The Dartmouth Sports Weekly 09/29/15

9.28. 15

FOOTBALL BLOWS OUT SACRED HEART 49-7

FIELD HOCKEY FALLS TO PRINCETON 7-3

MEN’S SOCCER UPSETS HOFSTRA 3-0 TIFFANY ZHAI, WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 2

BY THE NUMBERS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

Football blows out Sacred Heart 49-7, moves

178 Receiving yards for Victor Williams ’16

35 TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Unanswered first-half points for football

Dartmouth’s offense exploded in the first half, putting 35 unanswered points on the scoreboard against the Pioneers.

B y alexander agadjanian The Dartmouth Staff

3 Goals scored in four minutes by men’s soccer

7 Games without a loss for women’s soccer

Both the Dartmouth and Sacred Heart football teams suffered from sloppy early play last Saturday night, as the two teams involved combined for three fumbles within the first four minutes. Yet it was the Big Green that unquestionably emerged as the beneficiary of the turbulent start.

It took only 10 minutes for Dartmouth to build up a 21-point advantage and by halftime the contest was all but decided, as Dartmouth (2-0) cruised to a 49-7 blowout of the Pioneers (2-2) in its first home competition to make it two consecutive dominant wins to open 2015.

In contrast to last week’s game, which saw Dartmouth defeat Georgetown University 31-10, the Big Green immediately settled into an offensive rhythm on Saturday.

Quarterback Dalyn Williams ’16, who often emphasizes early success as the key to developing the offense, found Victor Williams ’16 over the middle of the field for 32 yards on the second play from scrimmage. The big play pickup was a harbinger of things

Katie McKay ’16 Editor-in-Chief

9. 21. 15

Luke McCann ’16 Executive Editor

to come, but just a few plays later the drive came to an abrupt halt.

After Williams completed a pass on third down to Vito Penza ’19 in the flat, the freshman coughed up the ball after being brought down within yards of the end zone.

A goal line turnover often provides a drastic shift in momentum and the following snap added another dose of volatility.

With Sacred Heart starting at its own five-yard line, quarterback R.J. Noel mishandled a low snap and could not recover before Folarin Orimolade ’17 pounced on the ball in the end zone, thereby marking the first points of the game.

Before the Pioneers could make amends on their next offensive snap, a special teams miscue returned the Big Green the ball deep

in opposing territory mere seconds later. Leaping into the air so as to evade Big Green tacklers coming in low, return man Nate Chavious lost control of the ball as he fell to the ground. A scrum ensued for the football, and Dartmouth’s Will Konstant ’16 came out with possession.

Despite taking nine plays in what amounted to the team’s second-longest drive of the night, the Big Green offense made sure to capitalize on the opportunity.

Ryder Stone ’18 followed a first down conversion through the air with one on the ground on fourth down, and a few plays later punched it in for a touchdown to extend Dartmouth’s lead to 14-0 at the 8:18 mark in the first quarter.

Two minutes later to begin the next offensive possession, Stone

burst through a porous Sacred Heart defense for 62 yards to set the team up with another goal line situation. With the opposition on its heels, Dartmouth struck once more, as an option play to the left saw Williams pitch the ball to Brian Grove ’16, who easily covered nine yards to enter the end zone and produce a 21-0 lead.

Williams maintained offensive fluidity into the second quarter, punching in a four-yard score himself on the ground and two minutes later uncorking a 60yard touchdown bomb down the right sideline to his favorite target of the night, Victor Williams.

By halftime, Dartmouth had an overpowering 378-83 edge in total offensive yards — averaging just short of 10 yards per play — as part of out-scoring its visitors 35-0 at the break.

More of the same dominance continued in a comparably uneventful second half of play.

Sacred Heart finally got on the scoreboard when Chavious capped a 14-play drive with a one-yard touchdown, but the score was quickly countered three minutes later thanks to a balanced Big Green offensive drive that ended with a three-yard TD scamper by Stone.

The scoring concluded early in the fourth quarter when backup Pioneer quarterback Kevin Duke — who replaced the team’s starter toward the end of the first half — threw an interception to Dartmouth safety David Caldwell ’16, who returned the ball 77 yards down the right sideline for a picksix to make the score line 49-7.

The play was emblematic of yet another stifling effort from the

Justin Levine ’16 Publisher

Jessica Avitabile ’16 Executive Editor

Joe Clyne ’16 Henry Arndt ’16 Katie Jarrett ’16 Sports Editors

Kate Herrington ’17 Photography Editor

TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Despite three veteran leaders sitting out the game, the Big Green dominated Sacred Heart in a one-sided rout.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

to 2-0 on season before Ivy opener

SW 3

THE

RUNDOWN Football SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

HARVARD YALE BROWN CORNELL PRINCETON DARTMOUTH PENN COLUMBIA

1-0 1-0 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0

2-0 2-0 0-2 0-2 2-0 2-0 1-1 0-2

Women’s Soccer TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The Big Green defense forced five turnovers in the game, including an interception and fumble that were both returned for scores.

Big Green defense in the young 2015 campaign. It marked the third defensive touchdown and eighth forced turnover

by Dartmouth within the season’s first two games, a period in which the opposing offense has not exceeded 10 points in scoring output and failed to gain more than 4.0 yards per play.

“Guys are just balling out there,” Caldwell said about the performance on Saturday. “The [defensive] line played great. And then I’m playing in a secondary with a bunch of experienced guys that makes it so easy… [it’s] a group of guys with a lot of snaps under their belt.”

Heading into Saturday, the main question was how Dartmouth would respond to Sacred Heart’s defense.

Facing an aggressive press coverage and a unit that sent a lot of quarterback pressure, the Big Green played about as well as it could have hoped.

In constantly exploiting the manto-man defense throughout the entire contest, Dartmouth racked up seven pass plays of at least 30 yards — two of which cracked 40 — in addition to explosive runs of 62 and 21 yards.

For head coach Buddy Teevens, strong play from the offensive line — a relatively inexperienced position on the team roster this year — paved the way for air attack proficiency.

“I think the key was the pass protection,” he said after the game. “We knew that they were going to send a lot of people, and that was the biggest concern. With the matchups, we thought we had some quickness and speed on the perimeter, and if we could hold the fort, [Dalyn Williams] throws the deep ball very well, we’d have a chance. And that was borne out.”

With respect to the passing game, these big play successes had two principal causes. For one, the receiving corps — led by Victor Williams, who finished the night with 11 catches for 178 yards and a touchdown — created massive amounts of separation from

Pioneer defenders on what seemed every play.

“The mindset was just, there’s going to be plays out there to be made,” Victor Williams said. “They play a lot of man [coverage], so when you play a lot of man, you blow coverages.”

Secondly, Dalyn Williams had a sublime performance on Saturday, throwing for 313 yards and a TD on 21-28 passing, along with 36 yards and a score on the ground.

The senior quarterback enjoyed pinpoint accuracy for much of the game in anticipating his receivers’ routes well, but also displayed perfect pocket awareness and footwork when in need of escaping the Pioneer rush.

Prior to the game, Teevens elected to sit two of his captains who played in the opening week — Will McNamara ’16 and Ryan McManus ’15 — and

continued to keep running back Kyle Bramble ’16 off the field. Despite missing three of its best players, the Big Green didn’t miss a beat, all the while giving important rest to the trio ahead of the start to the Ivy League slate.

“They could’ve gone, and the thought going in was, we think we’ve got what we need with some of the other [players],” Teevens said. “We’re just going to hold point on those guys and give them an extra week to really get up and ready. I think it was a wise move, and it was nice to see that the [other] guys stepped up and played so well.”

The Big Green will now prepare for its Ivy League opener, as the team travels to Philadelphia next Saturday for a 3:30 kickoff time against an upstart squad in the University of Pennsylvania Quakers.

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

CORNELL PRINCETON HARVARD DARTMOUTH BROWN PENN COLUMBIA YALE

1-0 1-0 1-0 0-0-1 0-0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1

7-0-2 6-3-0 3-6-1 6-1-2 3-4-1 4-2-2 4-5-0 3-4-2

Men’s Soccer SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

COLUMBIA PRINCETON BROWN DARTMOUTH HARVARD CORNELL YALE PENN

0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0

4-1-1 3-2-0 4-3-0 3-3-1 1-4-2 1-7-1 1-6-0 0-5-1

Field Hockey SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PENN COLUMBIA HARVARD PRINCETON CORNELL DARTMOUTH BROWN YALE

1-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1

6-1 5-2 5-2 3-4 4-3 3-4 3-5 2-5

Volleyball

TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Dalyn Williams ’16 lit up the Pioneer defense, throwing for over 300 yards and a score.

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

YALE PENN DARTMOUTH COLUMBIA BROWN PRINCETON CORNELL HARVARD

1-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1

6-4 7-6 4-6 3-7 6-6 5-5 4-7 4-7

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 4

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

Men’s soccer upsets No. 18 Hofstra with three late goals

B y ray lu

The Dartmouth Staff

In a tight affair that saw both teams unable to get ahead for the first 80 minutes, the men’s soccer team exploded for three goals in the final six minutes to knock down No. 18 Hofstra University (6-2), dealing the Pride its second loss of the season. The Big Green’s (3-3-1) performance at Burnham Field on Saturday night flipped the script from its recent pair of losses on a frustrating trip to Seattle last weekend.

“For the first 84 minutes, it was a pretty close game,” Stefan Cleveland ’16 said. “Fortunately right there at the end, we were able to get the first goal and then they started to flood in for the last six minutes. End of the night, we put the game away.”

The floodgates opened when Matt Danilack ’18 headed in a corner from Matt Greer ’18 in the 84th minute. Less than two minutes later, Eduvie Ikoba ’19 tested Hofstra’s senior goalkeeper Patric Pray. Pray deflected the shot right to the feet of

Babacar Gadiaga ’18, who finished off the job, giving Dartmouth a 2-0 lead.

In the 87th minute, Ikoba found the back of the net himself, weaving past a pair of defenders and then the keeper for his second goal of the season. Ikoba led the team with three shots on target, and his five shots were tied for the team lead with Yima Asom ’18.

Although Dartmouth failed to score until late, the Big Green had many scoring chances throughout the game that it could not convert into goals. The Big Green outshot Hofstra 19-to-11 and had five corner kicks to the Pride’s one. Hofstra sophomore Meshack Eshun Addy is tied for the lead on his team with four goals on the season, but he failed to capitalize on the night. His one shot came early in the second half, just over the crossbar. Joseph Holland, who shares the lead with Eshun Addy, led Hofstra that night with five shots, but he also failed to find the net.

The defense also held strong for the Big Green. Cleveland was only pressed into two save situations in

the first half and finished with four for the game.

“Not a whole lot [of offensive pressure], which is the way it should be,” Cleveland said. “The defense and the midfield did a fantastic job, left me with not too much to do. It’s great to have such a strong defense, to know that I don’t have to do my job nearly as often as I could.”

Hofstra came into the game averaging 1.86 goals per game. The Pride’s early season ranking comes on the strength of its second half play. Eleven of Hofstra’s 13 goals have come in the second half.

The Big Green opened up its season against tough opponents in a tight schedule. Dartmouth played six games in just over two weeks from Sep. 4 to Sep. 20, winning just two.

“We were really, really happy with the game on Saturday,” Danilack said. “We finally matched the performance with the result. We had to wait to get all three goals in the last five minutes, but we finally got them, they finally came, and we were just really happy about the result and now really confident

going into Ivy League play starting next week.”

The early grind gave the younger players a lot of playing time to improve. Members from across the lineup have contributed to Dartmouth’s success on offense. Ikoba leads the team with two goals, but the 10 goals that the Big Green have scored so far this season have come from nine different players.

“We are all just encouraged to do our best, and we know that we all provide different talents that help us,” Ikoba said. “In some ways, we’re the same as the players that [graduated], and in some ways we’re different. It has just been bringing our own, different identities to the team, and through that we have been able to fulfill some the things we lost last year. We’ve also been able to add some [talents] as well.”

Head coach Chad Riley is utilizing nearly every inch of his depth chart in games. Seven games into the season, 21 players have already received playing time. The starting lineups have also been mixed and matched. Danilack and defender Sten Stray-Gundersen ’16 are the

only two players to start every game this season so far.

The win bodes well for Dartmouth as the team enters Ivy League play next weekend against Princeton University.

Princeton will visit Burnham Field this Saturday. Although Dartmouth and Princeton shared the Ivy League title last season, no team has won back-to-back championships since Dartmouth in 2004-05. Since then, every school except Columbia University has won a share of a men’s soccer title.

Last season, the Big Green took a five-game unbeaten streak into the Ivy opener against Princeton, where Danilack scored the game-winning goal in overtime. While the Big Green will not have the same kind of win streak this year, the big win against a top 25 opponent in Hofstra should provide some momentum.

“I think this week everything’s going toward Princeton, and after that we’ll move on,” Cleveland said. “We’re really on a high horse right now with a win coming into Princeton, got a good mentality in the group. We’re all pretty excited.”

Field hockey falls 7-3 to No. 20 Princeton Tigers in Ivy opener

B y GAYNE KALUSTIAN The Dartmouth Staff

In its Ivy League opener this past Sunday at its home Chase AstroTurf Field, the field hockey team fell to No. 20 Princeton University 7-3, bringing the overall season record to 3-4. The Tigers (3-4, 1-0 Ivy) have been a continual powerhouse among the Ivies, taking the league title alone or sharing it every year since 2005 and maintaining a 20-game Ivy winning streak dating back to Sept.

2011.

The team, Julia Donald ’18 said, scouted Princeton heavily and knew what they were up against.

“They have really good execution on corners, fast play,” Donald said. “We knew that they were going to break back in the middle. We felt prepared, but there is only so much you can do against a strong program that has been traditionally pretty strong.”

Despite ultimately dropping the game, the team played some of its best hockey in the closing minutes.

With victory out of reach and less than two minutes left in the match, the Big Green kept up the pressure, eventually ending up in a penalty corner that Dartmouth was able to execute to near perfection, with Brooke Van Valkenburg ’16 scoring the final goal of the game.

As time expired, Princeton was awarded a corner, which the two

teams played through. Dartmouth snuffed the attempt before heading to the benches. Playing through the final minutes, head coach Amy Fowler said, bodes well for the Big Green moving forward. In particular, she pointed to Hailey Valerio ’19, who came into the game at the 44th minute to substitute for Paige Duffy ’17 at the goal.

“I’m really proud of them that they just found a way to stay in it and fight to the end,” she said.

“For them to play it out and have our backup goalkeeper come in and make the save, it does a ton for her confidence. It does a ton for the defense, that they saved that last opportunity and said we’re not going to let this in.”

The Tigers netted the first three goals of the game within the first 10 minutes of play, notching the first only 18 seconds in. The second goal came when Princeton’s Maddie Copeland cherry-picked a pass from her own team’s defensive half. The third goal of the game, also scored by Copeland, came at the end of the 10th minute after she redirected a corner. After the scoring drive by Princeton, Dartmouth made two big stops in their own backfield to hold the Tigers to a three-goal lead.

The Big Green, who struggled to take control in the early minutes, settled in after a time out part way through the first half.

Dartmouth’s first goal came after

the Tigers’ goalie made a stop on a hard shot from Rebecca Hu ’15.

Anna Ewasechko ’18 gathered the rebound and slotted the ball into the net.

The Big Green made a critical stop on a penalty corner after a Dartmouth defender left early on the initial corner, leaving the team with Duffy and three others back to defend. Dartmouth was able to stop the Tigers not only once, but again after Princeton came back on a rebound attack. Duffy left the net to put pressure on the attacker, who crossed it over to her own support that hit the shot wide.

Playing a man down, the Tigers sent out an assault on the Big Green defense, dismantled first by Duffy who laid on the ground, stick and arm outstretched, to force a miss by the Tigers.

Dartmouth netted the first goal of the second half, inching closer to the Tigers after taking a penalty corner, which ended with the ball on a Princeton foot. On the second corner, the Princeton goalie got a piece of the ball with her stick but was unable to make the save.

Behind by only one goal, the Big Green allowed the game to get out of hand with a lull in its play, giving space for the Tigers to notch three quick unanswered goals less than a minute apart. The teams traded possession for the next 14 minutes before the Tigers were awarded a penalty stroke on a hacking call

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Three early goals from Princeton put the Big Green in trouble right off the bat.

against the Big Green, poising Princeton to score its final goal of the game.

Midfielder Jo Nazareth ’17 called the day one of “learning,” expressing hope that the team would build on this performance as it takes on the other six Ivy contenders.

Overall, Princeton was able to capitalize on some gaps in the Big Green’s play, Fowler said.

“They have a very good game sense in terms of being able to hit the open player, and we struggled

with some of our transitional play,” she said. “We didn’t always find the open player and we were forcing it a bit too much. I think they hit nice passing combinations, which allowed them to get up and out and create numbers up situations. If you play numbers up, you’re more likely to put the ball in the net.”

The Big Green next takes the field this Saturday in Providence, Rhode Island, against the Brown University Bears, followed by a match against Providence College the next day.