs on the scoreboard.
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Middlebury pulled away, however, at the 8:56 mark with a play that started right outside of the Amherst blue line. Leidt worked to create a turnover and Young quickly took over position of the puck. Carrying it down the ice, as she has done for the past four years, she found some space and fired a laser shot past the goaltender’s shoulder to give the Panthers a 1–0 lead. Han preserved the lead with another glove-side save, and the hosts headed into the third and final period of the 2018 Nescac playoffs.
The hosts doubled their advantage in the third stanza when Hayley LaFontaine ’18 took a shot from the point, which was redirected by Wulf into the back of the net.
Amherst tried to make something happen with two minutes left, but to no avail. As the clock winded down, the crowd grew louder, yelling and screaming, and the excitement of a three-repeat reverberated through Kenyon Arena. With ten seconds left, the Panthers trapped the puck on the boards, let time expire and dog-piled in front of their net.
“It’s indescribable. I’m still speechless,” said Wulf after reflecting on her third championship in four years. “It’s so special and an incredible feeling. I can’t stop smiling!”
“To make history and do it with this class and this team is beyond amazing,” Wulf continued amid the postgame excitement. “It’s something we will remember forever. As a senior class, we were so happy to come out on top and win our last home game at Kenyon.”
Julie Neuburger ’18 chimed in to express her excitement and happiness:
“Winning is always an exciting thing, but it’s definitely more special when you can do it in your own house in front of all your fans,” she said. “We have some of the best fans this sport has to offer from both the community and college, and we definitely fed off all the energy they brought to Kenyon on Sunday afternoon. There really are no words to describe those last 10 seconds or even the last minute. You’re just counting down in your head until you can run out onto the ice and jump and celebrate and be surrounded by your whole team.”
The Panthers still have work to do, hoping to secure a national championship for the first time since 2006. They are back on the ice this weekend, gearing up to play No. 1-ranked Plattsburgh State.
“For NCAA’s the focus right now is all on Plattsburgh,” said Wulf. “We said we wanted to play them again in March after we lost to them earlier this season because we knew we had more in us and could beat them. We are a much different and better team now than when we played them last, so we are super excited about the game Saturday.
“As the reigning four-[season]-straight national champions, we know Plattsburgh is good, but we are confident that if play our best hockey, we can win.”
(03/08/18 12:35am)
The squash season wrapped up last Saturday, March 3, when Jack Kagan ’20 walked off the court at the national individual championships in the nation’s capital. Off of their third-place finish in the C draw at team nationals a week before last, Feb. 23 to 25, in Connecticut, the men’s No. 1 Will Cembalest ’20 and No. 3 Kagan made the trip to Washington, D.C., where they both competed in the same 16-player “East” pool in the Molloy draw.
After finishing 15th at the team championships last month, nagging injuries on the heels on a long season and tough schedule kept members of the women’s team from attending the individual championship tournament. This marks the first time since the 2013–14 season that the women’s team has not sent a representative to the individual championships, although in both instances the Panthers’ top players were more than qualified to make the trip if they had chosen to do so.
Cembalest wrapped up his season last Friday afternoon when he lost to Grayson Bubrosky, a junior who finished the season in the No. 4 spot for the Virginia Cavaliers. In the round of 16 Friday morning, Bubrosky lost in a closer-than-it-looked straight-sets match against the eventual pool runner up in Carson Spahr, the Dartmouth No. 2. Against Bubrosky, Cembalest dropped the opening set 11–5 before rebounding to make things closer in the second and third sets, which Bubrosky took 11–8 and 11–7.
Earlier in the day, Cembalest got a crack at Hobart’s No. 1 Josh Oakley. It was a chance for Cembalest to get another taste of the top competition in the country, as Oakley won 11 of his 20 matches in the top slot for the Statesmen’s top spot on the ladder this season. While he lost in three sets to Oakley as well, 11–6, 11–5, 11–6, Cembalest was glad to have the opportunity to experience the event.
“Last weekend was very fun,” Cembalest said. “Jack [Kagan] and I had good exposure to the top players in the country in a fun, competitive atmosphere. Jack, [coach] Mark [Lewis] and I all had a fun time hanging out, watching some of the best players in the country compete, and had some nice bonding time.”
Like Cembalest, Kagan also dropped his first match of the championships earlier last Friday. However, Kagan had the opportunity to continue playing on Saturday thanks to a mix of his endurance and in-match adjustments that allowed him to outlast Raghav Kumar, the Tufts No. 1, in a four set consolation match on Friday afternoon.
After narrowly winning his first set against Kumar 11–9, Kagan let some of the momentum slip away in the second set, which went the way of the Jumbos’ sophomore, 11–7. But the match-making set was the third set, a marathon game that went 26 points. Ultimately, things went Kagan’s way in the third set, 14–12.
Up in sets, 2–1, it would have been understandable for Kagan to take his foot off of the gas in the fourth set — especially given that he had lost a five-set match just a couple of hours earlier to Navy’s Michael Kacergis, who spent the entire season at the top of the Midshipmen’s ladder. But there would be no exhaling for Kagan, who clearly meant business when he got back onto the court with Kumar for the fourth set, which was not even close. Kagan won 11–0.
“The fourth game with Kumar was just a culmination of confidence from winning a really tight third game that was pretty critical,” Kagan said. “I felt myself get a serious second wind in the third and noticed that I could keep going and raising my level.
“After winning the third I just wanted to keep the pressure on in the fourth and keep taking the ball in short when I had the opportunity,” Kagan said of his approach. “I had to be the one to put the attacking shot in and make him react, rather than the other way around. In that game, everything was working.”
By winning Friday afternoon, Kagan got a chance to partake in Saturday morning’s consolation semifinals, where he met up with Aryaman Adik, a Trinity first-year who went on to win the consolation bracket of Cembalest’s and Kagan’s pool. Adik was a challenging matchup for Kagan, but the Middlebury sophomore managed to play him very closely, especially after the first game.
“The first game I really wasn’t awake or very present, and his pace of play is so fast that it really caught me off guard,” Kagan said of his 11–4 setback in his first set against Adik. Undeterred, Kagan made some adjustments and managed to push Adik, who just the week before was celebrating with his Trinity teammates the Banthams’ completion of an undefeated, 20–0, national championship season.
“After the first set,” Kagan explained, “I really had to get my shots deeper in the court to take away his opportunities for attack which he used often.”
Kagan pushed Adik in the second set to a 15–13 final, and then went one point further in the final set, which Adik took 16–14.
“I think me being able to stay in the points for so long definitely frustrated him,” Kagan said. “It was a fun weekend and a good way to finish off the season especially since I feel like I kept up a high level of play.”
With the season now in the books for the Middlebury squash teams, Cembalest and Kagan, along with their underclassmen teammates, now look forward to getting on the courts in match play when the season gets into full swing next December.
Cembalest looks fondly back on what he and his teammates were able to do the weekend before last at team nationals. And while team nationals are a highlight for any collegiate squash player, the results Cembalest got in Connecticut were especially sweet because there was an aspect of revenge.
“Team nationals were an awesome way to end the season,” said Cembalest. “Beating the Williams No. 1 and the Bates No. 1, who both beat me earlier in the season” was a highlight that Cembalest will look to build on in his offseason preparation for next year.
Last weekend’s individual nationals also allowed Cembalest to come away with an idea of what it will take to go from start to finish next season at the top of the Panthers’ ladder playing his best squash.
“My biggest takeaway,” Cembalest said of the weekend in Washington, “was that my body was hurting a lot and that after the long season it was hard to push myself to perform at the level I was playing at earlier in the season.”
Kagan was fitter for the action last weekend, but said that what both he and Cembalest took away from another opportunity to be exposed to the best collegiate squash has to offer will pay dividends going into next season.
“The weekend was definitely a different vibe for individuals since there were only two of us,” said Kagan. “It was great to get off campus and play in a completely different style of tournament and see what we could do.
“We have some things that we succeeded with and some things we need to remember to keep working on for next year. Especially since there were only two of us, it was a very self-motivated tournament. You had to find motivation to warm up, to prepare, to perform, from within, not from the team. That’s hard, but can be exciting at a high level.”
Along with the pair of sophomores who made the trip to the individual championships, the Panthers will return almost their entire starting nine for next season. The prospect of the team breaking into the B draw at nationals looks very realistic.
The Panthers’ No. 1 is already looking forward to the challenge.
“I am very proud of the work I’ve done this season,” said Cembalest, adding, “but honestly, I want to be much stronger for next season. I am going to put a lot of off-season work in this summer and that will have a strong impact on my game for next season.”
(03/08/18 12:32am)
The men’s basketball team entered the NCAA tournament on a three-game losing streak, desperately needing to regain the form it had earlier in the season. In each of the Panthers’ two games last weekend, they reestablished themselves immediately by jumping out to 12–3 leads, forcing their opponents to call early timeouts, en route to victories in the first two rounds of NCAAs. Middlebury defeated Lebanon Valley 83–63 on Friday, March 2, and beat Eastern Connecticut State 83–58 on Saturday, March 3, to move onto NCAA sectionals.
Jack Daly ’18 continued his magical season with his second triple-double of the season, and second in program history, against Lebanon Valley. Daly scored 13 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, and assisted on 14 more baskets to lead the way on Friday, and tallied 11 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Middlebury’s second round matchup.
As one of the final 16 DIII teams left in the nation, Middlebury will play MIT at Ramapo College tomorrow, March 9, at 5:30 p.m. If the Panthers win, they will meet the winner of Ramapo and Franklin & Marshall on Saturday for an opportunity to play in the Final Four.
Middlebury’s first-round opponent, Lebanon Valley, entered the tournament on the heels of winning Middle Atlantic Conference Commonwealth with an 18–9 record. Coincidentally, Lebanon Valley played one Nescac team in the regular season, Hamilton, and lost to the Continentals 102–83, the exact same score of the Middlebury-Hamilton matchup.
On Friday, the Panthers could not have started the game any hotter than they did, getting out to a 10–0 lead just over two minutes into the first half by making their first four shots and forcing two turnovers. Daly assisted on the first three baskets, including on two transition baskets off turnovers, before getting one of his own to help account for Middlebury’s first ten points.
The Flying Dutchmen responded with a 19–5 run of their own to take a 19–15 lead. Back-and-forth the first half went, as Middlebury came right back to take a 26–22 lead. Lebanon Valley took another lead, 36–35, with 1:26 remaining in the first half.
With three of his big men facing foul trouble, head coach Jeff Brown turned to a four-guard lineup over the last two minutes in the half. Joey Leighton ’20 answered Brown’s call to his guards by hitting a three-pointer to give Middlebury a two-point lead. Then, Daly forced a Lebanon Valley turnover at midcourt, and finished off the half with a contested layup to put Middlebury in front 40–36 heading into the halftime locker room.
Ahead 50–46 almost seven minutes into the second half, Middlebury started to take control, going on a 10-point run to take its first double digit lead of the contest. Second-leading scorer Matt Folger ’20 sparked the run by scoring five straight points. After only scoring three points in the first half, Folger tipped in his own miss and then hit a three the next time down. Daly kept the pressure on the following possession by finishing a layup, forcing a Lebanon Valley timeout. Then, Leighton hit another three-pointer off a Daly offensive rebound to give Middlebury a 60–46 lead.
Lebanon stopped the bleeding temporarily with a three of its own next time down, but the Panthers kept extending their lead on the back of their defense and offensive ball movement. From the 14:38 to the 5:20 mark, Middlebury blew the game open. They extended their lead from a narrow four point margin, 50–46, to a 74–54 lead, which all but put the game away. The Panthers held the Flying Dutchmen to three of 11 shooting and forced four turnovers over that span of 9:18.
The 20-point margin would stay intact over the final 5:20, and Middlebury secured a 83–63 win in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
After a close first half, Middlebury ran away from Lebanon Valley in the second half, outscoring the Flying Dutchmen 43–27. Although the Panthers shot only two percentage points better than the Flying Dutchmen in the second half, they outrebounded Lebanon Valley 13–1, which led to Middlebury’s taking 18 more shots from the field.
Lebanon Valley’s leading scorer, Sam Light, who averaged 23 points per game this season, scored only 14 on Friday night, and only three in the decisive second half. Guard Jack Farrell ’21 had the assignment of Light for most of the night Friday night, as one of coach Jeff Brown’s quickest guards. Farrell and the Panthers knew if they slowed down Light they would be in very good shape to move onto the second round.
“Coming into the game we knew Sam Light was their guy, and that he could score from many different levels,” Farrell said. “It was all about putting everything I had into not letting him score the ball, or make other impactful plays. I knew I was quicker and a little bigger than him, so I tried to make sure he could feel me and know I was right there every time to get him out of his usual rhythm.”
Along with Daly’s triple-double, Folger added 14 points, and Eric McCord ’19 added 12 in 14 minutes off the bench.
As hot as the Panthers started on Friday night, their start on Saturday may have been more important. Eastern Connecticut State entered their matchup with Middlebury with a 26–3 record and a perfect 4–0 against Nescac opponents.
Middlebury came out in attack mode to take a 12–3 lead within the first four minutes of action. Eight of their first twelve points came in the paint, and the other four came on free throws. The nine-point lead forced Eastern Connecticut State to call a timeout, but that did not slow the tide. Middlebury continued to attack the basket with the drive and the pass, and to crash the boards ferociously. The Panthers built a 24–7 lead just over seven minutes into the first half.
From there, Middlebury slowed down offensively, and the Warriors started to make some shots. The home team cut the lead to 25–15, but could not get any closer in the first half.
Daly exited the game with 2:25 left in the first half with two fouls, opening the door for Eastern Connecticut State to make some headway into its 14-point deficit. But Middlebury’s supporting cast rose to the occasion to extend the Panther lead going into the halfway point. Ahead by 15, Max Bosco ’21 fought off some Warrior pressure to find Farrell on the wing for a three to give Middlebury a 46–28 halftime lead.
Only once did Eastern Connecticut State get closer than 18 points in the second half, less than two minutes in when two Warrior free throws made the score 47–30. Middlebury grew its lead to as many as 25 points, 73–48, with 7:04 remaining on its way to sealing an 83–58 victory.
Middlebury’s defense on its opponent leading scorer was crucial once more on Saturday. Tarchee Brown scored 19.4 points per game this season, but Middlebury held him to 12 points on four of 20 shooting.
“We knew Brown liked to shoot the three, so we tried to chase him over every screen and be right on him with high hands every time he caught the ball to make sure he wasn’t able to get off a good shot,” said Farrell. “Coach always tells us defense comes first and stops will turn into transition baskets. I think that’s what we did well this weekend as a team.”
Farrell led Middlebury in scoring with 19 points on an efficient five of nine shooting and seven of eight from the foul line.
“Coach Brown always stresses shooting with confidence and making smart plays,” Farrell said, when asked about his big scoring night. “I think that’s what I tried to go out there and do, have confidence in my ability to score, at a couple different levels. But I also think in the flow of the game I was given a couple opportunities to take a jumper or drive at my defender.”
Farrell was one of many Panthers who was aggressive in finding good shots. Middlebury outscored Eastern Connecticut State 46–28 in the paint, after dominating Lebanon Valley 42–18 there the night before. After failing to score above 68 points in their previous two games, the Panthers tallied eclipsed that total by 15 points in both games last weekend.
MIT, Middlebury’s next opponent, enters tomorrow’s matchup with a 24–5 record, having beaten Brockport and Johns Hopkins to get to the Sweet Sixteen. The Engineers won New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference to receive a bid to the tournament.
In the other sectional matchup, the sectional host Ramapo plays Franklin & Marshall. Ramapo (23–6) won the New Jersey Athletic Conference, and Franklin & Marshall (22–6) received an at-large bid after losing to Johns Hopkins in the Centennial Conference semifinals.
(03/08/18 12:26am)
The men’s lacrosse team (1–0, 1–0) kicked off their season in successful fashion, sealing a narrow win over No. 14 Bates (0–1, 0–1), 11–10, last Saturday, March 3, at Middlebury’s Youngman Field. This extended the Panthers’ streak of winning their season opener to three years in a row.
Bates was aggressive from the outset and even jumped out to an early 2–0 lead a few minutes into the game. With a bit of patience, the Panthers notched their first goal of the season courtesy of Henry Riehl ’18, who managed to cut down the middle of Bates’s defense before sending the ball past the keeper. Following six minutes of solid defense from both the Panthers and the Bobcats, Middlebury trailed 2–1 when the horn sounded to end the first quarter.
To open the second quarter, A.J. Kucinski ’20 showed a brilliant display of individual skill as he spun away from a defender to set himself up for an easy shot directly in front of the goal. The keeper had no chance. Frank Cosolito ’20 followed up Kucinski’s goal just a few minutes later with a shot that erased any concern raised by the early 2–0 hole the Panthers were in, as his goal with 8:27 left to play in the second quarter gave the Panthers a 3–2 lead.
Bates immediately charged towards Middlebury’s goal on the ensuing possession, but a stop at the 7:53 mark by goalie Charles Midgley ’19 diffused any chance of the Bobcats netting a potential equalizer.
Midway through the second quarter, Wes Quinzani ’18 fought hard to recover a scramble at midfield. The Panthers pushed their offensive line up and were able to find a goal through Michael McCormack ‘19, scoring off a second-chance opportunity. Bates responded with a goal of their own just 20 seconds later and finished the quarter with two additional goals to lead 5–4 at the half.
Coming out of halftime, Riehl scored early in the third quarter to momentarily give the Panthers a 6–5 lead, but Bates quickly moved to tie the game at six. Then, a short three minutes later, Kucinski and Riehl combined once again for another Panther goal. This time, Kucinski delivered a great ball to Riehl, who found the back of the net for his fourth goal of the game. John Jackson ’18 was able to set in motion an additional goal for the Panthers, as he fed a ball to newcomer Will Brossman ’21 — playing in his first collegiate game — who managed to bully off a defender for a clean shot on goal.
Before time expired in the third quarter, though, Bates showed why they are a perennially ranked team, as Matt Chlastawa found the back of the net on an unassisted goal, making the score 9–8 heading into the final 15 minutes.
At the start of the fourth quarter, the visitors’ bench started to turn up the volume in hopes of securing their first win of the season on the road. The bench went silent when McCormack managed to convert a well-placed rising shot into the top corner to give the Panthers a 10–8 lead 17 seconds into the fourth quarter. And that was not all. Momentum had clearly swung to the Panthers’ side when, two minutes later, Chase Goree ’20 added his name to the scoresheet with a patient play for the Panthers.
The next 10 minutes were scoreless until Bates secured a goal from a diving effort with three and a half minutes to play. Though the Bobcats were able to secure a late goal with 34 seconds on the clock to cut the lead down to one, their comeback fell short, as the Panthers won the ball in the ensuing face-off and ran down the clock.
Riehl led the Panthers in scoring with four goals, while McCormack had a brace with goals and assists. Midgley managed to stop 16 attempts successfully, just one more than the Bates keeper. This one additional save very well could have been the decisive factor in this Panthers win.
Overall, the Panthers were satisfied with their performance, particularly on the defensive end according to midfielder Parker Lawlor’18.
“One key takeaway was that our defense didn’t give up easy crease goals and our freshmen stepped up,” Lawlor commented.
The Panthers will be back in action on Saturday, March 10, when they host Connecticut College in a conference bout on Youngman Field at Alumni Stadium at 1 p.m. After their first victory, the Panthers don’t seem to be slowing down and are already preparing for the new challenge that Connecticut poses.
“Connecticut traditionally plays a zone so that is something we are preparing for this week compared to bates who played mostly man,” Lawlor mentioned.
Middlebury will have their third straight home game on Tuesday, March 13, when the Panthers welcome St. Lawrence at 4 p.m. that afternoon.
(02/28/18 11:54pm)
Last week, Feb. 23 to 25, the men’s squash team was in Connecticut taking part in the College Squash Association’s (CSA) team national championships, where they competed in the C division for the Summers Cup — a trophy that the team has brought back to Middlebury six of the last nine years. The Panthers place third in the eight-team field, finishing the season ranked 19th in the country, two spots above their ranking entering the tournament.
The Panthers’ young roster found itself ranked 21st heading into the weekend, behind the likes of conference rivals Williams and Bates. And that fact was not lost on the Panthers, who beat Williams 8–1 just a few weeks ago at Nescacs in the third-place match.
The way the final regular-season rankings fell dictated the draws teams got at nationals. With the C division featuring teams ranked Nos. 17 through 24 in the CSA poll, the 21st-ranked Panthers were the five seed in their draw. Despite not being shown their due respect by the CSA poll, the Panthers’ seeding meant they got to matchup with No. 20 Williams immediately when the tournament began last Friday.
In the first of their three meetings this season, Williams edged Middlebury 6–3 in Williamstown on Jan. 6. Middlebury avenged its first loss in Nescacs, dismantling the Ephs win by a score of 8–1. The rubber match between Middlebury and their rival 100 miles to the south down Route 7 would more closely resemble the close match earlier this season than the drubbing the Ephs received courtesy of the Panthers at Nescacs. Middlebury’s 6–3 victory over Williams to begin nationals was in no way easy for the Panthers.
Out of the five matches that went to five sets, the Panthers got four team points. The only match the Panthers conceded that went the distance was in the No. 8 slot, occupied by the usually trusty Thomas Wolpow ’20. Even then, Wolpow’s match could have gone either way. The sophomore bookended two not-so-close games with 11–9 wins in the first and fourth sets to set up a rubber match with Williams’ Andrew Litvin.
To say Wolpow’s fifth set with Litvin was a marathon, drag-it-out battle would be a gross understatement. Litvin managed to edge out Wolpow in the deciding fifth set by a final score of 24–22. (24–22!) The result wound up as not only the longest of last weekend’s national tournament, but the longest of the entire squash season.
Jack Kagan ’20, in the third slot, also provided plenty of good highlights in Middlebury’s first match of the tournament. Kagan’s 11–9, 11–7, 11–8 straight-sets victory over Williams’ Will Means set the tone for the weekend — his own weekend particularly, as Kagan did not drop a match throughout the three-day competition. As with the rest of the team, Kagan fought off midseason adversity when the Panthers seemed to hit a wall to rebound and play some of his best squash at season’s end.
“I definitely feel like I’ve been at the top of my game lately,” Kagan said. “I think I have to owe it to my fitness which just seems much better than in the middle of the season. I have a defined and patient gameplan which I’m much more able to stick to now and I think I just have been playing so much and so many tough matches and practices that my overall fitness must have improved.”
At the top of the ladder, Will Cembalest held things down for the Panthers, as he got to play Williams’ Carl Shuck who narrowly beat him at Nescacs. Shuck had Cembalest on the ropes again last weekend — for the second straight meeting against Williams’ top player, Cembalest found himself in a 2–1 hole after the third set. Yet, this time Cembalest bounced back, winning the fourth set 11–8 and then the decisive fifth set 11–9.
The Panthers’ trio of first-years in five through seven slots was especially strong against Williams. No. 5 Wiatt Hinton ’21 and No. 7 Alex Merrill ’21 both had to come from behind to win their five-game sets.
After falling in the first set to Williams’ David Pincus, Hinton scrapped to an 11–9 victory in the second game. This he followed with an 11–6 loss in the third set and other nail-biter, 12–10, in the fourth set before finally finishing Pincus off in the fifth set 11–6.
“We had trained hard coming into nationals and that training combined with the experience I gained from the whole season made me a better player this weekend,” Hinton said upon returning to school from nationals last Sunday. Hinton echoed Kagan’s comments about how the team feels they were at the top of their collective games as the season ended: “I do feel that I am in peak form right now.”
Henry Pearson ’18, in his last collegiate squash tournament, also provided positives for the Panthers and got some revenge on Williams from an individual standpoint. Pearson defeated Williams’ Wyatt Khosrowshahi in a five-set match in the No. 4 slot. Khosrowshahi has played as high as the No. 2 this season for Williams — he fell in straight sets in that position to Jacob Ellen ’20 at Nescacs — and also dealt Pearson a straight-sets loss in the No. 4 spot back on Jan. 6 in Williamstown.
This time around, Pearson wasted no time getting into his match with Khosrowshahi. He took the opening game 11–5 and then nearly put Khosrowshahi in a 2–0 hole when they traded points in a 12–10 Khosrowshahi victory in the second set. Despite the close loss in the second game, Pearson did not lose any momentum as made clear by his 11–4 drubbing of Khosrowshahi in the third set. After that, Pearson and Khosrowshahi traded 11–5 results, which gave the match victory to Pearson.
The Panthers followed their 6–3 win against Williams with a 6–3 loss to Dickinson in the Summers Cup draw semifinals. Dickinson went on to win the championship by defeating Franklin and Marshall in the Summers Cup final 5–4.
As part of their unbeaten weekends, Kagan and Hinton both won their matches in four sets against Dickinson. Kagan dropped his first game against the Red Devils’ No. 3, Hal Holappa, by a close score of 12–10. The second set between Kagan and Holappa would not prove as close (Kagan took it 11–7), but the last two were both nail biters. In the end, Kagan triumphed 11–9 and 12–10.
After winning his first two games 11–5 and 11–7, Hinton could have won his match against Dickinson No. 5 Cory Litman in straight sets, but Litman managed a 13–11 victory in the third game. Hinton put any concern about the outcome of his match in the decisive fourth set, when he beat Litman 11–6.
In the sixth spot, Epley became the third and final Panther to get his team a point in the match against Dickinson. Like his fellow first-year, Hinton, Epley won his match in four games. Unlike Hinton, the final score shows that Epley had to fight Dickinson’s No. 6, Alex Wattles, to save a win. Epley and Wattles traded victories in the first two games, with Epley taking the first 11–8 and Wattles taking the second 11–5. After that, however, things proved much closer. Both the third and fourth games were pushed pashed 11 points, but Epley took both by a score of 12–10.
Middlebury did not have a lot of time to think about the loss to Dickinson, as the Panthers were back on the court within 24 hours to play Bates for the right to be the No. 19 team in the season’s final rankings and third in the C bracket.
The Panthers beat Bates, who went into nationals ranked No. 18, back on Jan. 12 in Lewiston, Maine, 5-4. Due to the way things shook out at Nescacs, the Jan. 12 matchup would be the only time the teams played prior to last Sunday. Nevertheless, the CSA poll still had the Panthers three spots behind the Bobcats in the rankings.
In the top spot for the Panthers, Cembalest faced a familiar foe in Bates’ No. 1, Mahmoud Yousry. Earlier this season, Yousry beat Cembalest in a very tightly contested four-set affair. As the box score of their latest meeting indicates, Cembalest and Yousry picked up right where they left off, playing close games.
Cembalest managed to pull out a 14–12 victory in the first set and then carried that momentum over into the second game, when topped Yoursy again, this time by an 11–7 tally. Yoursy got the best of Cembalest in the third game, denying the Panthers’ No. 1 a straight set victory by beating him 11–4. Cembalest, who will play in the individual championships in the nation’s capital this weekend, March 2-4, was not deterred. In fact, he managed to one-up Yousry in the deciding fourth set by beating Bates’ top player 11-3.
On the final leg of his undefeated final weekend of his first-year season, Hinton beat Bates’ McLeod Abbott, who has played as high as the third slot on Bobcats’ ladder this season. Hinton won the first set 11–6 and then pulled out a 14–12 victory in a long second set. At that point, the match was all but over, as Hinton’s meticulous grinding away at Abbott let to an 1114–124 third set victory.
“I saw that my opponent was getting tired and frustrated, so I stuck to a basic game plan and waited for him to make mistakes and I gradually gained an edge over him,” Hinton said of his strategy against Bates’ captain.
Epley, one spot down the ladder for the Panthers, completed an undefeated weekend on Sunday against Bates with a five-set victory in the No. 6 slot. After dropping the first set 11–6 to Anirudh Nambiar, Epley laid it on in the second set to get an 11–3 victory. The momentum Epley generated in the second set did not carry over into the third game, as Nambiar managed to gain a 2–1 set advantage with a narrow 11–9 win. After that, however, the match belonged to Epley, who wrapped up a 13-win rookie season for himself with 11–6 and 11–7 victories.
This season the Panthers had three first-years sandwiched in the middle of their ladder, No. 5 Hinton, No. 6 Epley, and No. 7 Merrill. Although they faced the typical ups and downs of rookie seasons, the lessons they learned from the 2017–18 campaign will be incredibly valuable from a growth standpoint heading into their second season.
“My biggest takeaway from this season has been the difference between junior and collegiate squash,” said Hinton. “There is a huge difference in both the intensity and fitness. I have gained so much experience from my first season and made strong developments both mentally and technically.”
Now that he knows what to expect, Hinton is looking to refine what he does between now and the start of the season next November.
“Next season I hope to add on to those improvements and am looking forward to another great year,” said Hinton.
Up the ladder from the trio of first-years in the No. 5–7 slots, Middlebury’s No. 3, Kagan, wrapped up his efforts at nationals by successfully executing his game plan against Omar Attia. Attia is a first-year so Kagan or his fellow sophomores at the top of the Panthers’ ladder will almost certainly be seeing him again in matches in the next couple of years.
Kagan had Attia on the ropes after taking the first two games 11–6 and 11–5. At that point, it seemed Kagan had Attia buried, but the Bobcats’ No. 3 managed to pull out back-to-back 11–9 wins, sending the match to a fifth set.
When asked what was going through his mind when he left the court after the fourth set, and what had changed in the third and fourth games, Kagan gave Attia credit for settling into the match and adjusting.
“After the fourth game with Omar, I knew something had changed and it wasn’t that I was playing worse,” said Kagan after the match.
“[Attia] was playing much better, and I didn’t adapt or change my game at all,” he added. “In games three and four he just stopped making errors which was huge. It was the main reason I had been beating him so soundly. When he made that change, it really leveled the playing field.”
Although he dominated the first two sets against Attia, Kagan said he still wasn’t comfortable at that point in the match.
“Because I wasn’t comfortable with my attacks,” Kagan continued, “basically, I had to hit even straighter than I already was and force his crosscourt — rather than mine — and then I had to volley everything and start attacking when he did give me openings. I had to make him work when he gave me the opportunity because he figured out my original passive game plan.”
Kagan ultimately buckled down in the fifth set, which proved quite anticlimactic as he won convincingly, 11–3.
In the Panthers’ 8–1 victory over Bates, sealing their No. 19 end-of-the-season ranking and third-place in the Summers Cup, Pearson, Sam Giddins ’18 and Cam Dewey ’18 saw their final collegiate action for the Panthers. Team captain Ryan Swope ’18 played in his final match the day before against Dickinson. Pearson beat Bates’ Coley Cannon in the No. 4 slot in four sets, most of which were close, by scores of 14–12, 11–5, 8–11 and 11–9. Giddins played in the ninth slot and lost in a very closely contested four–set match by scores of 6–11, 13–11, 12–10 and 11–6. Dewey won the unscored exhibition game in straight sets.
Cembalest and Kagan will be among those who head to the individual championships in Washington D.C. with members of the women’s team. Ellen would have joined them but had to pull out after an injury riddled season.
“Unfortunately, I pulled out of individuals next weekend just because I want to give myself time to rest after a tough season physically,” said the No. 2. “As a whole, this season was very frustrating to me. I felt like I was never able to be at my best because of things out of my control, but I am proud that I was able to play almost every single match to help my team out. This summer, I am going to work harder than ever physically to get into great shape and that will hopefully help me out for next season.”
Kagan described how much he looks forward to the opportunity.
“Individuals are a really unique opportunity to play against the best players in the country, and I’m excited and honored to be able to play amongst them,” Kagan said. On top of that, Kagan expressed how he and some of his fellow Panthers can benefit from the extra practice and the intensity of the matches.
“I’m excited this week to get some time in with Will and with coach to work on some of these attacks that have been pretty hot and cold for me lately,” Kagan said. “I also hope to do some of my own work on fitness in the short time that we have and maybe do some court sprints to make sure my lungs are up to the task for this weekend.”
The individual championships will start tomorrow, March 2, and run through Sunday, March 4, in Washington D.C.
(02/28/18 11:53pm)
In 2016, the Middlebury men’s lacrosse team lost to Tufts in the Nescac championship game by a score of 20–14, finishing their season with a 12–7 record. In 2017, the Panthers finished sixth in the Nescac in the regular season, but made a run to the finals in the playoffs. In what would have been an unlikely story, the Panthers ultimately fell short to Wesleyan 9–8 in the Nescac championship game.
With the past two seasons in the back of the returning Panthers’ minds, they aim to finally get over the hump and win the conference title for the first time since 2007, the end of Middlebury’s stretch of dominance in Nescac men’s lacrosse when they won the conference title eight straight years.
As one of the team captains, Nick Peterson ’18, points out, a Nescac championship is the team’s long-term goal. There are many small steps the Panthers need to take in order to have a chance at their larger goals.
“We always enter each season with the mindset of one game at a time and try not to look too far ahead,” Peterson said. “That being said, we want to win the Nescac championship before anything else. In order to compete for a National Championship, we first need to win our league and enter the month of May playing our best lacrosse. Our expectations are to approach each practice and game with the same mentality day in and day out.”
In the Nescac playoffs last season, Middlebury upset third-seeded Amherst 12–11 and previously undefeated and top-seeded Bates 14–13 to reach the Nescac finals, where its season ended with a 9–8 loss to Wesleyan.
Still, the Panthers were playing their best lacrosse at the end of the season.
“I think the reason our season ended on a strong note with our run to the finals was because we so enjoyed being together as a team, and did not want our time with each other to end,” Parker Lawlor ’18 said. “We played like we had nothing to lose.”
If the Panthers want to challenge for the Nescac title this spring, a good place to start is repeating what they were doing at the end of last season.
They will be without six of last season’s starters due to graduation, but the Panthers still return a wealth of experience, including their top-five point-getters from last season.
“It’s always hard to replace any senior class, but we feel that we have a great group of returning players who can step into the roles that we lost to graduation,” Peterson said. “The biggest position we lost last year was our long stick middies, but we have a few younger guys who have worked hard in the offseason and the preseason to step into this spot and be productive for our team.”
A.J. Kucinski ’20 scored 38 goals and 36 assists to lead the team in points, and Henry Riehl ’18 led the team in goals with 53. Lawlor and Danny Jacobs ’20 both added 29 points.
Returning on defense are Eric Rogers ’18, who started 13 games, and Clay Hunt ’19, who started in 11. Chase Midgley ’19 started in 11 games in goal last season, and saved 55.4 percent of shots in net.
Leading the team will be seniors, Peterson, Lawlor, Riehl, Rogers, Wes Quinzani ’18, Henry Giarrusso ’18, John Jackson ’18, Stephen Clarke ’18 and Kenan Yates ’18.
Lawlor is convinced that his fellow classmates have done an excellent job in creating a welcoming and encouraging environment for all of the team’s players.
“I think that, as a senior class this year, we have focused on building strong relationships and building a culture in which everyone is valued, no matter their role on the team,” Lawlor said. “I feel confident saying that this is the tightest team I have played on in my four years here.”
The tight-knit community Lawlor describes will be crucial with the addition of 14 first-year players, who will be eager to contribute to the team.
After last season’s successes, including its win over previously undefeated Bates, and failures, its loss to ninth-place Colby, for example, Middlebury knows its season can take a lot of different routes.
“We can beat anyone,” Lawlor said.
But, as last season demonstrated, beating one good team does not make a season. As Peterson and Parker pointed out, the Panthers need to treat every moment on the lacrosse field as if it is their last, if they want to achieve their lofty goals.
The men’s lacrosse team’s first game is this Saturday, March 3, at 1 p.m, when the Panthers will host No. 14 Bates, a rematch of last year’s Nescac semifinals.
(02/28/18 11:52pm)
With the conference playoffs of winter sports coming to a close, spring sports practices are well underway. Although the crisp Vermont weather may not be ready for women’s lacrosse to get on the outdoor turf, the Panthers are ready to dive into another season. After losing in the NCAA Regional Final against The College of New Jersey last year, they are ready to avenge their defeat and get another NCAA ring for their collection, after taking the sixth national title in 2016.
Middlebury loses four players from last season’s team that finished second in the Nescac and lost in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.
“We lost four key teammates to graduation, but gained eight incredible first years and have twenty-four uniquely excellent returners on the 2018 squad,” said Evie Keating ’18, one of Middlebury’s three team captains. “We’re lucky to have such a wide range of skill sets and personalities on our team and to have so many great leaders within each class. Definitely don’t sleep on the first-years. We have the best 2021s out there! Each one of them has so much to offer to the team both on and off the field. They will certainly be large contributors to the team’s success this year.”
Kate Livesay, a former Middlebury defender, enters her third season as head coach of the Panthers. The four-time Nescac Coach of the Year, she coached Trinity before returning to her alma mater, and two-time national champion will attempt to push her team towards another championship season.
Katie Ritter ’15 is Livesay’s newest assistant coach. During her playing career at Middlebury, Ritter was a two-time All-American. Ritter knows the ins and outs of Panther lacrosse, in addition to being a Middlebury native, and the girls are thrilled to have her on the coaching staff.
Hayden Garrett ’20, who had been sidelined with an ACL injury for first season, commented on Katie Ritter joining the coaching staff.
“Katie Ritter has been an amazing addition to our coaching staff this season and she brings excitement and enthusiasm to our team, as well as a deep knowledge of the game,” said Hayden Garrett ’20. “One of my favorite things about our coaching staff is that both grew up in the town, graduated from Middlebury, and have so many personal connections to the community.”
The team has been training hard over the course of the last few months to get ready for their first matchups in the following weeks. They worked to get their fitness back and on more technical skills.
Middlebury returns its second and third leading scorers from last season, Emma McDonagh ’19 and Hollis Perticone ’18. Perticone was the 2017 Nescac Player of the Year, and scored 33 goals, along with assisting on 11 more. McDonagh tallied 40 goals and 15 assists, and Georgia Carroll ’18 scored 9 goals and assisted on 14 more in only 13 games.
Sara DiCenso ’19 returns in the midfield after starting all 21 games last season. Keating and Alex White ’19 will bolster the Middlebury defense.
The Panther’s opening day will be on Saturday, March 3 on the road against Bates followed by a matchup against Springfield on Sunday, March 4.
(02/28/18 10:44pm)
The philosopher George Santayana stated, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” While that is true, the memory of the Civil War also shows that the misuse of history can be as damaging as the failure to remember it. Those who can control the memory of the past can manipulate it to control both the present and the future. To understand the lessons and legacy of the Civil War, one must acknowledge its causes.
Opposition to slavery was partly inspired by the North’s initial involvement in the Civil War. As the fighting progressed, Northerners increasingly became committed not only to abolition, but also to racial equality. The North’s victory and Reconstruction seemed to promise that black Americans would be included in America’s democracy.
However, the Redeemers, those who sought to reestablish white rule in the South, crushed the possibility that racial equality would be an outcome of the conflict. After the war, the Redeemers embraced the “Lost Cause” ideology, which portrayed the Confederate cause as a battle over states’ rights, not slavery. One way that the Redeemers promoted this new narrative was through the construction of Civil War monuments.
According to the Historical Marker Database, the Civil War is the most memorialized conflict in American history, with at least 13,000 public markers and monuments dedicated to it scattered across the country. As a result, Civil War memorialization has had a tremendous impact on the way Americans have interpreted the war’s meaning. After the war, the Redeemers began erecting monuments that minimized the significance of slavery as a cause of the Civil War, and instead depicted the conflict as one between the North and the South’s irreconcilable views on federalism. In their eyes, the war was not fought over slavery, so they had no obligation to promote equality as atonement for slavery in its aftermath. Using their monuments, the Redeemers falsified and distorted history in order to skew America’s perception of the war.
One such monument is in Colfax, Louisiana. According to an article by Richard Rubin in The Atlantic, in 1873, a group of Redeemers surrounded black Americans who were attempting to assert their political rights and slaughtered them. The Colfax monument describes the event as follows: “On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 negroes were slain. This event ... marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South.” By remembering black Americans’ attempts to vote as “misrule” that was valiantly ended with a mass killing, this monument, and others like it, justified further discrimination. Armed with the false idea that “misrule” was synonymous with the granting of rights and power to black Americans, white America became comfortable with the rise of Jim Crow. This monument still stands as of 2015. We should remove it and other such memorials because they pervert the past and the present. A museum contextualizing the monument within the history of American racism would be a better location for this memorial.
Misguided historical memories often promote modern injustice. It raises the question: Should we remove the Jefferson Memorial because he owned slaves, or rename Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School because he was a racist? The impulse to do so is understandable, but this could cause people not to learn from our past. Moreover, when a monument is not a purposeful distortion, but instead honors complex but flawed figures like Jefferson and Wilson, it would be better to encourage contextualization, education and conversation around these memorials rather than erase them.
To do so, memorialization societies — groups that organize reenactments and promote public commemoration of the war — as well as museums and other public educational institutions should emphasize the role racial injustice had in igniting the Civil War and the fact that the Union hoped that the outcome of the war would improve race relations. Moreover, simply placing placards that identify all of the war’s causes next to existing monuments might hinder the spread of the Redeemers’ myths.
Lastly, another approach would be to build monuments that recognize the significance of slavery and racial justice in connection with the war. This has already been done. For example, Augustus Saint-Gaudens built a majestic memorial to the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. This monument, which is located in a place of honor across from the Massachusetts State House, commemorates a regiment of valiant black soldiers who fought for the freedom of enslaved black people.
In a similar fashion, in the Chamberlain Freedom Park, located in Brewer, Maine, monuments constructed in 1996 celebrate the Civil War as a struggle not simply over federalism, but also as a battle for freedom and racial justice. This park has statues honoring the Gettysburg hero and Maine resident Joshua Chamberlain. However, it goes even further by presenting a statue of a slave striving for freedom on the Underground Railroad within the context of the Civil War.
The past is not forgotten. It is all around us. You can open newspapers today and see history’s lingering hand in discussions like the recent ones about the contemporary use of the Confederate flag and in events like the resurgence of white nationalism in Charlottesville last summer. Because the “Lost Cause” lingers, the struggle to promote a different interpretation of the Civil War must persist. This is the only path to a just future.
(02/22/18 2:44am)
The women’s hockey team clinched the first-seed in the Nescac playoffs by tying at Williams 3–3 on Friday, Feb. 16, and dismissing the Ephs from Kenyon Arena 4–2 on Saturday, Feb. 17. These results extended the No. 4 Panthers’ unbeaten streak in the Nescac to 12 games entering the Nescac playoffs, where they will host eighth-seeded Wesleyan in the quarterfinals on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 1 p.m.
Middlebury traveled down to Williamstown for the first game of the weekend doubleheader and it was truly a battle. Williams took an early lead in the opening period, making the most of its shots and scoring on its first bid, which was also a power play situation. A shot from the bottom of the left circle ricocheted, but the rebound bounced off Lin Han’s ’20 pads into the back of the net to give the hosts a 1-0 lead.
Williams’ Anna Fucillo doubled the host’s lead a minute and a half later. But the Panthers cut into the lead on power play goal by Madie Leidt ’21, her tenth goal of the season. Jessica Young ’18 one-timed a cross-ice pass to Leidt who deposited the puck into the back of the net.
In the second stanza, Middlebury evened the score five minutes in. Elizabeth Wulf ’18 broke up a Williams’ breakout attempt, and Sidney Porter ’21 took over from there. Portner carried the puck up the ice, then fired a shot from the top of the circles past the Eph goalie.
The hosts responded quickly and reclaimed the lead within two minutes of Portner’s goal on another power play.
Back-and-forth the game went. With seven minutes left in the third period, the Panthers completed the rally to tie the game at three. After a Panther power play ended, Alexis Ryan ’21 caught the puck and threw it on the ice — at the right point. Maddie Winslow ’18 then picked it up, dangled it between defenders, and tipped it into the net, setting up overtime.
In the extra period, the Panthers took all seven shots in the five-minute span, with Wulf and Leidt both being denied late in fourth period. No one could find a score and the teams finished deadlocked at three goals apiece.
Han finished with 14 saves, while the Panthers put up 39 shots against Williams’ goalie. Although not a loss, Middlebury was not satisfied with Friday’s result against Williams, who entered the weekend doubleheader only 3–5–5 in conference play.
“After the tie, we knew we needed to come out harder and faster right out of the gate on Saturday,” said Julie Neuburger ’18. “Part of why I love playing in the Nescac is because any team can win on any given day. Every game is a battle and when we win, it makes the victories that much more satisfying — especially knowing you had to work really hard to earn them.”
Janka Hlinka continued, “after tying the first game, we had to refocus for Saturday and play the way we knew we were capable of playing. Every game matters and we had to bring a sense of urgency to Saturday’s game.”
The Panthers recognized its six seniors — for their achievements, including two-time Nescac champions — on Saturday, and the outgoing Panthers made sure their last home regular season game was one to remember.
To highlight the special night, Leidt had herself an amazing game, completing a hat trick along with a goal by Young to give the hosts a win over the Ephs.
Middlebury took an early 1–0 lead when Ledit recorded her first score of the night. Katherine Jackson ’19 found Leidt entering the zone. The first-year fired a shot from the top of the left-faceoff circle, which bounded off the crossbar and into the back of the net.
Williams had no real opportunity in the opening period, as Neuburger simply denied all shots, and the hosts headed into the second stanza holding on to a one goal advantage.
Williams erased the deficit in the opening 17 seconds of the second period, sneaking the puck past Neuburger off a scramble for a loose puck.
Young, however, responded for the Panthers, redirecting a shot by Leidt into the back of the net for her team-leading 15th tally of the season on a five-on-four power play advantage.
Young and Leidt found themselves in tandem again in the following period. On Middlebury’s third power play opportunity six minutes into the third period, Young found Liedt from the left point, who one-timed the puck into the back of the net for her second score of the game.
For good measure, Young and Leidt connected one more time, as the first-year notched her first career hat-trick and sealed the deal for Middlebury. Williams scored later in the third period with its goalie pulled, but Middlebury got the 4–2 win.
Neuburger picked up 13 saves, and the offensive unit put 38 shots on goal in Middlebury’s last game of the regular season, an unforgettable way for the Middlebury seniors to go out.
“Senior night was so special,” said Wulf, one of the six seniors. “Our teammates did an amazing job of making it special. We all couldn’t believe the night was already here, but we soaked it all up and enjoyed it as much as we could.
“Starting all the seniors was a moment I’ll never forget, it was awesome. It was definitely an emotional night, but we were so happy to come away with a win. It was a night I’ll remember forever, and I would not have wanted to celebrate it with anyone other than my five other classmates.”
Actually, the seniors and their teammates are not done in Kenyon Arena yet this season. They will host Wesleyan on Saturday, Feb. 24, and, if they win, will host the Nescac semifinals and finals the following weekend. Ranked fourth nationally, Middlebury will almost assuredly get to host at least one game in the NCAA tournament as well, not to look ahead too far.
First, Middlebury plays Wesleyan, whom the Panthers beat twice earlier in the season, 3–0 and 4–0. The Cardinals enter the quarterfinal matchup with a 2–10–4 Nescac record, but earned a spot in the playoffs by upsetting third-seeded in the last weekend of the regular season.
(02/22/18 2:41am)
Behind 50–44 with 9:55 remaining on their home court, No. 14 Wesleyan outscored No. 18 Middlebury 29–15 the rest of the way to defeat the Panthers 73–65 in the Nescac Quarterfinals last Saturday, Feb. 17. The fourth-seeded Cardinals (20–5) defeated the fifth-seeded Panthers (19–6) for the second time this season to move on to the Nescac semifinals, while Middlebury will wait until Monday, Feb. 26, to see if it receives an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Entering this year, Middlebury had defeated Wesleyan 15 games in a row, dating back to the 2004-05 season, but the Cardinals snapped that streak with their 80–70 win on Jan. 6.
Wesleyan’s rise in the Nescac hierarchy has corresponded with the arrival of Joe Reilly as head coach, who has brought Wesleyan from a 1–8 conference record the year before he became coach to a 7–3 record and a tie for first-place in the Nescac this year. Reilly has also guided the Cardinals to the NCAA tournament two of the last three seasons.
Middlebury jumped out to a 4–0 lead in the first half of Saturday’s game, but never led by more than six points in the first half. Wesleyan tied the score on four different occasions in a low-scoring first half. The Panthers turned Wesleyan’s 11 first half turnovers into nine points to take a 32–28 lead into halftime. The Cardinals hung around by hitting six of their 13 three-point attempts, including Antone Walker coming off the bench to drain all three of his shots from beyond the arc.
Out of the locker room, Wesleyan converted an old-fashioned three-point play and made another from beyond the arc in the first minute of action to take a two-point lead, their first of the game. Seven minutes later, behind by one point, Middlebury, driven by seven points from Griffin Kornaker ’21, went on a 9–2 run to retake the lead, 50–44.
Once more, Wesleyan responded, tying the game at 50 before going on what would prove to be the game’s decisive run. From Kornaker’s layup at the 9:55 mark to put Middlebury ahead 50–44, until another Kornaker bucket with 2:08 remaining, the Panthers made only one field goal in six attempts, from Jack Daly ’18 and turned the ball over four times. Wesleyan outscored Middlebury 20–7 in that crucial stretch of almost eight minutes.
As Daly noted, Wesleyan “was able to keep us off the offensive glass down the stretch. That’s been one of our biggest strengths this year and they did a great job of limiting our shot opportunities each possession.”
Entering the game, Middlebury averaged 15.67 offensive rebounds per game, almost two more than any other team in the conference. On Saturday, Middlebury grabbed 12, most of which were team offensive rebounds off blocked shots, and zero as Wesleyan took the lead in this eight-minute stretch. Wesleyan blocked 11 shots as a team, including eight by Jordan Sears.
Kornaker’s basket at the 2:08 mark brought Middlebury within five, 64–59, but Wesleyan made enough free throws in the last two minutes to secure a 73–65 victory and a spot in the Nescac Semifinals.
65 points is Middlebury’s lowest scoring mark this season, for a team that averaged 81 points per game entering the playoff game on Saturday.
A lot of credit goes to Wesleyan, who has had one of the stingiest defenses in the Nescac this season, ranked first in opponent field goal percentage and second in scoring defense.
“Wesleyan is one of the best defensive teams in the country, so we knew it was going to be a battle,” Daly said. “Offensively, we had great movement on the perimeter, but not much attacking and dishing the ball in the last 10 minutes.”
Daly led the Panthers in defeat with 20 points, including 14 in the second half, and six assists. Matt Folger ’20 added 17 points, six rebounds and four steals, and Kornaker scored nine off the bench.
Wesleyan will play top-seeded Amherst this Saturday, Feb. 26, in the semifinals. In the other semifinal game, second-seeded Williams matches up with third-seeded Hamilton.
The Panthers will hold their breath until Monday, Feb. 19, when the NCAA DIII Committee makes its selections for the 64-team tournament field. 43 conference champions receive automatic bids into the tournament, leaving 21 spots for at-large teams. Middlebury is no. 18 in this week’s D3hoops.com national poll. In the final poll before last season’s selections, 13 of the 21 teams to receive at-large bids were not ranked. The Panthers should be in a good position to receive a bid, but no one knows for sure until the committee releases its decisions on Monday, Feb. 26.
The Panthers were as high as No. 5 in the country before three consecutive losses that knocked them out of the first-seed in the Nescac playoffs and then the playoffs themselves. But those losses were on the road to No.13 Hamilton, Amherst, and Wesleyan, three of the teams who tied for first in the Nescac, along with Middlebury and Williams.
“Right now it’s all about keeping a positive mindset, practicing hard every day, and watching as much film as we can to learn from our mistakes,” said Daly. “It’s all about remaining focused over the next couple of weeks. As Coach has been saying all year, we just need to stay the course despite the bumps in the road.”
The Panthers had a stretch like this one earlier in the season, when they lost to three out of five games to No. 12 York, No. 11 Swarthmore and Wesleyan. That time, they responded by rattling off 12-straight victories, including a win over Nescac rival, No. 8 Wesleyan.
If Middlebury is chosen for one of the 21 at-large bids, they will play in the NCAA tournament for the ninth time in 11 seasons. However, unlike last season when the Panthers hosted all four of its tournament games, they will likely be on the road in every game they play. 16 teams host the first two rounds of the 64-team tournament, and as the 18th-ranked team eliminated from the Nescac playoffs early, Middlebury is most likely on the outside looking in at that conversation. Head Coach Jeff Brown is not unfamiliar to playing on the road in the NCAA tournament though. In Middlebury’s first and only trip to the Final Four in the 2010-2011 season, the Panthers received a bye in the first round and won its second game at home, before going on the road to win their next two games to advance to the national semifinals.
At the beginning of the season, the Panthers set their sights on returning to Salem, Maine, to play in the Final Four. Despite this recent losing streak, that goal is still within reach, provided history holds.
Seniors Daly, who has already left his mark on the Middlebury record books, Nick Tarantino ’18 and Adisa Majors ’18 certainly are not prepared to let the season and their careers end. They and the Panthers have won a lot this year, and lost some close games to tough teams. Still, it seems like the final chapter on the 2017-2018 Middlebury men’s basketball team has not been written yet.
(02/22/18 2:40am)
Following a third-place finish at Nescacs earlier this month, where the Panthers pulled off a 5–4 win over Amherst, the 15th-ranked women’s squash team headed to the CSA Team Championships in Boston last weekend to compete in the B draw for the Kurtz Cup. They finished their season ranked 15th, after losing their first two matches of the weekend then defeating Amherst in a rematch on Sunday, Feb. 18.
Middlebury entered the weekend as a huge underdog — the Panthers were the 15th-ranked team in a draw that features the ninth through 16th-ranked teams. While they were the second lowest ranked team in the draw, their morale was high.
They began by facing No. 10 Dartmouth, the same team the Panthers lost to 8–1 earlier this season on their home courts.
Virginia Schaus ’21, who performed consistently well throughout her first season with the Panthers, claimed Middlebury’s only point against Dartmouth in a four-set triumph (11–3, 9–11, 11–7, 11–7) against Julia Potter at No. 6.
While the Panthers only tallied one point against the Big Green, several matches stood out as near misses for Middlebury. One of those was Alexa Comai ’19’s matchup in the No. 3 slot.
Comai battled into the fifth set against Dartmouth’s Sandra Reiss despite dropping the first game of the match 11–5. Comai quickly recovered though, and manufactured some momentum as she fought back to win the next two games 11–3 and 11–4, which made the next two games potential close-out sets. Unfortunately, after a hard fought fourth set, Comai ’19 fell 11–9, she could not get her energy back up for the fifth game and lost 11–3.
In the middle of the ladder, Anne Glassie ’20 and Natalie Madden ’21 missed the chance to pull off victories in their matches that went all the way to a fifth set. At No. 4, Glassie ’20 dropped the first two games against opponent Brynn Bank, 11–3, 11–7. But the tide changed when she fought tooth and nail for the third set, securing it with a score 13–11, before falling in the fourth set 11–7.
Madden ’21, another outstanding Panther rookie lost at No. 5 against Janel Gaube in a closely contested four set match 11–3, 11–7, 8–11, 11–4.
After falling to Dartmouth, Middlebury went on to play No. 14 Virginia in the consolation semifinal, where the Panthers fell to Virginia for the second time this season. Although, by only falling 7–2 this time around, the Panthers improved on their 8–1 showing earlier in the season.
In last weekend’s meeting with Virginia, the Panthers managed to get off to a good start when Natasha Lowitt ’20 tied the overall match 1–1 by winning a four set nailbiter in the No. 9 slot (11–7, 4–11, 13–11, 14–12). Unfortunately the winning streak didn’t last as Virginia won the next six matches, leading with a score of 7–1.
Mira Chugh ’20 put up a good fight in a tough five set match at No. 8 against Isabelle Ezratty. Chugh led the match with a two-game lead, 14–12, 11–5 but was then overtaken the next three sets 11–4, 11–8, 11–9.
At the top of the ladder, Beatrijs Kuijpers ’19’s match was the last on the day for the Panthers. Kuijpers ended the match on her terms as she defeated Carey Danforth in a well played four set match (11–9, 7–11, 11–4, 11–6). Their 7–2 loss to Virginia sent the Panthers onto the 15th-versus-16th-place game against Amherst. The matchup with the Mammoths offered a chance for the Panthers to finish in the top 15 in the year-end rankings for the ninth time in the last 10 seasons.
The team’s head coach, Mark Lewis, talked about how proud the team should be given the level of competition it faced in the first two rounds at nationals.
“We played really strong teams in the first two rounds (Dartmouth and UVA), played pretty well and learned that the team that applies pressure, sustains that pressure and relieves pressure tends to win.” But even after the two losses, the Panthers looked forward to apply pressure against Amherst to claim the 15th rank.
Rounding out the three day tournament with a 6–3 victory over Amherst in the 15/16 match, the Panthers finished their season with a 12–10 record.
Lowitt got things started on the right foot for the Panthers in the No. 9 slot, as she won a four-game match over Ashira Mawji. Undeterred from losing the first set 11–8, Lowitt powered through full force, claiming the next three sets, 11–5, 11–7, 11–7.
The Mammoths went on to two consecutive victories at No. 3 and No. 6 to gain a momentary 2–1 advantage. Comai put up a fight with a five set match in the No. 3 slot, narrowly falling by a score of 9–11, 11–6, 11–8, 5–11, 11–8. The loss at No. 6 by Schaus was also closely contested (6–11, 11–3, 11–8, 13–11).
Chugh’s result in the No. 8 slot broke the Mammoths winning streak. She racked up a four-game triumph over Pierson Klein. After losing the first set relatively quickly 11–3, Chugh made a huge comeback and won the next very close three sets, 11–9, 11–8, 11–8.
After that, the tide changed for the Panthers as they went on to win the next three consecutive matches. The wins came from Madden at No. 5, Emily Beinkampen ’21 in the No. 7 slot, and Lucy Bostwick ’18 at the No. 2.
Madden slipped past Madison Chen with a close four setter with a score of 11–9, 8–11, 11–8, 11–9. Beinkampen locked down her match in only three games (11–7, 11–7, 12–10), rounding out her first season on a positive note. Bostwick clinched a deciding five set match against Haley McAtee with a close score of 9–11, 11–5, 11–3, 8–11, 11–1.
The Mammoths gave a final push, breaking the Panthers’ winning streak with a three-game win at No. 4 (11–5, 11–6, 11–8), making the score 5–3. Kuijpers closed out the match, and tournament, with a three-game triumph against Kimberly Krayacich (11–6, 12–10, 11–9) in the top spot on the ladder.
Comai reflected on the tournament and the season in general.
“This season obviously had its high and low points,” Comai said. “I felt that overall the team really came together both on and off the courts.”
Coach Lewis agreed with Comai’s sentiments.
“In the match against Amherst we put in a really strong performance,” Lewis said. “Overall the season was good. Every team member had some wins and in their losses hopefully walked away with some valuable takeaways.”
Some great contributing factors to a solid season for the Panthers boiled down to great leadership and a strong support system, even from the underclassmen.
“We had a lot of great freshman who had an enormously positive contribution to the team and I am excited to see how they can help us to be even better next year,” said Comai.
“This year we had amazing leadership under our captain, Lucy Bostwick, as well as the rest of the senior class. We feel super grateful for everything that they have done for us and will miss them dearly.”
The women’s squash team is officially finished with their season, except for a select few competing in the Individual CSA championship in Washington D.C., March 2–4. After a grueling and competitive season, most of the Panthers are ready for a break, but also looking forward to continue training hard, getting prepared for the next season.
“I think after a little break we want to try to do a lot of match play and captains practices this spring to keep our skill level and fitness high,” Comai said on behalf of her Panther teammates who are already looking forward to the team’s potential going forward. “We also want to try to incorporate a lot of mental fitness training this spring and fall in order to allow each of us to be in our best competitive headspace come season.”
(02/22/18 2:32am)
In an exciting and tightly contested bout, the Wesleyan Cardinals (17–7) managed to escape Pepin Gym last Saturday, Feb. 17, with a 63–62 win over the women’s basketball team (17–8) in the Nescac quarterfinals.
Middlebury and Wesleyan met earlier in the season on Jan. 6, in what also was a home game for the Panthers. The Panthers comfortably won the regular season matchup by a 17 point margin, with guard Lily Kuntz ’20 scoring a career-high 13 points.
Both teams traded blows out of the gate, and Middlebury trailed 6–5 about halfway through the first quarter. Then things changed thanks to the Cardinals getting hot behind the arc. Wesleyan put together a 15–2 run over the span of five minutes run by sinking four out of their six three-point attempts in the quarter. A Betsy Knox ’20 jumper late in the quarter stopped the bleeding, but the Panthers still trailed by a dozen heading into the second.
Facing a 14-point deficit after the Cawrdinals opened the second quarter by hitting a jumper, the Panthers began a spirited effort that would last the rest of the game.
Middlebury began to cut the deficit with fluid ball movement, which began paying off almost immediately as they found easy buckets inside the paint. Catherine Harrison ’20 was able to have her way in down in the post for a majority of the quarter, and a basket from Sabrina Weeks ’18 cut Wesleyan’s lead to just six, 32–26. Over the final two and a half minutes, both teams went on small spurts, but a Knox buzzer-beater allowed the Panthers to have the last laugh and made the halftime deficit a manageable six.
Heading into the third down 36–30, the Panthers’ comeback hopes seemed even more realistic as Maya Davis ’20 almost immediately made a basket to bring the lead down to four.
However, the momentum then shifted in favor of the Cardinals who went on another run, 10–0. But, the Panthers responded this time with a 10–3 run of their own over the remaining minutes of the third which was capped by an Ivy Houde ’19 jumper to cut Wesleyan’s lead to 49–42.
With the crowd on their feet anticipating a comeback, the Cardinals silenced the crowd by playing hard defense. With just under six minutes and the deficit up to a dozen again, 56–44, Middlebury’s urgency caused them to run rampant over a span of three minutes that saw the Panthers go on an 11–0 run and which brought them within a point of the Cardinals.
With about ninety seconds remaining, the Cardinals secured a three and a pair of free-throws and found themselves up 61–55 with 35 seconds remaining on the clock.
On the next possession, Kira Waldman ’20 dribbled the ball up court and hit a step-back jumper from beyond the arc to cut the lead down to three with roughly 27 seconds in the game. Middlebury fouled to extend the game, and Wesleyan made one of two free throws.
With 13 seconds left, the Cardinals fouled Davis who sank two free throws to bring the Panthers within two. Once again, Middlebury fouled and Wesleyan made one of two free throws to make the score 63–60.
In quick succession, Sarah Kaufman ’18 managed to draw a foul on a shot attempt from downtown to be sent to the line for three free throws. After missing the first, she converted the next two and Middlebury was forced to foul with just 2 seconds left on the clock. The Cardinals missed both free throws, but time expired as both teams scrambled for the rebound.
Waldman led the Panthers in scoring with 14 points. The Panthers concluded their season with a 17–8 record, which matches their record from last season. The Panthers were engaged in a hard-fought battle that almost ended in an emphatic comeback. The near-comeback would have been all the more epic given the packed and raucous stands at an energetic Pepin Gym.
(02/22/18 2:28am)
MIDDLEBURY – Until last week, Vermont had evaded the fear of school shootings that have swept the nation.
The state was put to the test last Thursday after two separate tips reached Rutland County authorities regarding a teenager, 18, who was thought to pose a dire threat to the community. A young woman from Poughkeepsie, NY, contacted police after receiving messages from the teen, who is her, claiming he wanted to commit a shooting at a high school 30 miles south of Middlebury. Two days later, a parent also contacted authorities regarding suspicious behavior.
The eighteen-year-old was Jack Sawyer. In the span of only a few days, Sawyer was searched, arrested, arraigned on multiple charges of attempted aggravated murder and held without bail. Sawyer’s comprehensive plan to kill students at Fair Haven Union High School in Fair Haven, Vt., was thwarted in a matter of days through the swift action by local officials.
Sawyer’s life had been unstable in the past few years. After being kicked out of the local public school, he was being treated at a resident facility in Maine for the past year for anxiety and depression. According to Sawyer’s father, David Sawyer, he had checked himself out of the facility and returned to Vermont to seek a job on Feb. 9.
The disturbing affidavit written by Det. Sgt. Todd Wilkins last week detailed the events leading up to Sawyer’s arrest. On Feb. 13, Sawyer purchased a shotgun from Dick’s Sporting Goods. Two days later, Chief William Humphries was contacted by the Duchess County Sherriff’s Department regarding text messages Sawyer had exchanged with a young woman from Poughkeepsie, NY.
In the exchange, the woman questioned why Sawyer had returned to Vermont. “Back in VT I’m trying to start fresh,” Sawyer replied. “Just a few days ago I was still plotting on shooting up my old high school so it’s not like I really wanted a future anyways.”
The woman also was the one to notify Sawyer of the Florida high school shooting. Sawyer had been recently fixated on the 1999 Columbine shooting, and was reported by Det. Sgt. Wilkins to have been reading about it recently. “That’s fantastic. 100% support it,” Sawyer wrote in response to the massacre in Florida.
After reviewing the messages, Det. Sgt. Henry Alberico and Wilkins located Sawyer in Poultney, Vt. The two interviewed the teenager thoroughly, and it became evident how substantial his plan to kill students at Fair Haven High School was. Through the interview, the two learned of Sawyer’s aspirations to purchase an AR-15 and 9 mm Glock (both of which he could legally purchase in Vermont), the journal he had started months earlier entitled “Journal of an Active Shooter,” and that he simply wanted to kill “as many as [he could] get.”
This scare came only days after the school shooting on Feb. 14, in which 17 people were killed by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Immediately after the Florida rampage, Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, stood by the existing gun laws, which are some of the weakest in the nation. The was given an “F” grade by the Gifford Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, named for the former Arizona representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was seriously injured in a mass shooting in 2011.
For Scott, it took the threat of a school shooting in Fair Haven to reconsider the question of gun legislation, although he declined to offer any specific changes that he was open to. He expressed his shift in stance at a press conference last Friday. “If we are at a point when we put our kids on a bus and send them to school without being able to guarantee their safety, who are we?” Scott said at the news conference. “I need to be open-minded, objective and at least consider anything that will protect our kids.”
Since the fall, Senator Dick Sears, a Democrat from Bennington, has worked on a senate bill that would create a process to remove guns from citizens who appear to be a threat to themselves or others: those like Sawyer. For the next two weeks, the Senate Judiciary Committee will work on bringing the bill to a vote.
Gun Owners of Vermont, a group that endorsed Gov. Scott in the 2016 election, remains adamant that there be no strengthening of gun laws in the state. Ed Cutler, vice president of the group, told the Burlington Free Press that he suspected Scott was yielding to political pressure. “I hope he comes to realize that we’re his core base,” he told the paper.
(02/22/18 2:21am)
On Friday, February 19, members of the Middlebury community gathered at the Mitchell Green Lounge to attend the first Reflection Friday series of the semester. The Reflection Friday Series is a program created by the Innovation Hub in which speakers are invited to share what they consider valuable and why.
Among the main goals of the series is to “build bridges of communication amongst faculty and students in an intimate setting.” The speaker for February 19 was Mark Orten, Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life. Conducting the interview was Liz Robinson, Associate Dean of the College for Creativity, Engagement & Careers.
The audience was presented with a biography of Orten prior to his tenure at Middlebury. He spent 13 years as the director of religious and spiritual life at Denison University, where he was also chaplain. There, he organized interreligious educational service trips to Guatemala and instituted an interfaith dialogue program. Before Denison, Orten was a Presbyterian chaplain at Princeton University.
When asked about what matters to him, Orten provided a list of eleven items. The first item, process, reflects his belief that any journey toward attaining a desired result is as important as the result itself. A self-described introvert, Orten shared his need for solitude, the second item on his list. The other nine values he finds important are affirmation, dialogue, integrity, communication, consideration, community and ritual.
Orten also spoke of mindfulness, noting the concept’s current popularity, and characterized the phenomenon as being fully engaged and present in the moment. Orten insisted that the idea of mindfulness allows people a new way of “recognizing as a whole, something that has always been recognized throughout cultures.” In these cultures’ continuous attempts to explain reality, they share a common belief: that all of life is infused with sacredness, according to Orten.
He humorously described his attempts at mindfulness as being like a “monk on the freeway.” He believes that too much stimulation exists in our society, and that “all our joy and insight” can be found in our internal selves. Orten recommends that we recondition our focus toward being present instead of chasing after external rewards.
Orten believes that if the list of important things is intact during one’s day-to-day existence, one is doing well. Otherwise, if one senses that certain qualities are missing, it is time to adjust. To prevent one from deviating from what they consider valuable in life, Orten suggests that they stop, reflect, pay attention and observe.
Orten shared his embracing of certain rituals. He abides by principles of yoga, which ensures that his behavior is grounded in nonviolence. When stressed or anxious, he rings a bell in his office. Orten also lights incense, walks the newly installed labyrinth at the Knoll, and attends church on Sundays, which provides him with a renewed sense of community.
The moments that led Orten to pursuing ordained ministry started in childhood. Growing up in a rural area of North Carolina, Orten found himself passing time by catching baseballs he threw up in the sky. This activity gave him meaning: the feeling that “everything in life belonged” and that every aspect of life was in “complete integration.” Raised in a fundamentalist background, Orten went to a religious camp where he was recognized for his potential. He was then invited to attend a series of lectures at Yale. This experience showed him that life was different from the bubble of North Carolina. Orten eventually applied to the Princeton seminary despite backlash from his hometown. At the seminary, he realized the many forms that prayer can manifest itself in life.
Ultimately, the event provided students and faculty the opportunity to explore the ever important question, what do we value? Mark Orten, Dean of Spiritual and Religious Life, shared his ideas during this Friday lunch, but by hearing from other speakers in future reflections, we can expect even more opportunities to explore understanding of one’s values.
(02/15/18 2:03am)
“I can honestly say I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment,” said field hockey captain Lauren Schweppe ’18 just days after her team won it all for the first time — after years of highs and lows, of high expectations and dashed hopes. Not the NCAA Division III National Championship, mind you. In case you forgot, when she and the rest of the Middlebury field hockey team brought home the national title last fall, it was their second in three years. And as monumental as their achievement was, who’s ever heard of someone “waiting their whole life” to win something for the second time?
“Losing in ’05 was rough,” she continued, “but I think we all felt like this year was our chance for redemption, and it was.” Naturally, she was talking about her hometown team and the champions of Super Bowl LII: the Philadelphia Eagles. And if Schweppe thinks she’s waited a long time, imagine how her parents, her grandparents — heck, the whole city of Philadelphia — feel. Despite being one of the oldest franchises in the NFL (founded in 1933), the Eagles were one of nine teams who had been around for all 51 Super Bowls and hadn’t won a single one.
But on Sunday, February 4 the Eagles crossed their name off the list of teams who have come up short 51 times and hoisted the franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy (still remaining are the Bills, Browns, Cardinals, Chargers, Falcons, Lions, Titans, and Vikings). For most Philadelphia fans, the joy of the victory has as much to do with the company that they’re joining as with the past they’re leaving behind. The two sides are inseparable: for a place that Time Magazine dubbed “The Worst Sports City in America” as recently as 2015, the long-awaited championship tasted that much sweeter on account of all the heart-wrenching seasons that Philadelphia fans have suffered in the past.
Brendan Donohue ’18, a lifelong Eagles fan as well as a member of the Middlebury baseball team, still hasn’t given up hopes for his first collegiate championship — but also didn’t let that get in the way of celebrating Philadelphia’s success. “I grew up as an Eagles fan and watched every game with my dad,” he recalled. “I still remember the devastating feeling we felt each year watching them lose. I can’t explain how amazing it feels to be Super Bowl champions.
“As a 9 year old in 2005, I cried when we lost. This time I cried even harder when we won.”
As befits the city of Philadelphia, the Eagles’ road to the championship was hardly uneventful. After a blistering 10-2 start that had them positioned as easy favorites to win the NFC, their quarterback and MVP candidate Carson Wentz suffered a torn ACL in their week 14 victory over the Los Angeles Rams. Although fans of some teams might have had their doubts, Philadelphia fans — accustomed as they are to hardship and suffering — see doubt as a luxury not worth indulging in. “Philly fans never give up on their team,” said Schweppe. “Even after we lost Wentz, the overwhelming feeling was that we were confident in our team and confident in [Nick] Foles. We knew the Birds would pull through no matter what.”
Nick Foles, the unassuming backup with the goofy grin and who nearly hung up his cleats two years ago, took the helm in Philadelphia after Wentz’s injury. First, a little background: Foles was a third-round pick for the Eagles in 2012, and would step in to play when the starter, Michael Vick, suffered a concussion about midway through the season. In 2013, he tied an NFL record with seven touchdown passes in a single game and finished with one of the best single-season passer ratings of all time (119.3). The next season, Foles’ record was not nearly as clean, as he threw 13 touchdowns but also 10 interceptions in eight games. In his ninth game of the season Foles broke his collarbone, ending his season. At the time the Eagles were 6–2, but they went 4–4 the rest of the way and missed the playoffs. Foles was traded to the Rams after the 2014 campaign, ended up losing the starting position to Case Keenum, and asked to be released after the team drafted Jared Goff the next year. At this point, Foles was moments away from calling it quits and moving on from the NFL, he has said openly since that time. However, he took a chance and signed a contract with the Chiefs to play as a backup under his former coach Andy Reid. He saw limited action as a backup, but wasn’t satisfied with his role on the team and asked to be released; luckily for him, his skillset convinced the Philadelphia Eagles to re-sign him as backup before this past 2017 campaign.
Which brings us back to the weeks following Wentz’s injury. The Eagles had an uncertain finish to the regular season, to say the least: Foles showed some flashes but didn’t look outstanding on the whole, and it would be hard hard to say that the Eagles were coming in to the playoffs on a hot streak after their 6–0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in week 17 (of course, the Eagles’ starters barely saw the field — after all, that contest didn’t affect their place in the standings — but it certainly wasn’t a high note to end the regular season).
Despite being the number one seed in the NFC coming into their divisional round matchup against the Atlanta Falcons, there was enough doubt surrounding the Eagles team that Las Vegas books actually had them as the underdog coming into the game — at home, to boot. Philadelphia managed to come away with a 15–10 win behind a solid performance from Foles: certainly not resounding enough to silence their critics, but enough to keep them alive for one more week.
But the team kept on driving, and their fans followed suit, doubling down on their grit and even getting a little cocky about it. “The biggest surprise for me,” Donohue said, “was seeing how resilient the team was once we lost our MVP-caliber QB in Carson Wentz. Everyone talks about the Patriots’ ‘Next Man Up’ mentality, but I could guarantee they don’t make it past the divisional round with a backup QB.”
That faith paid dividends during Philadelphia’s head-turning performance in the NFC championship. Facing a Vikings team led by Case Keenum — the same quarterback that took his job a few years earlier on the Rams — Foles threw for three touchdowns and 352 on 26 for 33 passing en route to a 38–7 trouncing of Minnesota. The highlight of the game came with Foles under center with a 24–7 lead on the Vikings’ 41-yard line: Doug Pederson, the Philadelphia coach who never met a trick play he didn’t like, called the flea-flicker that would seal the game when Foles lofted a pass carefully into the hands of Torrey Smith just inside the end-zone pylon.
Sure, there was some time left in the game at this point, but the narrative for Super Bowl LII was already starting to take shape. Waiting for the Eagles were the New England Patriots juggernaut, led by the Brady-Belichick duo with five Super Bowls to their credit — including last year’s, which they won with the greatest comeback in NFL history, let alone on the biggest stage in football. It was the evil empire versus the lovable losers, the playoff perennials that everybody loves to hate against the against-all-odds, down-but-not-out upstarts with their eyes on the throne. Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader; Rocky Balboa versus Apollo Creed.
Any sports fan could find a team to root for under such circumstances; still, many student-athletes might feel a special affinity for the thrill of this particular athletic contest, since so often in their own careers they’ve been in the place of one if not both teams on the field. Take Schweppe, who, despite being a Philadelphia fan, plays for a Middlebury team that has more or less been the New England Patriots of Division III field hockey, let alone the Nescac, over the past few years. The fact that she could personally relate to the swagger and absolute confidence that the Patriots play with, only made it all the more exciting for her to root for her underdog Eagles on the big stage. “I think any athlete can relate to the competitive spirit of the Super Bowl,” she later said. “Although it’s definitely more stressful being a spectator who can only sit and scream at her TV than being one of the actual athletes on the field with the game in your hands.”
The game itself was nothing short of an absolute classic, a back-and-forth thriller guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat. Even if you didn’t have skin in the game, it was damn good football. Although Foles gave the Eagles a 38–33 lead with his third TD pass of the game with 2:25 remaining, the game was far from over: indeed, the Philadelphia faithful were more than likely seeing visions of the Patriots’ comeback from last year’s Super Bowl. With the Eagles holding a five-point lead, overtime seemed out of the question in this contest: Brady and the Patriots were set for an all-or-nothing drive, end zone or bust. But just two plays in, Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham beat his man to strip sack Brady well within New England territory, and the Eagles fell on the fumble. Foles and company would play it safe and settle for the field goal to push the score to 41–33 with about a minute remaining. Of course, Brady managed to put the Patriots in position for in a last-second Hail Mary, as everyone more or less knew he would, but Eagles fans across the country leapt for joy as the pass was swatted to the ground to seal the victory.
The City of Brotherly Love may not be known for its hospitable fans, but their victory was one that everyone outside of New England — and a good deal of folks within it — could take at least some share in rejoicing over. With characteristic Philadelphian irreverence, Donohue summed up what the victory meant for him and, by extension, countless others. “Being a Philadelphia fan is in my blood,” he said: “it’s something my dad and I bonded over during my childhood. Being an Eagles fan isn’t just about sports for me. It’s about family, and I don’t care if people think we’re scumbags, because now we’re scumbags who are champions.”
Unlike Schweppe, Donohue is still waiting on his turn to taste a championship in his Middlebury career. But that hasn’t stopped him from taking lessons from his fandom and putting them to use on the diamond. “I love to take the grit I’ve developed over the years as an Eagles fan and apply it to the grit I have on the baseball field,” he later explained. “I never really knew that ‘tears of joy’ were a thing until the Eagles won, and I can’t wait to bawl my eyes out again when the baseball team takes home the Nescac title.”
Here’s to all those underdog dreams coming true — for Middlebury students and athletes alike.
