Athletes supporting athletes: an inside look at sports attendance p. 4 04.22.19
Women’s rowing dominates over Harvard in lone home regatta p. 5 Young pitching anchors baseball team through rough season p.7 Women’s lacrosse clinches spot in Ivy League Tournament p.8 COURTESY OF CHRISTINA ROMBAUT
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MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
The weekend Roundup
rowing
Compiled by kirby phares and eric vaughn
m lacrosse Dartmouth men’s lacrosse took on the No. 5 University of Pennsylvania this Saturday. Penn got off to a hot start with 12 goals in the first half to help them cruise to a 22-6 victory over the Big Green, dropping Dartmouth to 2-10 overall and
still winless in Ivy play. George Prince ’21 and Ben Martin ’20 were bright spots, scoring two goals apiece. Dartmouth’s last game of the season comes at home against Brown University on Saturday.
golf The men’s and women’s golf teams competed in the Ivy Championship this weekend. After the second round, the women moved into second place with 14over 302. Catharine Roddy ’19 had the best score of the Dartmouth team, carding a 1-over 73 to place her at the 20th position. Maddie Nelson ’20 and Moon Cheong ’21 also had strong showings tying at 11th with a 10-over 154 for the first two rounds. The team ended strong on Sunday to finish second overall, with Kaitlyn Lees ’22 finishing third
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARC SEVASTOPOULO
among individuals. Sam Ohno ’21 led the way for the Dartmouth men, finishing at ninth heading into the third round. The third round saw the Big Green’s best round of the Ivy League Championship to help maintain a fourth place finish. Ohno and Jason Liu ’21 both finished with a 7-over 220 and tied for seventh, and securing both second-team All-Ivy League honors.
The heavyweight rowing team fell just short in the Bill Cup at Boston University this weekend.
On Saturday, the heavyweight rowing team took on Boston University in the Bill Cup. The day was riddled with close finishes which left the team just short of the victory. Dartmouth’s Second Varsity finished with a time of 6:19.7, two seconds behind BU. For the First Varsity (6:20.6) and Third Varsity (6:35.1), Dartmouth finished three seconds behind the Terriers. The Fourth Varsity found the only victory for the Big Green, squeaking by BU four-tenths of a second faster (6:33.4). The men’s lightweight rowing team raced twice,
first at Yale University then at Columbia University. Yale (5:52.8) beat the First Varsity 8 (6:06.31) by thirteen seconds. Similarly, the Second Varsity 8 came in 14 seconds behind Yale (6:01.1). Against Columbia, Dartmouth’s First and Second Varsity 8s finished second and third in their respective races. Next weekend, Dartmouth’s heavyweight team will host Brown University at home in the Atlanta cup. The lightweight team will travel to Ithaca to take on No. 1 Cornell University to finish the season.
Lees is a member of The Dartmouth staff.
Baseball Zachary ZacharyBenjamin Benjamin’19 ’19
Debora Hyemin Han ’20 Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief
Hanting Hanting Guo Guo ’19 ’19
Aidan Sheinberg ’20 Publisher Publisher Publisher
Ioana IoanaSolomon Solomon’19 ’19
04.22.19 Vol.CLXXV CLXXVI No. 4.30.18 4.23.18 Vol. Vol. CLXXV No. No. 27 2121
Amanda AmandaZhou Zhou ’19 Alex Fredman ’20 ’19 Executive Editors Executive Editors Executive Editor
Luke Gitter ’21 Mark Cui ’19 Justin Kramer ’21 Justin Kramer ’21 Samantha Hussey Lili Stern ’22 ’20 Associate Sports Editor Sports Editors 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
The baseball team had a tough start to the week, losing to Middlebury College for the first time since 1950. The Big Green allowed 18 hits for 15 runs. Dartmouth was only down two going into the sixth inning, but the Panthers blew the game open with a six-run sixth inning to put the Big Green away. The Big Green continued their home losing streak on Sunday, dropping their fifth and sixth straight home games with a pair losses to Harvard University. Their first game was close, tied 1-1 until the ninth inning when Harvard scraped across the
game-winning run. Cole O’Connor ’19 pitched masterfully, throwing seven innings of one-run ball while Matt Feinstein ’19 smacked three hits. The second game was not any easier for Dartmouth as they lost 11-3. Despite getting on the board first with a run in the second inning, Dartmouth failed to get going offensively while the Crimson tallied eight of their 11 runs in the fourth and fifth innings. Steffen Torgersen ’19 went 3-4 at the plate and captain Matt Feinstein ’19 went 2-4 with a run. The Green and White look to bounce back against Harvard tomorrow.
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
track and field
tennis
NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Men’s tennis lost to No. 16 Columbia while women’s tennis beat Cornell to snap a 13-game losing streak.
No. 16 Columbia University swept No. 40 Dartmouth on Saturday, snapping a three-match win streak for the Big Green. The Lions took the No. 2 and 3 doubles positions before winning all six singles matches. The match was not as much of a blowout as the 7-0 sweep suggests, as two singles players split sets, and two others forced their opponents to seven-win sets. Dartmouth then lost a nail-biter against Cornell University on Sunday, falling 4-3 with two three-set matches. The tightest match came in No. 1 singles, where Alafia Ayeni took down No. 60 Charlie Broom ’20. The two split a pair of 7-5 sets to open the match, but Ayeni secured the win by taking the third set 6-3. The Dartmouth women’s team fell to No. 44 Columbia 4-1 this Saturday. The Big Green took the doubles point with wins at the No. 1 and 3 positions. Teammates Abigail Chiu ’21 and Nicole Conrad ’22 at the top spot 6-3, and
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Allison Chuang ’19 and Nina Paripovic ’22 sealed the doubles vicotry 7-5 on court three. The Lions fired back in singles, winning four straight matches in two sets to clinch the victory. The women concluded their season with a 4-0 victory over Cornell. Chiu and Conrad continued their strong play with a 6-2 victory at the No.1 doubles spot, and Chuang and Paripovic again clinched the No. 3 spot to put Dartmouth ahead going into singles. Racquel Lyn ’20 took the No. 1 position and Chuyang Guan ’20 helped the Big Green clinch the victory with a 6-3, 6-2 win at the No. 4 position. Dartmouth finishes their season with an overall record of 4-17 and 1-6 in Ivy play. The men’s team will compete in its final match of the season against Harvard University next weekend in Hanover.
Men’s and women’s track and field were well travelled this weekend, competing in three different meets Saturday. The Big Green competed at Northeastern University, Princeton University and the University of Virginia. T he men’s and women’s teams both placed fourth at the Carisella Coaches Invitational at Northeastern. The men’s team scored 51 points, and only had two athletes with top three finishes. Andrew Palermo ’22 won the discus and Skylar Widman ’22 claimed third in the 100m with a time of 11.14. The women’s team had a slew of athletes placing in the top three, helping the team finish with 92 points. Annalisa Crowe ’20 took first in the 800m and Elizabeth Wilson ’22 was the only runner
under one minute in the 400m. Other notable performances came from Zoe Dainton ’22, Isabelle Giordano ’21, Folasade Akinfe ’20 and Alexandra Collins ’19 with second place finishes in the pole vault, 800m, triple jump and hammer toss, respectively. At Virginia, the men had strong showings from Donovan Spearman ’21 and Max Frye ’21, who finished first in the 200m and 400m hurtles respectively. For the women, Danielle Okonta ’20 won her heat and placed third overall in the 400m hurdles at the non-scoring Larry Ellis invitational at Princeton. Next weekend, the Big Green will compete in meets at University of Pennsylvania and University of Massachusetts Amherst.
sailing This weekend, the sailing team competed for the Admiral’s Cup at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Dartmouth took second place out of 18 teams, finishing just two points behind Stanford
University. Next weekend, the Big Green will compete at the New England Dinghy Championship hosted by Bowdoin College in the sailing team’s final regatta of the season.
w lacrosse softball
This weekend, Dartmouth softball bounced back against Cornell University in an exciting series win. Dartmouth dropped the first game in just five innings, as the Big Green allowed five runs in the third and six runs in the fifth before the game was called 13-4. The following game, however, the Big Green returned the favor by crushing Cornell in five innings for a final score of 16-1. A four-run fourth inning on Sunday helped
the Big Green secure a 7-3 victory over the Big Red to take the series. Heather Turner ’21 went 6.2 innings in the circle, allowing three runs on eight hits. McKenna Gray ’21 went 3-4 at the plate with two RBIs and a seventh inning homer. Micah Schroder ’20 finished 2-3 at the plate with two RBIs. The Big Green takes on Boston University in a non-conference doubleheader next week.
Dartmouth women’s lacrosse routed the University of Vermont on Tuesday by a score of 226, including a monster first half where they outscored the Catamounts 16-4. Kierra Sweeney ’19 scored six goals in the first half alone and fellow senior Elizabeth Mastrio ’19 added five goals and two assists. On Saturday for Senior Day, the
Big Green had a resounding 15-8 victory over Cornell University to clinch a berth in the Ivy League Tournament. Many seniors had fantastic days, including Sweeney who recorded three goals and assists as well as Mastrio, who again scored five goals. Next week, the Big Green travels to Yale University for its final regular season game of the year.
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MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
Athletes supporting athletes: an inside look at sports attendance B y elijah czysz and cait mcgovern The Dartmouth Staff
The seats at most sports games in Hanover aren’t packed, but a near constant across Big Green athletic events is fan support from fellow student athletes. The Dartmouth Sports Staff took a closer look at what drives so many student athletes to take time out of an already hectic balance between their sport and their academics to support other teams. What we found were numerous causes — some affecting certain sports more than others. A common understanding One might think that the grueling schedule of a student athlete would prevent athletes from having the required free time to attend additional sporting events, but according to women’s soccer captain Chloë Conacher ’19, it is a common understanding and appreciation of that grueling workload that drives student athletes to support each other. “That appreciation for the overall effort that goes into it definitely influences — positively influences — athletes going to other events,” Conacher said. Conacher also talked to The Dartmouth Sports Staff about the tendency for women’s teams to make a point of attending each other’s competitions. “Volleyball, women’s basketball, women’s lacrosse: all of the different women’s sports who put in the effort to come to our games, we try to reciprocate that support throughout the year,” Conacher said. Entertainment value It also makes sense that a group of people who enjoy playing sports would enjoy spectating for the sake of spectating. “Sometimes [we] just go to basketball, football or hockey games for fun,” said Jason Wang ’22 of the men’s cross country and track and field teams. The men’s heavyweight rowing team, for example, attended alpine skiing slalom nationals and the Winter Carnival races this winter.
When it comes to supporting each other on the field, ice, track or water, teams like to have fun with it. “With softball, sometimes they come to our games wearing crazy outfits, like in flair, and in turn we’ll go to their games just dressed up in a bunch of flair,” said Christina Rombaut ’20 of the women’s ice hockey team. Proximity A seemingly obvious explanation for increased attendance from student athletes is that they are often on the same field back-to-back, or just one field away. For instance, the schedule for women’s soccer often lines up with men’s soccer as well as the Dartmouth field hockey team’s. “They’ll come and watch until they have to go do game prep, or we’ll go watch them,” Conacher said of the relationship between men’s and women’s soccer. “We play right beside field hockey and they come and watch us a lot,” said Conacher. The same goes for the world of lacrosse and ice hockey. “We’re definitely really close with the men’s lacrosse team just because you know it’s the same sport, we share our field, so we hang out a lot with them and we try to support them as much as we can, especially when they have games right before or after our practice,” said Kathryn Giroux ’19 of the women’s lacrosse team. “During our season, we also love to go and watch the men’s [hockey] games,” said Rombaut. And with large fall regattas, such as the Head of the Charles and the Princeton Chase, with all three rowing teams — lightweight, heavyweight and women’s — members of the Big Green can often support one another. “Between other rowing teams, at least in the fall, we can be in attendance because we go some of the same regattas,” said heavyweight rowing captain Marc Sevastopoulo ’20 on supporting lightweight and women’s rowing. Of course, proximity (or lack thereof) can serve as an impediment to student attendance of games. This season, the rowing team is mostly away from home water, so they already rarely have fans
watching. Moveover, in the spring, lightweight, heavyweight and women’s rowing have schedules that don’t line up. Consequently, none of the three rowing teams typically have the chance to attend each other’s races during the spring season. Greek life A lot of the support athletes get in the stands can be attributed to relationships they have in the Greek system, which is a significantly active component of campus life at Dartmouth. Relationships built through houses often turn out athletes and non-athletes alike. “[Attendanceof sportseventsis]more related to Greek life,” Sevastopoulo said. “The ratio of athletes to non athletes is smaller, so I think you get more people supporting enthusiastically.” A 2017 article in The Dartmouth found that “78.5 percent of varsity athletes eligible to rush are affiliated in Greek houses, in comparison to the student body average of 65 percent.” “The best example would be the hockey team and Heorot … the entire house goes because a large portion of the house is made up of hockey players,”
Conacher said. Here, the pattern sees a divide between men’s and women’s sports. “The biggest difference between men’s and women’s sports is that a lot of times, in a frat, the entirety of the team who is a part of Greek life will all be in the same frat … There are five different houses represented on my team,” said Conacher. Due to the less self-selecting rush process for sororities, however, women’s teams tend to be less concentrated in a single Greek house. This trend can be seen in a comparison of fraternities and sororities with the highest concentration of athletes. As of 2017, in Gamma Delta Chi fraternity and Heorot, athletes make up 98.5 percent and 89.2 percent of the brothers, respectively. In contrast, Kappa Delta Epsilon (36.8 percent), Alpha Phi (30.7 percent) and Kappa Kappa Gamma (23.8 percent) are the sororities with the highest percentages of athletes.
Non-Greek personal connections Of course, friendships between athletes forged outside the Greek system
also serve as a motivating factor for support at competitions, especially for younger athletes who have yet to join a house. “People tend to go to events where they have friends competing,” Wang said. These personal connections, on a larger scale, can serve to bring an entire team out to support one another. For example, Sevastopoulo’s heavyweight rowing team often goes to support the volleyball team. “That’s mostly a function of who the younger guys on the team are friends with,” Sevastopoulo said. The Big Green Rewards app Launched in the fall of 2017, the Big Green Rewards app has been cited by multiple athletes as a part of the reason why they attend so many athletic events. The app allows students to “check-in” to Dartmouth athletic events to gain points for prizes and it has a feature that allows Dartmouth teams compete with each other. “At the end of the academic year SEE ATTENDANCE PAGE 5
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHLOË CONACHER
The women’s soccer team attended the Dartmouth football team’s game against Brown University at Fenway Park in 2017.
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THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
Women’s rowing dominates over Harvard in lone home regatta B y anna may mott The Dartmouth
The women’s rowing team raced their first and last home regatta last weekend against Boston University. It’s the only weekend this spring season they have to represent the Big Green on the Connecticut in front of friends and supporters, so naturally the team wanted to deliver a good result. And did they ever. The team swept every race. The day started with a first-place finish from the first varsity eight, beating out BU by over seven seconds, and ended with lengths of open water and a 30-second buffer between Dartmouth’s victorious B four and the Terriers. According to V8 coxswain Katie Erdos ’20, the team went into this race confident, despite a few disappointing performances over the past couple weeks. At the Doc Hosea Invitational at the end of March, the first and second varsity eights failed to make the grand final, and at the Ivy League Invitational on April 7, both
boats came in fourth in the race for the Class of 1984 Plaque. The team wasn’t discouraged by these results, however, because rowing for a school in New Hampshire comes with some innate disadvantages at the start of the spring season — namely, a frozen river. Dartmouth’s first few races this spring season frequently followed long stretches of time off the water, and they lined up against some teams who have thawed rivers all winter long. Over the past few weeks, the team has spent practices in the freezing cold, dodging ice chunks and logs and fighting a powerful current from the open dam. Last weekend, the Connecticut River was in typical “spring in Hanover” form, with races delayed due to heavy fog and floating debris. But this time, the weather played to the Big Green’s favor — or at least, it left BU scrambling to adjust. “One thing we’ve held onto this whole season is like, ‘Okay, let’s control what we can control,’ and the conditions aren’t in our control,”
Proximity, rewards app boost athletics attendance FROM ATTENDANCE PAGE 4
the team that accumulates the most points based on their roster size, basically the team that’s been the most supportive of their studentathletes, wins a trophy,” said assistant athletic director for marketing Laura Sgrecci, to The Dartmouth Staff in an interview last fall about the launch of the app. “Introducing [Big Green Rewards] has definitely incentivized teams to go and watch other teams. I don’t think its spread as much through the entire Dartmouth community,” Conacher said. Laughing, Conacher said, “My team takes it very seriously.” “We’re the reigning champs,” she said.
Wrap-up No matter the reason, increased attendance of their events is always a positive for Dartmouth student-athletes. “We have had a few games this year when our home crowd really helped us out in terms of energy and enthusiasm,” Ian Sistare ’20 of the men’s basketball team told The Dartmouth Sports Staff last winter. “A great home crowd gives the players and the coaches such a boost in terms of energy and enthusiasm. [It] makes the game so much more exciting, and the atmosphere is so much better when the crowd is wild.” For Conacher, spectators also play an important role in the energy of a game. “Particularly when the game gets started and there aren’t that many people in the stands — or if there are — that either adds or detracts from the energy of the game,” Conacher said.
Erdos said. “So, it’s nice that we were at home, we were ready for it, versus BU was probably like ‘What is going on? There’s a giant log floating down the course!’” Typically, regattas are scheduled to prioritize the team’s fastest boats — that is, the first varsity eights — and give them the most ideal racing weather. This means these boats usually race first, as conditions tend to deteriorate throughout the day. Last weekend, however, the lightweight men were set to race before the women but had their races delayed by over an hour due to thick fog and low visibility. This meant that by the time the women’s B four raced, those deteriorating conditions they’d hoped to avoid hit them full force. “The other three races that went on, the conditions were actually perfect, then all of a sudden we had huge gusts of winds that must have been like 10 or 15 miles an hour, and there were white caps,” B four coxswain Sophie Kwon ’22 said. “It was a little bit stressful, but my rowers
handled it really well. So, conditions were livable.” They certainly did handle it well. A win by more than 30 seconds is far from typical, especially in 2,000-meter pieces, which, for a four, were usually under eight minutes. It’s a very different experience, rowing a race without another boat right next to you, especially considering rowers race with their backs to the finish line, watching the competition fall behind. Frequently, coxswains will call moves and sprints by reacting to the pushes of other teams, and competitive spirit drives their rowers to pull harder. But in a race with an open water lead, the boat needs to find something else to motivate them. “One thing that really helped was calling for ‘working together,’” Kwon said. “Everyone did a really good job of maintaining the energy, and moving together, and pulling for the people in our own boat rather than against the people that we were racing.” The Big Green’s B four pulled away in the first few seconds with
a powerful starting sequence and put the nail in BU’s coffin with an unquestionable lead by the 1,000-meter mark. As for the team’s outlook going forward, last weekend served as a confidence booster and possibly a glimpse at the speed they have to gain now that the Connecticut has thawed, and forecasts are improving. Weathr is always an unpredictable factor in rowing; a portion of the team traveled to South Carolina this week only to have their races canceled by tornado warnings. But Dartmouth’s competition has only seen a fraction of their potential, as they simply just haven’t had the time or the weather to practice as much as their southern competition. As the season progresses and conditions stabilize, the Big Green will see new opportunities open for them. “One thing that’s an advantage for us is we continue to get better and improve well into the season, versus some teams find their max speed midway through,” Erdos said. “It’s kind of fun to be an underdog.”
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Pucks in Deep
with Sam Stockton ’19 Pucks in Deep: A Wild Start to the NHL Playoffs There are a few things we have come to expect every year out of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs: inconsistent officiating and supplemental discipline, upsets and long series with lots of overtime. This year has been no exception to those norms, and yet, it has also provided something altogether out of the ordinary for springtime hockey — a pair of shocking sweeps that knocked out the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Tampa Bay Lightning and the Pittsburgh Penguins, winners of two of the last three Stanley Cups. As if that weren’t enough, the Western Conference’s No. 1 Calgary Flames lost in just five games to the Colorado Avalanche. For the first time in National Hockey League history, both conferences’ top seeds could not make it past the first round and, between the two of them, they won just one game. To see the Penguins lose was not entirely shocking. All season, their porous defense, particularly on the rush, made the usually unflappable Penguins appear vulnerable, but it seemed inevitable that a team led by Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel would be able to turn it on come the postseason. Instead, Barry Trotz’s upstart New York Islanders flummoxed the Penguins and held Crosby to no goals and a single assist in the four-game sweep. Tampa’s elimination in the first round came as an even greater surprise. As I wrote just last week in this column, the 2018-19 Lightning authored perhaps the greatest season of the salary cap era. Dominant in all phases of the game, the Bolts cruised to a share of the league’s all-time wins record. In the
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
NHL’s annual playoff bracket challenge, nearly 50 percent of entrants selected the Lightning to win the Cup. They began the postseason looking every bit the team that won 62 games, jumping out to a 3-0 lead in game one. From that point on, Columbus denied the Lightning any room to operate off the rush, and the Bolts seemed not to have back-up plan. In essence, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh fell victim to the same phenomenon: a pugnacious underdog that successfully congested the neutral zone with steady defensive structure, forcing the favorites to dump the puck into the offensive zone rather than create offense off the rush. When a top team falls to an inferior opponent, the most likely culprit is a stellar goaltending performance on the underdog. In 2010, the No. 8 Montreal Canadiens knocked off that season’s Presidents’ Trophy winner, the Washington Capitals. The Caps took a commanding 3-1 series lead but couldn’t close out the Habs. In games five through seven, the Caps tallied nearly 45 shots per game, completely dominating play, but Montreal netminder Jaroslav Halak stood on his head, allowing just three goals total in those games. However, the two first-round sweeps this year were not a result of goalie domination. Instead, both underdogs suffocated their opponents and capitalized on their own opportunities. Meanwhile, out west, the top-seeded Flames also ran into a buzz saw in the form of the Avalanche. Going into the series, the Flames’ suspect goaltending had some pundits wondering if Calgary might face disaster in the postseason. A game one shutout from Mike Smith seemed to quell those fears. Even as the Avs won four straight to close out the series, goaltending was hardly the problem. Instead, Colorado dominated the series by correcting the issues that plagued them throughout the regular year, sapping away the Flames’ strength along the way. During the regular season, Calgary led the league in creating odd-man rushes and ranked second in controlled zone entries. Colorado, on the other hand, struggled all season in their neutral zone defense and showed a propensity for turning the puck over in transition. Then, Nathan MacKinnon happened. MacKinnon — selected first overall in 2013 out of the Halifax Mooseheads of the Quebec Major Junior
Hockey League — is hardly an unknown commodity around the league, but by virtue of playing out west for a team with a relatively low national profile, he does not always receive the attention he deserves. In the last two seasons, MacKinnon’s play has carried an Avs team without any depth to speak of to the postseason. In his first round match-up with Calgary, MacKinnon made a compelling case for being the league’s best player. Watching MacKinnon charge through the neutral zone feels akin to seeing Adrian Peterson in his prime, a player whose combination of speed and strength renders him nearly unstoppable. All series long, when MacKinnon took control of the puck and proceeded to charge through the middle of the ice, there seemed only three possible outcomes. MacKinnon would blaze
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
through the defense himself and score; create a wide-open lane for a teammate due to the attention he garnered from the Calgary defense; or utilize his speed and strength to leave the defenseman attacked with no choice but to take a penalty. It would be unfair to say MacKinnon is the Avs’ sole impact player. Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog join him as star players, creating perhaps the most dangerous trio in hockey. Rantanen boasts blazing speed to complement MacKinnon and brings excellent vision and playmaking. Landeskog is among the league’s best players at the netfront, adept at redirecting point shots and cleaning up messes at the net mouth. In game three, the Avs received a shot of energy from defenseman Cale Makar. Makar led the University of Massachussetts Amherst to the Frozen Four final game, won the Hobey Baker
Award as college hockey’s finest player and reported to the NHL immediately after his collegiate season wrapped up. Makar provides top-end speed and can lead the rush with the best offensive defensemen in the league today. He scored in his NHL debut, immediately signaling that he is ready for hockey’s biggest stage. These three upsets have already made this one of the most memorable postseasons in recent years. More than that, they give this playoffs the kind of wonky feel that suggests an unheralded team might not just make a deep run but win the whole d— thing. By all accounts, Colorado lacks the depth of a Stanley Cup champion, but something about MacKinnon’s sheer dominance and Makar’s spark against the West’s top seed hints that Stan might just be heading back to the Rockies by early June.
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
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Young pitching anchors baseball team through rough season momentum going forward.” Murray’s gem against Brown The Dartmouth Staff was not an anomaly either. He A typical first-year in many gave up just one run in six innings college sports gets minimal playing against Columbia University two time as he or she adjusts to the weeks prior and only one in 6.1 difficulty of collegiate athletics. innings against the University of However, that hasn’t been the South Florida, a strong program, case this season for the Dartmouth during the team’s spring break trip. baseball team. Impressively, his 22 strikeouts this So far, every healthy first-year rookie season leads all Big Green has seen consistent playing time, pitchers. with a select few receiving high The other first-year starting honors for their performances. pitcher is Skinner, who won the Ivy Justin Murray ’22, Nathan Skinner League Rookie of the Year award ’22 and Trystan Sarcone ’22 have weeks ago after a stellar 4.1-inning all received the Ivy League Rookie start against Farleigh Dickinson of the Week award this season, University in which he gave up with Murray hauling in the award just one run in a 6-1 win. In that last weekend outing on March 2, and Sarcone “We’ve been thrown he struck out five and Skinner and gave up just w i n n i n g i t into the fire this year, two hits. consecutively but I think as a class “The team in the first two played really weeks of the we’re doing really well defensively season. well.” behind me that S i n c e day,” Skinner said. only eight “That made it a players in the -JUSTIN MURRAY ’22 lot easier to pitch conference because I knew I have received could trust them the honor this behind me.” season, it is In addition to that performance, notable that three of them have Skinner gave up three runs in a great been Dartmouth players. It speaks 6.1-inning performance against to the remarkable success that the South F lorida and tossed five class has already achieved in its two-run innings against Princeton inaugural season in Dartmouth U n i ve r s i t y. H e a l s o e n t e re d green. in an unfamiliar, unexpected “We’ve been thrown into the relief appearance during the fire this year, but I think as a class team’s 21-inning game against we’re doing really well,” Murray the University of Pennsylvania, said. “Everyone’s contributing, pitching two clean innings before and everyone is getting valuable imploding for eight runs in the final experience that not a lot of other frame. teams are getting.” While he has generally performed Murray received the honor after well this season, there is reason to giving up just two runs in seven believe that his future could be even innings against Brown University on brighter. April 14, which was critical because “To be honest, I don’t think the win gave Dartmouth the series I’ve thrown my best this season,” victory in the decisive third game. Skinner said. “But I’m trying to get “To be able to secure the series better every day.” win was the biggest thing,” Murray In addition to the two starters, said. “[Jonah Jenkins ’21] and [Max Sarcone won the award for his Hunter ’21] came in relief and brilliant relief appearance in the finished it off. It was good to take first week. He pitched three scoreless the series and give us some positive innings against the University
B y baily deeter
MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Steffen Torgersen upped his hitting streak to seven games on Sunday against Harvard.
of Texas at San Antonio in his collegiate debut, striking out four. “That weekend, I was the last one to go in on the team, so I knew my turn was coming,” Sarcone said. “I just wanted to get out there and throw up zeroes to get us back in the game. I felt locked in and confident in my teammates behind me.” S a rc o n e s a i d h e k n e w h e performed well, but he had no expectation of being honored for his outing. “I didn’t even know [Ivy League Rookie of the Week] was a thing until one of the older guys sent it to me,” Sarcone said. B e t we e n M u r r ay, S a rc o n e and Skinner, the first-years have shouldered a lot of the load on the mound this season. In addition to those three, the class consists of two more pitchers who have seen little to no action this year to due to injury. Cole Roland ’22 is recovering from Tommy John surgery while Chase Jeter ’22 is recovering from a shoulder injury. Jeter started a game in the
UTSA series, pitching two scoreless innings before giving up six runs in a difficult third inning. Roland has not seen any action this year, but he is making good progress in his recovery and will be ready to go for the 2020 campaign. With four freshman starters continually improving in addition to several returning workhorses like Hunter and Jenkins, runs are going to be at a premium for Ivy League opponents in the coming years. Of fensively, the fir st-year s have shouldered less of the load as standouts Matt Feinstein ’19, Ubaldo Lopez ’21 and Steffen Torgersen ’19 have anchored a strong offensive attack. However, a handful of freshmen have also stepped up. Ben Rice ’22 and K ade Kretzschmar ’22 have started games at catcher and in the outfield, respectively, and both have seven RBIs on the season. Bryce Daniel ’22 has a solid .344 on-base percentage and two RBIs. “Everyone who’s been able to play has shown really good things,”
Murray said. “I’m really excited about our class and the potential we have to be very good. I really like how we’ve been able to step in and fill any roles we’ve needed to this year.” Right now, the Big Green is focused on a strong finish to the season. The team is currently 5-8 in conference play and four games back from second-place Harvard. However, if the Big Green wins most or all of its remaining nine Ivy League games — all of which are at home — it has a chance to secure a bid to the Ivy League championship as one of the top two teams in the conference. While the focus is still on the 2019 season, it is hard for the freshmen not to get excited about the bright future they have with the program. “They’re awesome,” Sarcone said of his first-year teammates. “I think we’re going to be really strong in the coming years. They’re so mature for their age as baseball players. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”
SW 8
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY
SPORTS
Women’s lacrosse clinches spot in Ivy League Tournament B y addison dick
The Dartmouth Staff
The No. 13 women’s lacrosse team earned a ticket to the Ivy League Tournament with a 15-8 victory over Cornell University on Saturday. The win marked the final home game of the season for the Big Green and followed a 22-6 rout of the University of Vermont on Tuesday. After surrendering a goal to the Big Red in the first two minutes of play, Dartmouth found the back of the net four times before the 20:00 mark of the first half. The Big Green would not trail again for the remainder of the game. According to Kiera Vrindten ’20, the Big Green entered this week’s games with loads of confidence following last Saturday’s win over top-10 opponent University of Pennsylvania. The win jumped the Big Green in the national rankings and brought it into contention for a regular season Ivy League championship. Head coach Danielle Spencer admitted that the triumph in Philadelphia will lead to higher expectations and more pressure for the remainder of this season. “We don’t try to deny that,” she said. “We just try to be brave through it and use the pressure to fuel us in a positive way.” Vrindten, the Big Green’s starting goaltender, said it will be important for the team to maintain focus for the crucial games down the stretch. “I don’t think rankings or wins like that overwhelm us,” Vrindten said. “We still stay true to our goals that we set in the beginning of the season.” Kathryn Giroux ’19 said the victory over Penn provided validation for a team she knew was already highly talented. “If anything, last week’s win fueled our fire for the rest of the season and made us more confident in ourselves,” Giroux said. Following the win over the Quakers
last Saturday, the Big Green returned to game action after two days of rest. Spencer said she emphasized mental over physical preparation for Tuesday’s game against Vermont due to the quick turnaround from the Penn game. Dartmouth showed no signs of fatigue against the Catamounts, scoring 16 goals in the first half to build a commanding 12-goal lead. The Big Green’s top-10 scoring offense was on display, as the 22 goals the team finished with are the highest total in a game this season. Also featured in the Big Green’s win on Tuesday was the impressive play of Vrindten, who only allowed five goals in about 50 minutes of play. She was named the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association Defensive Player of the Week on Wednesday for her performance against Penn, in which she made 14 saves on 25 shots. Vrindten said it was an honor to be nationally recognized for her play. “I try not to let accolades get the best of me,” she said. “I had a great game against Penn. I was fortunate to see the ball, and the defense really allowed me to get low-angled shots.” Spencer called Vrindten the backbone of the Big Green defense and said she was proud of Vrindten’s play against Penn. “She’s very consistent and levelheaded in the cage,” she said. “She is reliable, making the saves she’s supposed to make, and that’s very reassuring for our defenders.” Vrindten followed up Tuesday’s performance with another great performance against Cornell. She made eight saves in the game and held the Big Red to just three second-half goals. On offense, Kierra Sweeney ’19 had herself a senior day to remember, recording six points. She provided the Big Green’s first answer to Cornell’s offense, scoring less than a minute after the Big Red’s opening goal. Giroux said the Big Green played with a lot of grit and passion against Cornell.
DIVYA KOPALLE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
After wins against Cornell and Vermont this week, the women’s lacrosse team is guaranteed a spot in the Ivy League Tournament.
“It means the world for us that we’re now going to the tournament, and especially, to have such a big win on senior day,” she said. Giroux also noted what it meant for her to play on her senior day with her fellow seniors. “We started out with 10 of us and nine of us made it through, which is the first time in a long time that so many players have stuck with the program for all four years,” she said. “To be able to be with the nine of us together on the field Saturday with a big win just meant everything. We’re going to miss it so much, so the longer we can keep playing, the better.” Three Big Green players reached milestones with their performances on Saturday. Elizabeth Mastrio ’19 scored the 100th goal of her career, Ellie Carson ’20 recorded her 100th career point and Emma Lesko ’21 won a career-high six draws. Giroux, who will likely be succeeded on the draw by Lesko next season, described the sophomore as a gritty
player. “When she needs to box out for someone else to get the draw, she’s amazing at that,” Giroux said. “Anytime it turns into a 50-50 ball, she’s on top of it. She played amazing, and I know she’s going to do really great on the circle next year.” With its fifth conference win in six games, the Big Green clinched a berth in the Ivy League Tournament, the winner of which earns an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Even if the Big Green does not win the conference tournament, it is a contender for an at-large spot in the 26-team NCAA tournament. For Giroux, winning the Ivy League title would be a dream come true. “We’ve been talking about winning an Ivy League championship since our freshman year,” she said. “It’s been so long since we’ve made it to the tournament. Last year was the first time in about eight years, so to be going back for our senior year is awesome.”
Entering the final game on the Ivy League schedule, the Big Green has won nine of its last 10 games and is tied for first place in the Ivy League standings with Princeton University. Next Saturday, Princeton will travel to Cornell, and the Big Green will play on the road at Yale University. Dartmouth can secure at least a share of the Ivy League title with a win over the Bulldogs. If Dartmouth and Cornell both win, Dartmouth will win its first outright conference championship since 2005. Giroux said the team needs to stay focused on the task at hand. “Making the game about ourselves and not thinking too much about the implications of the game will be key,” she said. “We just need to go out and do what we’ve been doing all season.” The Big Green’s game against Yale takes place at 1 p.m. next Saturday. Following next weekend’s action, the matchups for the Ivy League tournament will be set, with the four-team competition taking place at Columbia University on May 3 and 5.