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Women's Lacrosse
In the 2007 season, the women's lacrosse team will look to add to the program's already storied history. Coming off its sixth straight NESCAC title and a trip to the NCAA semifinals, the team has great optimism for the upcoming season.
"We are excited at our progress so far and the many possibilities for the season," said senior Liza Humes '07.
The Panthers enter the season, however, without four of their top five scorers from last spring, including All-Americans Elizabeth Renehen '06 and Alison Perencevich '06. But Coach Missy Foote's lacrosse teams do not rebuild, they only reload. Captain Kim Walker '07, a third-team All-American selection at midfield last season, is the team's leading returning scorer, and fellow Captain Claire Edelen '07 is another high-scoring offensive weapon in the Panthers' arsenal. The squad also features a strong rookie class including five first-years and one sophomore transfer.
On the defensive side, the Panthers return stalwarts Kate Perry '07 and Captain Natalie Shettle '07, while Whitney Wildrick '08 and Blair Bowie '09 will anchor the defensive unit from the goalie position. Last season, the Panthers had a stingy 8.0 goals against average, which was second overall in the NESCAC.
The Panthers open their season March 17 on the road against NESCAC foe Connecticut College.
-Allison Ortega
Baseball
The Middlebury baseball team is coming off of a season in which it won 26 games, the NESCAC tournament and clinched its first-ever berth into the NCAA Tournament, where it won two games.
"The team is coming off the best season in school history and we really feel like we've started a winning tradition at Middlebury," said Captain John Lanahan '08, who hit .395 last season and a remarkable .786 in the NESCAC Tournament.
Two of the three members of the Middlebury baseball team who earned second-team honors on the All-New England Division III baseball team are returning: Lanahan and catcher Nick Lefeber '08.
Lefeber, who led the Panthers in hitting with a .432 clip and scored the most runs has been named a team captain, with Lanahan and Noah Walker '07.
The nine players who graduated after last season, have left a big dent in the aluminum bat-wielding team, but it's not something that can't be fixed.
"We lost a couple important hitters," said Lefeber, but we have all our pitchers returning and most of our infield. We should be very good again and contending for another championship."
The biggest gaps may be in the outfield.
"We have a great senior and junior core coming back but need other guys to step up, especially in the outfield," said Lanahan.
Over spring break, the team will travel to Arizona for preseason training. There the Panthers will embark on what has the potential to be a successful season with three games against Williams.
- Andrew Schlegel
Men's Tennis
Ten is not the wake-up time for the members of the men's tennis team, or at least it has not been lately. Try 6:30 a.m.
Before Proctor is serving muffins and before the Tigercat server is being accessed, Coach Dave Schwartz's servers are serving time in Adidas Stan Smith boot-camp.
"Even though we have had morning workouts all four of my years here, this year's have been by far the hardest and the most intense," said George Mayer '07.
Medicine ball exercises, leg lifts and gassers are just the start. The workout is not over until the players run their suicides.
"They come at the end and after your legs are pretty tired from the box jumps, squat jumps and lunges," said Conrad Olson '09. "We have to sprint them at 100 percent, so it feels like my lungs are on fire sometimes."
Over the last three years the men's team has been just that: on fire. The Panthers won the NCAA Championship in 2004, and were runners-up in 2005 and 2006, going undefeated in NESCAC play all three years.
"Emory and the California schools practice three to four hours a day in the sun," said Mayer. "We are never going to practice as much as the top-tier schools, so we need to use our time efficiently.
While the competition is sweating in the sun, Middlebury is getting things done.
"All of us on the team have already noticed extreme payoffs by completing the workouts," said Mayer. "Although it is tough to get out of bed, I think we're going to be the fittest team in the country after being run into the ground these last three weeks."
-Jeff Patterson
Track & Field
As the Middlebury men's and women's track and field teams prepare for the transition from the indoor season to the outdoor, all eyes are on the NESCAC prize. Martin Beatty is keeping his teams focused on that goal. Both Panther squads have a mix of veteran leadership and young talent that Beatty expects to take them far as they conclude the year.
"I think as a team we gear toward the NESCAC championships, and after that, everything else is just icing on the cake," said Beatty.
The indoor season featured two seniors in particular charging hard toward the capstones of their Middlebury athletic careers. Beth Butler '07 and Pascal Losambe '07 made a postseason splash during the indoor season. Losambe placed eighth in the Division III New England Championships for the shot put and Butler took sixth in the ECAC 800-meter championships.
Along with Butler, the senior leaders will include Andrea Giddings '07 and Mary Frederickson '07. Frederickson, last year's NESCAC champion in the javelin, competes only in the outdoor season and should be a welcome addition. They will lead a group of talented underclassmen, many of whom had breakout indoor seasons.
Anjuli Demers '10 looks to be a force in the 100 meter, 200 meter and 400 meter, after taking second in the 200 meter and third in the 400 meter at the D-III New England Indoor Championships.
Jen Katz '09 and Jen Brenes '09 are both strong in the short sprints and long jump, with Katz having won the NESCAC 200-meter as a first-year last year.
On the men's side, Losambe, Pat Sedney '08 on pole vault and Jimmy Butcher '08 as distance captain are backed by a strong corps of first-year mid-distance runners who are continuing to mature, including Chris Free, Peter Hoffman and Victor Guevara.
- Livingston Burgess
Softball
Ready to Burst: After a long pre-season in the Bubble, Women's Softball is fired up for Fort Myers
One of the many unique aspects of a college experience at Middlebury is training for a traditionally outdoor, warm-weather sport in a gigantic plastic hub affectionately known as "The Bubble".
After a long preseason in an unusual training facility, Captain Colleen Sullivan '07 said the women's softball team is "dying to get outside and field a groundball without having it bounce up three feet or field a fly without waiting for it to hit the roof first."
The team will finally catch a break over their spring break in Fort Myers, Fla., where Sullivan says they will "make up for lost time by playing 12 games in a week, which will be really important for pulling things together as a team."
The 12 games played during Spring Break will comprise one-third of the Panthers' season. Coach Kelly Bevere '99 said the team will "gain valuable experience for when [they] begin the regular season in April." As the new head coach of the program, Bevere is set on building upon "the past success of the program" with the help of a "strong group of upperclassmen players."
The three first-years, Mikaela Lefrak '10, Sophie Dorot '10 and Kristin Maletsky '10, are all looking strong, and Sullivan said she'd "watch out for Brittany Burke '08 and Allison Bard '08."
De
spite outrunning Skidmore 29-0 in the final two games of last season, the Panthers were unable to advance further in the postseason as a result of Amherst's sweep of Hamilton. This year the regular season consists of 36 games in 36 days, but the Panthers' focus is unwavering.
"Our goal is to take it one game at a time," said Sullivan, "to eventually win NESCACs."
- Brooke Farquhar
Men's Lacrosse
The six-time NESCAC defending champion men's lacrosse team returns to action on March 11 when they host Stevens Institute of Technology. Middlebury looks to build upon a 13-4 season in 2006 in which they dramatically beat Wesleyan 10-9 in the conference final, but fell 12-8 at Cortland State in the NCAA quarterfinals.
As a result of that season-ending loss, Middlebury failed to make the Division III Final Four for the first time since 1998. The Panthers feel confident they will be in the Final Four at the end of this season with the return of their two leading scorers, attackmen Nick Bastis '07 (28 goals) and Second-Team All-American Jim Cabrera '08, who netted 43 as a sophomore standout. The most noticeable change in the men's lacrosse team is the absence of former head coach Erin Quinn '86. Quinn manned the sidelines for the Panthers for fifteen years and compiled a 202-38 record, turning Middlebury into a lacrosse powerhouse. Quinn has moved on to become Athletic Director, and in his place Dave Campbell '00 takes the reigns of the team he captained to its first national championship.
Chris Teves '10 said, "the team is very confident in what Coach Campbell brings≠ - not only Panther tradition, but also enthusiasm and intensity to the field."
Campbell has added twelve first-years from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Maryland to a roster directed by captains Bastis, face-off guru Peter Mellen '07 and Alex Palmisano '07 between the pipes. Men's lacrosse begins its season against the 2-0 Stevens Ducks at Kohn Field with hopes of capturing its first NCAA title since 2002.
"There is a lot of talent coming in and coming back," said Teves, "so Middlebury has the potential to do big things."
- Andrew Donnantuono
Women's Tennis
The Middlebury women's tennis team is ready to serve up some competition as it faces its spring season. The Panthers finished their fall play successfully at the NEWITT Invitational, where sophomore Elizabeth Emery advanced to semifinals and senior Captain Emily Holick won the #4 singles title.
Senior Co-Captain Amy Roche, who last spring was named First-Team All-NESCAC, said she feels that the team has already come a long way since the fall. The team has the "ability, work ethic, and determination to do great things," said Roche.
In order to make it "to the top", Roche thinks the Panthers must focus on the process, not the end result, and let the wins take care of themselves. Holick agreed with Roche and feels it is necessary to focus on "one match at a time", but admitted that the team is "excited to get another crack at Amherst."
The players' talent will take them far, but Coach Mike Morgan believes that the effort expended will make all the difference.
"At the top 10 level of tennis in the country, it is not about who is more talented," said Morgan, "it is about who can work towards winning the close matches."
Morgan feels that his team is aware of how far their talent and capabilities can take them this season, but he too is just focusing on the present. The Panthers will host their first match this Saturday and Sunday, March 10-11, against NYU and Brandeis.
Whether it is the spring season or the fall, Roche knows "the competition will always be hard" yet is confident the Panthers remain "a tough team to beat." The net message is that the players are all set to participate in the game they love.
- Maeve McGilloway
Golf
With a chip on their shoulders, the women's golf team is in hot pursuit of their first-ever NCAA tournament bid. Teeing off this spring will be four returners from last year's squad who missed out on the 2006 NCAA Tournament due to a technical ruling. The team was ruled ineligible for the tournament last year because they had played the season with only four golfers.
Even with the low amount of players, the strength of this team lies in the fact that, on any given day, any of the five golfers can post very low numbers.
"Our greatest strength probably is our overall team depth," said Kerry Ortega '07, "we are looking to use this to our advantage as we work towards our goal of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament."
Even more impressive is that each golfer on the team is in the top 50 for scoring statistics in Division III golf.
On the men's side, after a strong performance in the Fall, the golf team will take to the courses again for the spring tournament circuit. The centerpiece of the season will be the team's invitation to the NCAA Tournament, which it earned along with the NESCAC title. With Middlebury's second-ever NESCAC golf title, the team secured a spot at the nationwide championships, which are to be held May 15-18 in Carmel and Fischers, Ind. The qualification was Middlebury's first and has been the cause for much excitement on the team.
Sensing the anticipation, Captain Chad Bellmare '07 is careful to point out that the other tournaments ahead are equally important.
"For the first time for the spring season we're actually building up for something," said Bellmare. "You obviously never want to make your season about one individual event, and we're preparing just as hard for the rest of our tournaments."
The Panthers will put in preseason work in North Carolina. The season itself will commence at the Palamountain Invitational, held at Skidmore College, on April 15.
- Simon Keyes and David Infante
Spring Sports Preview 2007
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