02.25.19
The Weekend Roundup p. 2-3
Pucks in Deep: Let the Hurricanes Have Some Fun p. 4
Men’s baseball looks for success in Whalen’s 30th season p. 7
Transfer AryTurner prepares to play for Big Green next season p. 8
An inside look at the women’s basketball recruiting process p. 6 EVAN MORGAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
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THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
The weekend Roundup
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2019
TRACK AND FIELD
Compiled by THE DARTMOUTH sports STAFF
SKIING Under balmy 30-deg ree temperatures at Bates College, Dartmouth won its third straight E a s t e r n I n t e rc o l l e g i a t e S k i Association title on Saturday. The Big Green took 11 podium steps, including event wins from James Ferri ’19, Tanguy Nef ’20 and Katharine Ogden ’21, en route to a 12-point win over the University of Vermont. Friday began with the final women’s 5-kilometer freestyle of the season. The Catamounts’ Lina Sutro took first, completing her season sweep of the skate races, but the Dartmouth women had a strong day. Lydia Blanchet ’19 finished 2.9 seconds behind Sutro, with Katharine Ogden ’21 and Lauren Jortberg ’20 in third and fourth, both within 10 seconds of Blanchet. All six women’s Nordic skiers who made the trip to Bates finished in the top 10. In the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle, Friday marked the first time this season that all three of the Big Green’s scorers were among the top 15 finishers. Callan DeLine ’18 paced the group in seventh, while Gavin McEwen ’19 took 11th and Adam Glueck ’21 was 15th. Friday’s giant slalom course took skiers over an icy, rhythmic top section followed by an extended downhill covered in soft snow. Ferri stole the show for the Big Green, as he edged UVM’s Guillame Grand by .17 seconds to win his first collegiate race and make his first podium appearance in the green and white. Drew Duffy ’21 took third, .41 seconds back of Ferri,
and a trio of Dartmouth names finished behind him in fifth, sixth and seventh. On the women’s side, Dartmouth skiers and Catamounts fought it out over the top five spots. UVM’s Mille Graesdal won, while Patricia Mangan ’19 took second followed by Alexa Dlouhy ’19 in fourth, with a UVM skier on either side of Dlouhy. Ogden was back in her NCAA championship-winning form in Saturday’s mass start 15-kilometer classic, which she won by more than a minute in 42:48.7, followed by Jortberg, who took second in a photo finish with UVM’s Anna Bizyukova. Blanchet rounded out the scoring in sixth. DeLine broke up a Catamount lead pack in the men’s mass start 20-kilometer classic and finished in third place. McEwen and Glueck also cracked the top 15. UVM and Dartmouth were neck and neck again in the women’s giant slalom, taking the first seven spots between them. Mangan took second again while Dlouhy and Steph Currie ’20 were fourth and fifth, with Claire Thomas ’21 finishing seventh. On the men’s side, Nef put more than a second between him and UVM’s Grand, who finished second. Duffy nabbed the last podium spot, with David Domonoske ’20 right on his heels in fourth. With that, the 2019 carnival season is in the books, and the Big Green remains on top. Dartmouth will look forward to having the NCAA Championships on familiar snow at UVM in two weeks.
To see all 16 sports that played this weekend, visit www.thedartmouth.com.
Zachary ZacharyBenjamin Benjamin’19 ’19
Zachary Benjamin ’19 Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief
Hanting Hanting Guo Guo ’19 ’19
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2.25.19 Vol. CLXXV CLXXV No. No. 27 141 4.30.18 4.23.18 Vol. 21
Mark Cui ’19
Mark Cui ’19 Alex Fredman ’20 Justin Kramer ’21’20 Samantha Hussey Evan Morgan ’19
Associate Sports Editor Sports Editors Divya DivyaKopalle Kopalle Kopalle’21 ’21 ’21 Divya Michael MichaelLin Lin Lin’21 ’21 ’21 Michael Photography PhotographyEditors Editors Editors Photography Jaclyn Jaclyn Eagle Eagle ’19 ’19 Hattie Newton ’21 Templating TemplatingEditor Editor Editor Templating
MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
The men’s track and field team took sixth at Indoor Heps, slipping two places from 2018.
Women’s track and field The women’s track and field team got off to a fast start at the Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships, ending the first day of competition in first place before settling back to third place by the end of the weekend. The University of Pennsylvania won for the third straight year and Harvard University finished second. Julia Valenti ’20 defended her title in the pole vault with a jump of 3.91 meters, becoming the first Dartmouth woman to win the event twice. Brooke Brunet ’21 finished third in the same event. Cha’Mia Rothwell ’20, who won the indoor long jump each of her first two seasons, jumped 5.85 meters to finish third on Saturday. Elsewhere on the field, Dartmouth grabbed points in the multis as Maria Garman ’19 and Anoush Krafian ’22 went 3-4 in the pentathlon, while Amelia Ali ’19 and Lily Lockhart ’21 were fourth and sixth in the weight throw.
On Sunday, Rothwell took first for the third year in a row in the 60m hurdles with a time of 8.37, earning her All-Ivy First Team honors. Claire Dougherty ’20 finished second in the 800m with a 2:08.79, and Garman tied for second place in the high jump. Men’s track and field The Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships got started on a sour note as the Big Green failed to score any points on the first day of competition, but the team was able to pick up 50 points on Sunday to finish sixth out of eight teams. Tim Zepf ’21 finished second in the 800m with a time of 1:50.61 and earned All-Ivy League Second Team honors. Meanwhile, Donovan Spearman ’21 finished in third place in both the 60m hurdles and 200m with times of 6.85 and 21.77, respectively. The Big Green also received a big boost in the 4x800 relay, finishing in second with a time of 7:41.62.
men’s hockey The men’s hockey split its final two home games in the regular season and secured a home playoff series in the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament. The Big Green completed a season sweep of Yale University on Friday, but fell to Brown University on Saturday night. The Big Green started the weekend with a 2-0 win over the Yale Bulldogs. Less than one minute into the game, Dartmouth defender Brendan Less ’21 found the back of the net for his first career goal off of a backhand pass from Matt Baker ’21. Baker found the back of the net himself in the second period to extend the Big Green’s lead. The Big Green, which was outshot 28-26, improved its record to 6-0-0 when recording fewer shots on goal than its opponents. The story of the night was the goaltending of Adrian Clark ’20. Clark recorded his fifth shutout of the season, stopping all 28 of the Bulldogs’ shots. Clark’s five shutouts are the most for a Big Green goalie in 99 seasons and are tied for second-most in the nation. Clark also shut out Yale in New Haven during Dartmouth’s 3-0 win on Nov. 10. Friday’s game was the first shutout for Clark at Thompson Arena, and Clark’s six career shutouts
are tied for second-most in school history. The Big Green reversed roles in another 2-0 game on Saturday, failing to find the net in a loss against Brown. The Bears scored on the power play in the second period and added a second goal in the third period. The Big Green struggled offensively and failed to score on four power play opportunities. Following the game, the team’s seniors were honored for Senior Night. The Bears’ victory places Brown and Dartmouth into a tie for sixth place in the ECAC standings with two games left in the regular season. Brown owns the tiebreaker over Dartmouth due to its season sweep of the Big Green. Colgate University’s overtime win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ensured that the Big Green will return to Thompson Arena this postseason in a playoff series. The Big Green sits four points out of the fourth place spot necessary for a first-round bye and will likely host a three-game series in the first round of the ECAC tournament on Mar. 8-10. The Big Green (10-13-4, 9-8-3 ECAC) travel to play Union College and RPI to conclude its regular season before beginning play in the conference tournament.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
W SWIMMING & DIVING since 1997. Not to be out-done, Mia Leko ’22 won the very next race, the 200-yard butterfly, in 1:57.62, making her the first Dartmouth champion in the event since 1996. More program records fell elsewhere during the meet. Sarah Minnigh ’22 took third in the 1,650-yard freestyle (16:30.60) to beat the previous program record by nine seconds. Stumpf broke her own 200-yard IM record twice, first in prelims and then with a time of 1:59.79 to win the B final. Other strong performances included Minnigh’s third in the 1,000-yard freestyle (9:51.68), Stumpf ’s third in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.14) and Leko’s fifth in the 200-yard freestyle (1:48.03) and sixth in the 500-yard freestyle.
Women’s SQUASH Ninth-seeded women’s squash played well at the College Squash Association finals this weekend, defeating Amherst College and Brown University but falling to Cornell University to come in second in the Kurtz Cup. Sweeps from Anne Blasberg ’20, Darden Gildea ’22, Ellie Gozigian ’21, Emma MacTaggart ’22 and Sandra Reiss ’21 powered the Big Green to a 7-2 win against Amherst as Gozigian surrendered just 10 points. Junnat Anwar ’20 was the only Dartmouth victor who went to four games. The Big Green moved on to face Brown, which the team had played to a
5-4 win earlier this month, and this time came out ahead 7-2. Blasberg, Brynn Bank ’21, Gozigian and Emma Roberts ’19 came away with sweeps, while Gildea, MacTaggart and Julia Potter ’20 gutted out five-game wins. But the Big Green couldn’t keep up the momentum against Cornell on Sunday, dropping the match 6-3, with wins coming from Bank, Reiss and Roberts. With team play concluded for the season, the Big Green (7-8) will participate in the Ivy League individual championships next weekend in Providence, Rhode Island.
TENNIS
Men’s tennis The No. 28 Big Green went 2-1 in three games at home this weekend, defeating No. 36 University of Memphis on Friday and the next day splitting a pair of matches against Wichita State University and Boston University. The team’s 4-0 victory on Friday was kicked off by a doubles win from 19th-ranked pair Charlie Broom ’20 and David Horneffer ’20 and then from John Speicher ’21 and Dan Martin ’21. Peter Conklin ’21, Horneffer and Casey Ross ’21 followed up with singles victories to secure the sweep. Unranked Wichita State dealt the Big Green a stinging defeat on Saturday. Dartmouth won the doubles point, but Horneffer retired from his match at the No. 3 spot to pull Wichita State level. After a win from Conklin at No. 4, three consecutive straightset Shocker wins sealed the deal. BU proved to be easier competition. With Horneffer out of the lineup, Conklin/Ross and Broom/Pierce Widdecombe ’22 secured the doubles point. Though Ross surrendered a point at No. 4, Dartmouth cruised to victory with singles wins from Broom, Conklin, Sid Chari ’22, Speicher and Widdecombe.
NATALIE DAMERON/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The Big Green (7-5) has an extended break before its next match on March 19 against Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. That weekend, the team will head to Houston to participate in the Rice University invitational. Women’s tennis Michigan State University hosted the Big Green this weekend for a pair of games against the Spartans and Marquette University. The Golden Eagles got the better of Dartmouth on Saturday by a score of 6-1. First-year duo Jingyi Peng ’22 and Nina Paripovic ’22 won a doubles match, though Dartmouth lost the point), and Allison McCann downed Marquette foe Lesley Foe, the only wins of the afternoon. Stalwart juniors Chuyang Guan ’20 and Racquel Lyn ’20 kept their matches close, each falling in three sets. Michigan State University dealt Dartmouth another 6-1 defeat the following day, grabbing the doubles points and reeling off four straight singles wins to nearly put the match out of reach. Paripovic got the one win in straight sets. The Big Green will take on the University of Massachusetts at home next weekend.
lead before the final buzzer. Isalys Quinones ’19 paced the Big Green in points with 18. Katie Douglas ’22 added 13 off the bench, and Lenart contributed 10. After finishing the first half up by just six against the last-place Bears the following evening, a 47-point second half sealed a convincing 78-43 victory. Meanwhile, Yale’s 83-69 loss to the Crimson threw the Big Green back into the mix as contenders for the Ivy League tournament. Four members of Dartmouth’s squad scored in double figures, with three of them setting career highs. Quinones again led the Big Green’s scoring effort with 23 points and Douglas added 20, while Kealy Brown ’19 and Lenart scored 14 and 11 points respectively. Next weekend, the Big Green will leave New England to take on league leaders University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University on the road, two critical matchups in determining the Big Green’s postseason fate.
Coming off a thrilling upset of No. 4 Clarkson University last week, the women’s hockey team took both its weekend games to overtime for the second week in a row. The result: a 1-0 loss at Yale University on Friday and a 1-1 tie at Brown University the following day. Against Yale, goalie Christine Honor ’19 was able to shut out the Bulldogs through regulation, but in overtime, Dartmouth was tagged with a penalty with 22 seconds in, and Yale took advantage with a power play goal to secure the victory. The Big Green could not find the back of the net despite 25 shots on goal, including seven from Tess Bracken ’19. Dartmouth skated to a 1-1 tie with Brown the next afternoon in a game that featured 19 penalties
and two special-teams goals. The Bears are one of just two teams ranked below Dartmouth in the ECAC standings, and the Big Green had the advantage early. Dartmouth outshot the host 16-9 in the first period. Five minutes through the second period, that pressure paid off as Bracken fired home a puck from the blue line. However, Brown’s Hayley Kliczko kept the Big Green off the board for the rest of regulation. With four minutes remaining, and a Dartmouth player in the box, the Bears pulled their goalie and found the back of the net. Dartmouth outshot Brown 8-0 in the extra period but came away empty. The Big Green finish the season with a record of 5-21-3, 4-16-2 ECAC.
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No. 28 men’s tennis went 2-1 in a weekend series in Hanover.
On Friday and Saturday, the Dartmouth women’s basketball team’s success in Leede Arena helped them hold on to the chance of an Ivy League tournament berth. Friday night, the Big Green beat Yale University at home for the first time in 10 years on a buzzer-beating put-back from Paula Lenart ’20. In its first full game without Cy Lippold ’19, the Big Green’s starting point guard, assists leader and second-leading scorer, a team effort propelled the Big Green past the Bulldogs 56-54 just three weeks after the same Yale team beat the Green and White on its own home court, 64-49. The Big Green struggled in the first quarter, scoring eight points to Yale’s 18. However, they held the Bulldogs to just two in the second, and headed to halftime tied 20-20. A solid third quarter put Dartmouth in good position for the fourth, and when the Bulldogs fought back and took the lead with less than four minutes on the clock, the Big Green stepped up to reclaim the
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The women’s swimming and diving team won two individual titles on its way to a sixth-place finish at the Ivy League Championship meet, the team’s best-ever performance under head coach Jamie Holder. Harvard scored 1,500 points for the second straight year, while the Big Green bested Cornell University and Columbia University. A pair of underclassmen put the exclamation mark on the meet by winning individual titles in consecutive events on Saturday, the fourth and final day of the championship meet. Mackenzie Stumpf ’21 won the 200-yard breaststroke in a time of 2:11.94, 0.7 seconds faster than her second-place time at last year’s championship meet. Stumpf is the Big Green’s first 200-yard breaststroke champion
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The Dartmouth men’s basketball team had another tough road trip, losing 77-59 to Yale University on Friday night and 68-65 to Brown University on Saturday night. The Yale game ended the same way the the team’s earlier matchup against Yale did, with the Bulldogs winning in a blowout. Miye Oni, Yale’s star forward, only scored 10 points in this game compared to 31 in the first contest, but Yale’s Alex Copeland scored 23 to carry the load. Brendan Barry ’20 led the way for Dartmouth with 17 points.
The game against Brown also followed an almost identical script to the team’s earlier game this season, with Dartmouth taking a sizable lead midway through the second half before surrendering it and losing in a close contest. James Foye ’20 led all scorers with 25 points on the night. With the loss, the Big Green dropped to 11-15 overall and 2-8 in Ivy League play. It has lost six of those eight Ivy League games by five points or fewer, continuing with the season’s theme of tough losses in winnable games.
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Pucks in Deep
with Sam Stockton ’19 PucksinDeep:LettheHurricanes Have Some Fun If you haven’t been following the NHL season too closely, you may not have heard about the audacity of the Carolina Hurricanes, who have been so bold as to enjoy winning hockey games on home ice. After each win at PNC Arena in Raleigh, the Canes, led by their captain Justin Williams, perform some choreographed group celebration at center ice to the delight of their fans, whether jumping into the glass, sliding on their rear ends miming kayaking or — one of their most recent acts — re-staging a baseball home run trot, complete with a monstrous bat flip from Warren Foegele to make sure baseball purists were upset along with the angry old hockey men. Hockey media’s spokesman for those angry old hockey men Don
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
Cherry referred to the Canes as a “bunch of jerks” over the baseball celebration. Dressed in a vibrant blue blazer adorned with golden dragons and a bright yellow tie, Cherry jeered, “Young men expressing themselves for joy of winning ... you don’t do this thing in professional hockey.” It is easy to see why a humble man like Cherry would be repulsed by flashiness or an attempt to draw attention to oneself, but professional hockey, like any sport, is an entertainment industry. Whatever pleases the home fans, as the “Storm Surge” celebrations have, is worthwhile. More importantly, it is the opinion of this columnist that the NHL’s biggest advantage is its sport itself. Hockey is the best game there is; it requires a unique combination of hand-eye coordination, endurance, quick twitch speed and strength. However, the culture surrounding professional hockey is overwhelmingly boring and exclusionary. Cherry’s quote epitomizes this culture, specifically frowning on joy. He might as well have condemned the recent trend of NHL franchises adopting a team dog. Any team willing to go out of its way to make the sport fun is a winner in my book. In response to Cherry’s comments, the Hurricanes printed shirts with “Bunch of Jerks” across the front. The biggest argument against celebrations like the Canes’ seems to be that it somehow disrespects the opponent. Personally, I believe that the best way to avoid feeling disrespected by an opponent’s celebration is to
deny them any reason to celebrate. Beyond this point, the Canes wait for their opponent to vacate the ice before launching into the day’s routine. If some visiting team were to choreograph its own celebration after a win at PNC, all the better. The biggest reason Carolina’s group celebrations work is that they are quietly in the midst of one of the most prolific offensive seasons in recent NHL history. In last week’s column, I offered an introduction to Corsi, the most basic of the advanced hockey analytics, which uses shot attempts at either end of the ice to provide a sense of puck possession and which team has been driving play. When combined with shot quality analysis, this data can be used to come up with expected goals for each side. Over the past few seasons, the Hurricanes earned a reputation for generating great possession numbers without actually scoring very much. It was as if they were artificially goosing their possession data by bombarding opponents with low quality chances. Or perhaps they lacked shooting talent, meaning that despite high rates of chances, they were not actually scoring. This season started in much the same fashion. Heading into the new year, the Hurricanes once again boasted fantastic possession metrics but struggled to score goals. This, combined with inconsistent goaltending, left them in an all-toofamiliar position, well outside playoff contention. Then, come 2019, something changed. Call it a change in puck luck, aggression to the mean or the hockey
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2019
COURTESY OF MICAH BLAKE MCCURDY
The Carolina Hurricanes have developed a dynamic offense this season.
gods smiling down, but the Hurricanes finally began to translate possession into actual goal scoring. With pucks finally going into the net, the Canes are in the thick of the Eastern Conference wild card race. As it stands, they lead the NHL in expected goals for per 60 minutes at 3.14 and expected goal differential per 60 minutes at 0.7, and they are also top in the league in Corsi For percentage at 55.02. The chart pictured with this column, produced by Micah Blake McCurdy’s website Hockeyviz.com, represents the Hurricanes’ offensive production at fiveon-five this season. Dark red suggests a high rate of excess shots per hour at five-on-five relative to the NHL average. As you can see, the Canes’ offensive zone has an awful lot of red in it, specifically around the area directly surrounding the net. From this chart, you could not argue that Carolina has taken an excess of low danger chances (i.e. shots from the outside, which generally prove unthreatening to an NHL goaltender). Instead, quite to the contrary, most of the Canes’ production comes from the inner-slot. As NBC analyst Eddie Olczyk has preached for years, “You’re never going to score if you don’t hit the net.” The Hurricanes have followed this model to perfection, generating a high volume of chances from the most dangerous part of the ice. During this surge, third-year Finnish forward Sebastian Aho has led the Canes. In his sophomore campaign, Aho emerged as a gifted three-zone player and provided the production the Canes desperately needed, turning himself into a darling amongst hard core hockey fans, particularly those inclined toward the study of analytics. This season, Aho has become a legitimate superstar as the Canes’ number one center, playing in between Williams and Nino Niederreiter. Aho’s greatest gift lies in his transition play, where he excels at getting his team out of its own end and then relies upon his strong skating to carry the puck through the neutral zone to create space for his running
mates. Carolina added Niederreiter in January in a trade with Minnesota, and his insertion into the lineup helped spur the once dormant Hurricane attack, netting nine goals in his 15 games in Raleigh so far. Alongside Aho, Williams has enjoyed something of a renaissance season at age 37, scoring 17 goals and adding another 24 helpers. Beyond this prolific top trio, the Canes boast a surplus of quick puck movers among their defensive ranks, including Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce and Jacob Slavin. This collection of d-men allow the Canes to play what I would argue is the perfect version of modern hockey. They spend most of the game in their opponents’ offensive zone, and when they do find themselves in the defensive zone, they prove economical in getting themselves out of trouble. The defensive corps can move the puck quickly in transition to a speedy forward group, headlined by Aho but supplemented by speedy playmakers like Aho’s fellow Finn Teuvo Teravainen or the No. 2 overall pick from last year’s draft, Andrei Svechnikov. This array of talent makes them dangerous in transition and allows Carolina to rapidly restore play to their opponents’ end of the ice. In the end, the “Storm Surge” is more than some marketing gimmick aimed to generate fan interest for a team without much to offer on the ice. Instead, it is a declaration of a franchise’s intention to defy the NHL norm and find joy in the game they play professionally. That the Hurricanes have combined this newfound enthusiasm for the sport with as dominant a performance as we have seen from any one team in recent years makes it that much more fun. When I say that the Canes lead the league in CF percentage, what I mean is that they drive play better than any other team in the league. The Canes’ roster is not star-studded in the way of Pittsburgh’s, San Jose’s or Nashville’s, but it fits brilliantly together, making them the league’s most fun team on and off the ice.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
An inside look at the women’s basketball recruiting process B y Lili Stern
The Dartmouth Staff
The Dartmouth women’s basketball coaching staff calls it the ABCD approach. Academics, basketball, cost, and Dartmouth: the mutual selling points between a recruit and the coaching staff that have to be in check to bring a student-athlete to Dartmouth. Across the NCAA, there are recruiting regulations and standards that must be met to gain admittance to a college or university in order to play sports. However, Ivy League recruiting is a whole different ballgame. High academic standards, high level basketball and the absence of the opportunity to earn an athletic scholarship significantly narrows the pool of Ivy League prospects; Dartmouth’s remote location, small student body and relative anonymity compared to other schools in the league are additional hurdles in trying to bring top-tier athletes to Hanover. To compete with other Ivy League and NCAA schools in the recruiting process, head coach Belle Koclanes and her staff travel around the country to find high-quality high school basketball players. The search for potential new members of the Dartmouth women’s basketball program is so timedemanding that two years ago, Koclanes brought in a former assistant coach at the University of Southern California, Taja Edwards, to focus specifically on recruiting. “When I came in, [Koclanes] really emphasized that recruiting was this whole big other monster that needed to be tamed, and it really is,” Edwards said. “It’s nonstop, 365, 24/7.” When Edwards says it’s nonstop, she isn’t kidding — even now, in the thick of conference play, as many as three out of the staff’s four coaches will be on the road recruiting at the same time. When the coaches hit the road, they’re watching tournaments to discover new players, following players that they already had their eyes on and trying to seal the deal with athletes who have Dartmouth toward the top of their lists. However, the first stage of recruiting is exponentially different in the Ivy League from the rest of the NCAA. This is why, in any conversation with a potential recruit, the first thing Koclanes and her staff talks about is “the A” — academics. The athletics department gives Koclanes a certain number of admissions slots each year for recruits. However, even if a high school basketball player earns one of these slots, Koclanes cannot guarantee admission to Dartmouth. While other NCAA conferences can make an official offer, Ivy League coaches can only offer support in the admissions process. In other words, Koclanes can help, but the recruit has to get in on her own. Admission to Dartmouth is no easy feat, for students nor for student-athletes. Dartmouth’s admissions office uses each recruit’s academic profile, including test scores, GPA and other measures
of a student’s academic success in the context of their academic challenge, to calculate an Academic Index for that athlete. Each athlete has to earn an Ivy League-mandated minimum AI to be considered for admission, and each recruiting class has to have an average AI that typically hovers between 15-20 points above the floor, according to Koclanes. If a recruit does not meet these academic requirements by the end of her junior year of high school, the admissions office will not grant preliminary support for that athlete’s application, and Koclanes cannot offer her support through the application process. With that said, most of the time, when the Dartmouth women’s basketball staff watches a high schooler play basketball for the first time, they don’t know her academic profile. They’re judging solely based on her basketball abilities; a situation that, according to Edwards, takes some pressure off. “I can never go to a game and look at a kid and be like, ‘She’s got a 4.0. She’s got a 3.5. She’s got two Cs. She looks like she’s got two As.’ I’d be being biased,” she said. “When you just solely recruit basketball, that kind of eases the anxiety of having to think about transcripts.” Current Dartmouth women’s basketball players had the threat of rejection to Dartmouth and other Ivy League schools looming over their heads as they progressed through the recruiting process and high school in general, and as a result, academics were always on their minds. In fact, for Paula Lenart ’20, a forward from Romania, the Ivy League’s high standard for a score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (a widely used English proficiency exam for international students) led to a rejection from Dartmouth the first time around. However, the mutual attraction between Lenart and Dartmouth women’s basketball made her continue the recruiting process. “At first I didn’t get accepted, but I really wanted to come and [the coaches] wanted me too, so they said, ‘Would you think about doing a post-graduate year in America to help you prepare with your English?’ and I [said yes],” Lenart said. So, after she received her diploma in Europe, she did a fifth year of school at Northfield Mount Herman, a boarding school in New Hampshire. When she applied for admission to the Class of 2020, she was accepted, and now plays a formidable role as a starter and the team’s leading rebounder. Katie Douglas ’22, who hails from Blair Academy in New Jersey, a high school with a highly competitive women’s basketball program that also produced Cy Lippold ’19, said that she had to think about academics more than her teammates who were being recruited outside of the Ivy League. According to Koclanes and Edwards, one of the main selling points for the Ivy League is simply that it’s the Ivy League; if an athlete comes to play at Dartmouth, and can keep up with the
schoolwork and the basketball, she will graduate with a prestigious degree. This sell held significant weight for Douglas during her recruiting process, in which her top four schools were Dartmouth, Brown University, Cornell University and Yale University. “My goal was to use basketball to get into a school that could give me the best opportunity after college, so mainly I was looking at Ivy League schools,” Douglas said. “There’s a much higher expectation here academically compared to other conferences, and that’s kind of something you give up because you get the Ivy League on your resume. It definitely requires a lot more work, but it’s definitely something that will pay off in the long run.” In addition to having high academic expectations, the Dartmouth women’s basketball program holds high expectations of its student athletes as competitors as well. In a conference that has recently been landing ESPN three, four and five-star recruits with some consistency, basketball talent is not compromised by the requirement of academic excellence. When Koclanes and her staff evaluate a recruit, yet another acronym guides them: CORE. The C stands for character, the O for offensive skill set, the R for relentlessness — which evaluates defense, rebounding and playing style — and the E for excellence both in academia and basketball. And when
the coaches are on the road recruiting, they watch for everything. “You have to fit our CORE for us to recruit you,” Koclanes said. “Nothing is more important than that character piece. Are you respectful, do you have a great attitude, are you prepared?” However, if a Dartmouth recruit has the academic and basketball pieces set in place, there is still one major hurdle: cost. The Ivy League does not issue athletic scholarships, which can deter athletes and their families from playing sports at Ivy League institutions. While Ivy League schools do issue need-based financial aid, an education at Dartmouth is only guaranteed to require no loans for a student if her family’s total income does not exceed $100,000 per year. Thus, the families whose incomes fall above that number but below a number where they can comfortably pay tuition have to decide if the experience is worth the price. According to Koclanes, a family’s financial situation often plays the biggest role in its decision on whether or not its daughter can play basketball at an Ivy League school. A system called Ivy League matching mitigates the disparity in financial aid available among schools in the Ivy League. The program makes it such that if a recruit is considering multiple Ivy League schools, and one offers more financial aid than the others, then the others can get extra funding
to bring down the cost of that student’s education and knock down the financial barrier that inhibits choice within the Ivy League. While this rule evens the financial playing field in the Ivy League, some schools within the conference have advantages in recruiting athletes nonetheless. While schools like the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University can draw from more densely populated surrounding locations, and while Harvard University and Yale have name recognition and clout beyond Dartmouth’s scope, Dartmouth’s size and location, among other factors, are its downfalls in the recruiting process within the Ivy League. “It’s been hard,” Koclanes said. “And to be quite honest, part of our recruiting plan is to try not to recruit Ivy League kids. To try to diversify the landscape here, because we know that if a kid is set on the Ivy League, and Harvard is in the mix … if Harvard calls, it’s hard to say no to Harvard. Everyone understands that.” However, because so few athletes meet the academic and athletic standards required of Ivy League basketball players, according to Edwards, she and the other coaches have to be creative in their recruiting to find athletes not being recruited by other Ivy League schools. Sometimes SEE RECRUITING PAGE 8
The Redshirt Senior with Evan Griffith ’18
The Redshirt Senior: Zion, Paying College Athletes and the One-and-Done Welcome back to The Redshirt Senior, boys and girls. In this week’s news, Nike stock drops $1.1 billion, the University of North Carolina traveled down Tobacco Road and beat its most hated rival on the road, and the NBA is considering lowering the draft age to 18. All of this, believe it or not, originates from one incident. Only 30 seconds into the first half of last Wednesday’s game between the Duke University Blue Devils and the UNC Tar Heels, Duke’s superstar forward Zion Williamson
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stepped hard on his left foot while trying to make a play and tore his Nike PG (for Paul George) 2.5 shoe in half, which accounted for Nike’s stock price fall. He then went to the floor clutching his right knee, went to the locker room and did not return for the game. North Carolina would go on to upset the top-ranked Blue Devils by 16 points, 88-72. In the ensuing media frenzy, many ESPN broadcasters and professional athletes raised some valid arguments regarding the lack of monetary compensation for student athletes and the efficacy of the “one-anddone” rule, as it’s colloquially known. First, let’s dive into the issue of monetary compensation for student athletes. Common sense tells us that student athletes are students first and athletes second, so they can’t get paid for playing their sport. This has caused the NCAA to bring down the hammer of justice; the most recent high-profile case regarding the University of Kansas’ Silvio De Sousa. De Sousa’s guardian received payment of $2,500 from an agent and booster of the university. The NCAA ruled that De Sousa must sit out the remainder of this season and the entirety of next season, even though De Sousa didn’t directly accept any money. Seems harsh, right? Some athletes have taken notice.
Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz, right after Williamson’s injury, tweeted: “Again let’s remember all the money that went into this game.... and these players get none of it.... and now Zion gets hurt... something has to change @NCAA” (to which Luka Doncic replied, “go play in Europe *shrug emoji* *laughing emoji* *peace sign emoji*”). Here’s where I take issue with the stance on paying college athletes. Do I think that the current system put in place by the NCAA concerning athletic revenue is flawed? Yes. But that situation will not be resolved by paying players. Whenever the issue of compensation comes up, it inevitably concerns only the elite players in football and basketball. If you pay those players, what should the rowers, track and field athletes, or the golfers be paid? They don’t get nearly as much attention by the national media or bring in as much revenue as football and basketball players do, but these athletes put in just as much work as the football and basketball players. They should be entitled to compensation as well if this argument is made. As a case study for someone in the same sport as Williamson, take Luke Maye. Who is Luke Maye, you may (no pun intended) ask? Luke Maye was the player who, while ESPN was losing its collective mind over Williamson’s injury, put up 30
points and 15 rebounds in North Carolina’s victory against Duke. That was his 10th double-double of the year, but his name isn’t being shown at every waking moment on ESPN like Williamson’s is. Maye was a three-star recruit and walked on at UNC. Although he’s 6-foot-8 and 240 lbs., he isn’t athletic enough at his size to be considered for the NBA, so he probably won’t have much of a career in the States. Maye has given four years to North Carolina basketball, winning a championship in 2017 and coming close to another one the year before. He’s playing the best basketball of his career up to this point, and he could make decent money in Europe if he wanted in the future, but the amount of money he’ll make compared to someone like Williamson, no matter if Maye ends up overseas or in an office, is miniscule. In a perfect world, Maye should be able to make hay while the sun shines and make some money off of autographs or a North Carolina-based company endorsement deal. Zion, with the mega shoe deal he’ll inevitably sign once he goes No. 1 overall (which he will because he only has a grade-one knee sprain), will be fine. It’s players like Maye who should be freed from the NCAA’s monetary vice grip on its source of revenue. Moving on to the one-and-done rule. This the rule that makes players
wait until they’re 19 years old and one year removed from high school to be eligible for the NBA draft, resulting in top-tier players often spending just one year in college. Isaiah Thomas of the Denver Nuggets tweeted after the injury: “Let these kids go straight out of HS!!! Too much on the line to be messing with college if you got a legit chance to turn pro. One injury can change somebody career, Zion sit yo a— down lol and we will be ready for you in the big boy league #LookingOutForThePlayers.” Prefacing my argument by saying it is clearly not my place to assume what these college players should value in their lives — whether it be playing time, money or whatever else — but shouldn’t these NBA players and the media let Zion decide what he wants to do with his life? After Duke came back from 23 points to beat Louisville last week, Zion said, “That’s why I came to Duke, to be a part of games like this.” It seems like he’s enjoying his time in Durham, at least. I think the one-and-done rule should go because players should have the freedom to choose for themselves if they’re ready to go to the NBA. People make bad business decisions all the time — the NBA should recognize that and get rid of the rule. I just think everyone should take a deep breath and relax. Duke and Zion will be fine.
Men’s baseball looks for success in Whalen’s 30th season B y Eric Vaughn The Dartmouth
With the Dartmouth baseball team tying a program record last season by reaching 11 consecutive seasons with more wins than losses in Ivy League play, head coach Bob Whalen, now in his 30th season at Dartmouth, is hungry for even more. When asked simply what his goal for the season was, his answer was succinct: win a championship. The Big Green, picked to finish third in the Ivy League this season, returns a strong nucleus from last year’s third place finish in the Ivy League, especially on the position side of the ball. Led by co-captain Matt Feinstein ’19, seven starting bats are returning, with the notable exception of 2018 Ivy League Player of the Year Dustin Shirley ’18. Whalen pointed to his infield as a particular strength, with all four starters returning. The infield includes star seniors Sean Sullivan ’19 (.340 AVG/.456 OBP/.388 SLG last season) at second base and Steffen Torgersen ’19 (.310/.351/.423) at third. Two-year starter Nate Ostmo ’19 (.262/.337/.407) has filled in at shortstop, and Michael Calamari ’20 (.246/.275/.401) is starting at first base, having tied for the home run lead last year with five. Bennett McCaskill ’21 (.245/.345/.398) is starting at catcher after having a successful rookie year, especially on
defense. A t o u t f i e l d , Fe i n s t e i n (.271/.352/.347) starts at right field and lefty Kade Kretzchmar ’22 comes in as true freshman at left field. Trevor Johnson ’20 (.250/.387/.386 in 2017), despite missing nearly all of last year due to an injury, is back at center field as one of the best base runners on the team, having stolen 17 of 19 attempts successfully as a rookie. Blake Crossing ’20 (.319/.435/.354) is again the designated hitter after being one of the most consistent bats in the lineup last season. Whalen points to the veteran leadership as a reason for optimism in the team’s chances this season, and he said he is excited for much of the lineup to return from last year, as well as for Johnson’s healthy recovery. Kretzchmar is the only new starting hitter on the team this season, and while there is a lot of veteran experience starting, the team has quality depth behind them. Ben Rice ’22 offers potential on offense as a left-handed hitting catcher, and Bryce Daniel ’22 can play second or third, having played shortstop in high school. Pitching has more questions early on, but Whalen is confident that a lot of the younger players will step up. The star ace is co-captain Cole O’Connor ’19 (5-4, 4.50 ERA, 70 IP last season) who has strong control and four pitches in his arsenal. Behind him in the rotation is more of a question, as the rest of the
starters are leaving, including a few who are playing in the Minor Leagues. Tyler Fagler ’20 (1-1, 6.00, 18.0) is looked upon to contribute in the rotation, and Whalen points to the fact that two of the starting pitchers will be freshmen, including Chase Jeter ’22 and Nathan Skinner ’22. Jonah Jenkins ’21 missed much of last season after transitioning from catcher to pitcher last year but is expected to make a positive contribution. In the bullpen, star Austen Michel ’20 (3-2, 3.38, 45.1 IP) was expected to give a steady presence to start the season, but he is currently injured. While his return will be strongly desired, Jenkins, Trystan Sarcone ’22 and Alec Vaules ’20 are expected to compete for playing time. Co-captains Feinstein and O’Connor both said that the team has a strong camaraderie and an overall strong group dynamic. Both said that when they were freshmen, upperclassmen on the team made them feel involved and important right away, and that they want to do the same with the freshmen this year. Feinstein said he thinks building camaraderie is key to a successful season. “Everyone takes their own role, and as a close team, everyone is on the same page,” Feinstein said. Looking ahead, Feinstein said he hopes to continue his career into professional baseball, potentially looking into the MLB. O’Connor’s outlook was more simple. For him,
CLYDE CLICK/COURTESY OF THE DARTMOUTH ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT
Bob Whalen is starting his 30th season as head coach of Dartmouth baseball.
success will come from “controlling what you control; going one pitch at a time.” While this team has a lot of talent, it faces a challenging path to win their first Ivy League championship since 2010, including a three-game series down the road against Yale University and Columbia University, picked to finish first and second in the Ivy League, respectively. Despite the tough road
ahead, the team is extremely confident and dialed in to the goal of reaching the NCAA tournament once again. Looking at this team, it’s hard not to get excited because of its immense potential. Both coaches and players are aware of the goals they can reach, and if everything goes right, there’s a good chance that Dartmouth will take back the Ivy League crown for the first time in a decade.
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Transfer Ary-Turner prepares to play for Big Green next season
By Baily Deeter
The Dartmouth Staff
With only one senior leaving after this season, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team has a promising outlook for the 2019-20 campaign. For starters, the team will return its entire starting lineup and all but one of its key contributors. Additionally, Trevon Ary-Turner ’21, a transfer from Weber State University, will be eligible to play next season and will be a huge addition to an experienced roster. Ary-Turner is a guard from Issaquah, Washington, who had a lot of attention from top-tier programs in high school before committing to Weber State. His recruiting process started early, as he got his first few offers in the summer after his freshman year. However, due to a handful of serious injuries, the offers slowed down in his sophomore year. “I got hurt three or four times,” Ary-Turner said. “I had two level three ankle sprains that kept me out for a while, then I broke my hand right before the playoffs. I didn’t play well my sophomore summer, so a lot of the bigger schools I was talking to moved on.” Ary-Turner mentioned Boise State University, the University of Washington and Washington State University as three of the top-level schools that were originally recruiting him before moving on due to his injuries. However, during his junior season, he was fully healthy and impressed once
again, giving him a handful of solid mid-major schools to choose from. He ultimately ended up choosing between the University of Idaho, the University of Seattle, Utah State University and Weber State. He settled on Weber State, the alma mater of star Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard. Weber State has appeared in five of the last 20 NCAA tournaments and only lost to top-seeded Arizona by nine points in the second round in 2014. In his season at Weber State last year, he had a relatively significant role for the 20-11 Wildcats. He scored 3.7 points per game on 10.3 minutes per game, and he shot a stellar 47.9 percent from the field. However, near the end of the season, he began to see his minutes diminish. “At the beginning of the year, I started and played a lot,” AryTurner said. “There were a few times throughout the season where [my playing time fluctuated], and at the end of the year I went back to not playing much.” After his freshman season, he considered transferring schools. While he wanted to get himself into a place where he could see more playing time, his primary motive was finding a strong academic school. “I felt like some of the schools I was looking at out of high school were better academic institutions,” he said. “Going to Weber State was very basketballfocused. I thought it would be a smarter idea for me to get to a better [academic]
Coaches give players the hard sell on Dartmouth FROM RECRUITING PAGE 6
this means looking outside of the U.S., and other times it means traveling to uncharted recruiting territory within it. According to Koclanes, however, it doesn’t take a superstar to win an Ivy League championship; instead, it takes the right culture and community. That is where the D of ABCD comes in: the hard sell for Dartmouth. The coaches emphasize the community, the “DWB family,” the quarter system and the freedom to study abroad or take an off term it permits, and the opportunity to help the 17-time Ivy League champions get back on the map. For Douglas, the sell worked. “I feel like we have one of the best team dynamics in the league,” she said.
“And the coaching staff ultimately sold me — I feel like they were the ones that would best prepare me not only for basketball, but also for life in general. And that was really important for me, and also for my parents.” Edwards has faith that the attraction that Douglas felt toward the team, coaching staff and community will continue to be a drawing point for high-level recruits — and that, as a result, Dartmouth women’s basketball has nowhere to go but up. “We have to keep finding what makes us unique, and why DWB is so special,” she said. “We know what we’re doing here, we know that we develop our players, we know that our culture is the best it can be at this moment in time. We trust that we’re giving it the best that we can.”
COURTESY OF TREVON ARY-TURNER
After tranferring from Weber State University, Trevon Ary-Turner ’21 will be eligible to play for Dartmouth next year.
school and also into a good basketball situation.” He got his transfer release and then reached out to some high-academic institutions that had recruited him out of high school, including Dartmouth, to notify them that he was planning to transfer. While Dartmouth had recruited Ary-Turner out of high school, he didn’t consider the option very seriously because, as is the case with all Ivy League schools, Dartmouth doesn’t give out athletic scholarships. Former Dartmouth assistant coach Jabari Trotter ’12 primarily recruited him when he was in high school, so Ary-Turner initially reached out to Trotter. Trotter left after the 2017-18 season to coach at the University of Hawaii, but connected him with head coach David McLaughlin and the rest of the staff. After getting in contact with the coaching staff and visiting the school in May 2018, Ary-Turner committed to transfer to Dartmouth soon after. “We were able to really take the next step quickly since we had a relationship through the recruiting process when he was in high school,” McLaughlin said. As a transfer, Ary-Turner has not been eligible to play in the 2018-19 season, which he admits has been somewhat frustrating. However, he’s been practicing with the team and training hard in preparation for the
2019-20 season. “It’s definitely frustrating to not be able to help out where I feel like I could,” Ary-Turner said. “But the coaching staff has done a great job to make sure I’m maximizing this time. I’ve been practicing, lifting with the team, and doing extra lifting with the strength coach aside from what the team does. I’m trying to make sure I’m making strides on what they want me to improve on and what I want to improve on so I’m ready to go come fall.” McLaughlin lauded Ary-Turner’s approach to this season and is excited for the role he’ll play when he becomes eligible to suit up in games. “He’s a very seasoned, mature player who brings that approach to practice every day,” McLaughlin said. “I would say he’s taken full advantage of the opportunities to improve in terms of getting in the gym, watching film and getting himself better.” Given the talent he’s displayed in the past that has had college coaches recruiting him since his freshman year of high school, he should play a significant role in the 2019-20 season. “He’saterrificfitforus,”McLaughlin said. “He has a great feel for the game, good range and he can finish around the rim. There’s a lot of qualities he brings to the table that really help the way we want to play.”
Captain James Foye ’20 indicated that Ary-Turner appears capable of filling the void left by the looming departure of the team’s lone senior, Guilien Smith ’19. He also mentioned that having Ary-Turner practice with the team will make his transition to playing in games much more seamless. “He’s a shooting guard just like Guilien is, so he should fill that role,” Foye said. “Having him practice with the team [this season] is super helpful because he’ll already understand the basics and just focus on the little things and improving with everybody.” Currently standing at 11-15 and 2-8 in Ivy League play, Dartmouth’s chances of making the Ivy League tournament as one of the conference’s top four teams are slim. However, the encouraging part about the team’s Ivy League season is how close most of its games have been. The team blew out Harvard 81-63 and Columbia 82-66 while losing in two lopsided affairs to Yale (89-68 and 77-59). However, other than that, the team’s other six Ivy League games have all been losses of just five points or fewer. In other words, given that the team was so close to winning many Ivy League games and will be adding AryTurner to its young roster, there’s a lot to look forward to for both Ary-Turner and the team come next winter.