SPORTS BRIEFS

Author: ZAMIR AHMED, SPORTS EDITOR

Women's water polo goes 3-1

The Middlebury women's water polo team put up a strong showing two weekends ago at the season-opening tournament at Williams College. The team won three of its four games against regional rivals at the competition to earn a tie atop the division standings.

The Panthers opened the tournament against the Yale University A team on Saturday, March 4. The Lady Bulldogs were too tough for the women, winning by a score of 8-5 on their way to an undefeated weekend. The Panthers had to recover quickly from the loss, moving on to take on the host college later in the afternoon. This time, Middlebury was victorious, downing the Ephs 8-4. The team completed the day by taking on Wesleyan College in its third match, taking home an 8-5 win over the Cardinals.

Middlebury closed out the tournament on Sunday with a match against powerhouse Dartmouth College, which finished last season as the second-best club team in the nation. In a close match, the Panthers held on for an 8-6 victory, the squad's first win over the Big Green in team history. The impressive performance during the tournament propelled the Panthers into the national club rankings as they climbed to the number 17 spot in the polls.

The squad's next tournament will be at Dartmouth College on April 8-9. The team hopes to continue improving before it heads into the New England Division Championship, which Middlebury will host on April 22-23. The Panthers finished third at last year's championship and hope to move up in the final standings to earn a trip to the National Collegiate Club Championship. The top two teams in New England will make the trip and the Panthers are in good position to earn a bid to Illinois.



Women compete at Nationals

The Middlebury women's swimming and diving team wrapped up its season last weekend at the NCAA Championships hosted by Carleton College. The Panthers finished eighth out of the 53 teams competing despite sending only 11 athletes to Minneapolis, Minn. Emory University won the title for the second straight season by the closest margin in the event's history, winning by 25 points over Kenyon College.

Among the highlights for the Panthers over the weekend were two second-place finishes for Marika Ross '08, who won a NCAA title last year. She took the silver in the 100y butterfly with a NESCAC-record time of 55.68 seconds and in the 200y butterfly with a time of 2:04.76. She earned All-American status in these two events as well as in the 200y IM with an eighth-place finish. Ross was also part of two All-American relay teams. She joined Sara Cowie '08, Catherine Suppan '09 and Cornelieke Lammers '09 on the 800y freestyle team that finished fifth in school-record time and swam on the 200y freestyle relay team with Barbara Van der Veer '07, Pam Chatikavanij '08 and Liz Rice '07 that finished seventh.

Other impressive performances for the Panthers included a third-place finish for Cowie in the 1650y freestyle with a time of 17:09.49 and a seventh-place finish for Alanna Hanson '08 in the three-meter diving competition.



Cabrera '08 scores five in win

Middlebury College's Jim Cabrera '08 was named the NESCAC Men's Lacrosse Player of the Week on Monday for his efforts in the Panthers' 14-4 win over Colby. The attacker notched five goals on 10 shots as the team opened up its 2006 spring campaign.

Cabrera netted the first tally of the game just 47 seconds into the contest and added another later in the first period as Middlebury scored the game's first seven goals to open up a commanding lead. He netted another goal in the second period before closing his day with two more goals in the third frame.

Cabrera was the Panthers' leading scorer last season, accumulating 36 goals and 50 points to help the squad reach the NCAA title game, where it fell to Salisbury in a heartbreaker. His impressive first-year campaign earned him a place on the NESCAC All-Conference Second Team as well as Rookie of the Year recognition.

The Panthers, currently ranked second in the nation, will continue their year with a couple of tough early season match-ups. The team will take on Stevens Institute on March 18 at Peter Kohn Field at 1 p.m. before traveling to Pennsylvania on March 22 to take on Gettysburg, which sits just behind the Panthers in the polls in the number three spot.