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Winter 2014 edition
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The Newsletter of the University of Puget Sound Athletic Department
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Logger Line
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On the Line today...
Soccer programs see NCAA success Loggers lead All-Sport Trophy race Fall athletes earn numerous honors Former Logger included in 40 for 40 Logger Student-Athletes give back Green and Gold Club reunites Banner year for Logger Club giving
Hanging Banners:
2013 was a banner year for the a 2013 Logger Soccer recap Puget Sound soccer program. In the most literal sense of the term it was in fact a banner year as both teams won Northwest Conference titles, earning a permanent spot on Puget Sound’s conference champions banner that hangs in Memorial Fieldhouse. The 2013 Logger women’s soccer team joined the rest of its’ great NWC championship squads — each of the last 12 women’s soccer teams, in fact — while the men earned a spot on that banner for the fourth time since Puget Sound joined the conference in 1999. In a more figurative way, 2013 was also a banner year, as well. With the conference titles came NCAA tournament births, and for the first time since 2002, both programs earned playoff victories and advanced in the tournament. The women won two heart-stopping matches in the tournament, advancing to the third round via two double-overtime, 102nd-minute victories. The men, meanwhile, earned their first NCAA victory since that 2002 season
There was a lot to celebrate for Puget Sound soccer teams this season. Both squads won Northwest Conference titles and advanced in their respective NCAA tournaments. The Puget Sound women ventured to the third round of the NCAA tournament while the men advanced to the second round for the first time since 2002. PICTURED: forwards Robin Vieira (left, No. 2) and Annie Jonnson embrace after Vieira’s goal Oct. 5 versus Whitman. The Loggers won that match 1-0.
with a thrilling 2-1 overtime victory themselves, dispatching HardinSimmons from the tournament in San Antonio, Texas. Puget Sound was one of only eight schools in all of Division III to see both soccer programs advance in the postseason tournament. Numerous individuals associated with both teams won individual banners — the figurative kind rather than literal banners — as both teams placed numerous players on various postseason honor teams. Sophomore midfielder Amalia Acorda-Fey earned NSCAA All-America Second Team honors after leading the Loggers with nine goals and tying for the lead with 20 points. Acorda-Fey also joined senior defender Hannah Hawkins as First Team NSCAA All-West Region honorees, while senior midfielder Kylie Beeson earned Second Team All-West Region honors from the NSCAA as well. For conference honors, eight Puget Sound women
were named All-Northwest Conference, with four earning First Team Honors, three made the conference’s Second Team, and one, senior keeper Casey Thayer, earning All-NWC Honorable Mention. On the men’s side, the Loggers swept the conference’s postseason awards. Senior forward Carson Swope won NWC Offensive Player of the Year after leading the league with 14 goals while defender Colin McIntosh was tabbed as Defensive Player of the Year while headlining a Logger defense that only allowed 13 goals in the regular season. In all, nine players made All-NWC with three earning First Team honors, two getting Second Team nods, and four named All-NWC Honorable Mention. Swope and McIntosh also earned All-Region awards as well, as McIntosh joined teammate and fellow senior Vince McCluskey on NSCAA’s All-West First Team while Swope was named to the organiza-
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Logger Line Hanging Banners, Cont. tion’s Second Team, West Region. The coaches of both teams also earned NWC honors as both were named Coach of the Year by their fellow conference coaches. Randy Hanson, head coach of the women’s squad, won his 11th such honor after managing the Loggers to a 15-2-2 regular season record and extending the longest conference title streak in D-III women’s soccer. Reece Olney, head coach of the men’s team, won his third Coach of the Year honor after leading the men’s squad to its first NWC championship since 2006. Under Olney in 2013, the Loggers went 15-6-0, their best record in six years. Yes, 2013 was a banner year for the Logger soccer programs, both literally and figuratively.
Winter 2014
Northwest Conference Athletes of the Week Fall 2013
Kathryn Flyte, 9/3, 9/16 Cross Country
Sean Ryan, 9/23 Men’s Soccer
Jeff Walton, 9/23
Football - Special Teams
Jake Wuesthoff, 9/23 Football - Defense
Nathan King, 10/7, 10/28 Men’s Soccer
Sawyer Petre, 10/7
Football - Special Teams Senior forward Carson Swope led the Northwest Conference with 14 goals in 2013, six of them game-winners. He also assisted on six more goals, giving him a total of 34 points on the season. PICTURED: Swope attempts to turn past a Whitman defender Oct. 5.
Lauren Swanson, 10/14, 11/11 Women’s Soccer
Jackie Harvey, 10/14, 10/28 Volleyball
Kylie Beeson, 10/21, 11/11 Women’s Soccer
Student Athletes give back to Tacoma community LEFT: Members of the Puget Sound Student-Athlete Advisory Committee stand amongst gifts for over 70 children from the Tacoma area. SAAC organized a toy drive to make sure everyone, even children from local families down on their luck, had a merry Christmas.
two major donation drives to help those in need around the Tacoma area. In October, SAAC held its annual Trick-or-Can Food Drive and collected more than 3,400 pounds of items to support a local food bank. This total set a new record for the drive, which was first started in 2000. A special thanks goes out to the generosity of our Puget Sound neighbors and to the 300-plus student-athletes who canvassed the neighborhood for donations.
Puget
Sound’s student-athletes aren’t just top-notch students and great athletes, they’re committed to their community as well. This past fall, the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee organized
In December, SAAC members also put on their Santa caps and brought holiday cheer and gifts for nearly 80 children whose families were identified by the Salvation Army through its Adopt-A-Family program. RIGHT: The Puget Sound student-athletes collected over 3,400 pounds of canned food for the FISH Food Bank, a food bank that services those in need all throughout Pierce County. This year’s mark of 3,400 pounds set a record for the drive, which has been held around Halloween every year since 2000.
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Amalia Acorda-Fey, 10/28 Women’s Soccer
Hannah Hawkins, 11/4 Women’s Soccer
Eneko Bereziartua, 11/4 Men’s Soccer
Derek Frenzel, 11/18 Swimming
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Winter 2014
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Now that the leaves have fall-
en and the winter cold has settled around the Puget Sound campus, it is time to reflect on this past fall athletic season. Every Logger team saw strong performances this past autumn. The two conference titles in soccer Puget Sound earned have already been covered in this edition of the Logger Line, but there are many more fantastic achievements that happened last semester. For instance... The Loggers were record-setters. A handful of school records fell last football season, including one that stood for 41 years. In the third quarter of the Oct. 5 game at Lewis & Clark, sophomore Sawyer Petre lined up and booted a 51-yard field goal, snapping the previous school record of 49 yards set by Logger Hall of Famer Mark Conrad in 1972. Petre’s bomb finished the season tied for the ninth-longest field goal in all of Division III. Petre wasn’t the only football player to set a school record, however, as junior quarterback Braden Foley set school marks in career passing yards and career passing touchdowns. He’s also nearing school records in career completions and total offense as well. Overall, 2013 was a year of improving and gaining experience for
Fall sports 2013 wrap-up 64th-place finish she’s the highestfinishing Logger since 2007. As a whole, the cross country team saw great improvement throughout the season with many runners setting personal records. The men’s team in particular saw great success, especially at the Northwest Conference championship where they combined to finish second in the team competition. The Loggers claimed two top-ten finishes at the NWC meet, David Santillan in third and Justin Bigelow in eighth. Three Logger runners earned All-West ReThe Loggers were well representgion honors from the USTFCCCA ed at the national level. Both socthis season: Flyte, Bigelow, and cer teams made the NCAA tournaJosh Seekatz. ment and won at least one game, with the women’s squad advancing Last but not least, the Loggers to the third round of the tourna- beat Pacific Lutheran. On Wednesment, only falling to then-top ranked day, Oct. 23, the Puget Sound volWashington University. But a Log- leyball squad hosted cross-town ger athlete did end up competing rival PLU. On the line at the time? for a national championship last No- First place in the Northwest Convember as Kathryn Flyte ran at the ference standings. The Loggers NCAA Division III Championship actually went into the intermission meet for cross country Nov. 23 in having dropped the first two sets. Hanover, Ind. The senior from West Facing defeat, the Loggers fought Linn, Ore., ran the six-kilometer back and won the third set 25-18. course in 22:20.4, finishing in the In the fourth set, the Loggers raltop 25% and only 10 seconds away lied from being down 20-14 and 23from a top-50 placement. Flyte was 18, scoring seven in a row to take the first Logger woman to run in the the set 25-23. In the deciding fifth NCAA meet since 2009, and with a set PLU once again stormed out to an 8-4 lead, but the Loggers once LEFT: Puget Sound cross country runner Kathryn Flyte represented the Loggers at the NCAA D-III championship race again rallied. They scored six of held in Hanover, Ind., in November, placing 64 . She earned a the football squad. On both sides of the ball, underclassmen got crucial playing time, and the Loggers will be one of the more experienced teams in the conference come 2014. Also, four players earned AllNWC honors as Kevin Miller, Chris Beaulaurier, Connor Savage, and Jeff Walton all earned All-NWC Honorable Mention. The Loggers also snapped their 20-game losing streak this season, earning a thrilling 42-33 road victory at Whittier Sept. 21.
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spot at nationals thanks a fifth-place finish in the NCAA West regional, her best career finish in a NCAA meet.
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Winter 2014
Loggers lead All-Sports race
After two Northwest Conference
titles and two second-place finishes in the fall, the Puget Sound athletic department leads the race for the 201314 McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports trophy.
Both soccer programs won conference titles this fall, claiming 18 points each for the Loggers. The women’s team won its 12th NWC conference title in a row and has advanced to the third round of the NCAA Division III women’s soccer tournament. The men‘s squad, meanwhile, earned its first conference title in seven years. The Loggers advanced to the second round of the tournament before being eliminated by Trinity Nov. 17. Puget Sound received 16 points each from two second-place teams: men’s cross country and volleyball. The men’s cross country squad finished second in the Northwest Conference championship meet, bolstered by top-10 finishes from David Santillan and Justin Bigelow. The Logger volleyball squad also finished second in the NWC, for the second year in a row. The team ended the 2013 season with a 17-8 record, going 12-4 in conference play. Puget Sound picked up 10 more McIlroy-Lewis points from women’s cross country. That squad finished fifth at the Northwest Conference championship, headlined by Kathryn Flyte who took third individually in the race. Flyte also ran in the NCAA Cross Country Championship Nov. 23 after finishing 5th overall in the NCAA West Regional meet Nov. 16. Finally, the Loggers picked up six points from the football team. The Loggers finished seventh in the NWC out of seven teams but saw vast improvement from the squad’s youngsters, especially on defense. Also, quarterback Braden Foley threw himself into the Puget Sound record books this season, setting school marks for career passing touchdowns (45) and career passing yards (5,100). Foley will look to extend those records and break two more, the career completions and career total offense marks, next season. All together, Puget Sound teams have tallied 84 points towards the McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports trophy, an award that recognizes athletic excellence among Northwest Conference institutions across all sports. The next McIlroy-Lewis standings update will come after the conclusion of the four winter sports: men’s and women’s basketball and swimming. Below are the All-Sport standings after the fall season:
1. 2. 3. 3. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Puget Sound Willamette Pacific Lutheran Whitworth Linfield Whitman Lewis & Clark Pacific George Fox
84 points 76 points 70 points 70 points 66 points 55 points 45 points 41 points 25 points
Fall recap, cont... the set’s final eight points to take the set 15-11 and the match three games to two. The match was an instant classic. Jenni Brehove and Jackie Harvey connected for that match-ending kill, Harvey’s 1,000th kill as a Logger. Harvey had tallied her 1,000th career dig a few matches earlier, and with the Lute-beating kill she became the first Logger to reach both 1,000 career digs and kills since the advent of rally scoring in 2001. Two more Loggers hit major milestones in 2013 as both Christina Chun and Marissa Florant both tallied their 1,000th career digs at the end of the season as well. All four players — Brehove, Chun, Florant, and Harvey — earned conference honors, and Brehove and Harvey both were recognized nationally by the AVCA. Both received All-American Honorable Mention from the organization, Brehove for the first time in her career, and Harvey for the second. Even the winter sports had good performances this fall. The Puget Sound swim teams gave head coach Chris Myhre his 300th career victory, opening the season with a dual win over College of Idaho. They then proceeded to open conference play with a 3-1 dual record for the women and 4-0 mark on the men’s side. The women’s basketball team went 7-2 in non-conference action for the second straight year in autumn, and the men’s basketball program went 4-5, but played some great basketball against good teams. In fact, three of the men’s losses were by two points or less. Yes, the fall season was full of great performances and memorable victories for all Logger teams. The final tallies: two conference titles, two second-place finishes, one nationals appearance, and 29 post-season conference honors. The sum of all this? One fantastic fall.
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Logger Line
Winter 2014
Green and Gold Club reunites, supports Loggers
More
than 100 former football players representing the Green and Gold era returned to campus from November 15th to the 17th to pay tribute to former coaches Paul Wallrof and Ron Simonson, cheer on the current Logger football squad against Willamette, and reminisce over the three-day celebration. Logger alumni also met with current players to provide inspiration and insight on Logger tradition and spirit.
2012-13: Tremendous year for Logger Club giving
The
Logger Club experienced a big gain in its overall donation total in 2012-13, increasing more than 50% in total gifts from the previous year. Over a 19-year period, Logger Club donations have nearly reached the $2 million mark. In the past several
programs that increase the number and quality of prospective student-athletes. Non-conference travel support for teams to play against the best Division-III opponents outside of the Pacific Northwest and enhance our presence for NCAA competition. Sponsored support for international tours.
years, the generosity of the Logger Club membership has provided for many areas of need for the athletics program including:
Purchase of video equipment to stay current with technology advancements and better prepare our teams for competition. Purchase
of
sport-specific
Annual letter awards program for nearly 475 student-athletes including the presentation of a varsity blanket to 47 fourth-year seniors in 2013.
equipment, such as crew boats and other items. While donors have the ability to designate a gift to a specific sport program, the department relies heavily on unrestricted contributions to provide a broader support foundation to strengthen the overall quality athletic experience for all those who wear the maroon and white. If you have not already done so, we invite you to renew your membership today!
Live video streaming of more than 40 home contests starting in 2012-13 allowing parents, recruits, alumni, and fans to watch Loggers in action. Recruitment software database
With your generous donations, the Puget Sound athletic department can purchase and maintain top-of-the-line sporting equipment for the Logger student-athletes such as the crew team’s racing shells, pictured here.
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Winter 2014
Maya Mendoza featured in 40 in 40 series To celebrate Division III’s 40th an-
niversary in 2013, the NCAA has been publishing stories about 40 D-III athletes who have used their time in college athletics to follow their passion and discover their potential. Last November, the NCAA ran a story on former soccer player Maya Mendoza-Exstrom (‘03), whose story is printed below... Former Puget Sound women’s soccer player Maya Mendoza-Exstrom embodies the phrase “follow your passions and discover your potential” in every part of her life. She was an AllAmerican soccer player at Puget Sound who helped the Loggers to Northwest Conference titles in 2000 and 2002. Beyond this, Mendoza helped establish a culture that still reigns at Puget Sound. Since 2002, the Loggers have continued to win a string of conference crowns – the streak is now at 12 consecutive titles. Winning wasn’t the only tradition she established. She was a two-time student-athlete advisory committee president at Puget Sound and spearheaded the annual Trick-or-Can community service project that continues to be one of the Loggers’ biggest community service efforts of the year. Mendoza graduated with degrees in history and international relations and went on to earn her law degree at the University of Washington. She also participated in an extended-study program in Aberdeen, Scotland, studying European Union law as part of her domestic degree work. She has gone on to become a very successful lawyer at the Mendoza Law Center, providing a broad base of legal expertise for her clients. Her spirit and passion for giving back to her community also has grown. She regularly volunteers with the Housing Justice Project and King County Bar Association Legal Clinics, and is a past president and current trustee of the Highline Schools Foundation. She hasn’t forgotten her sport, either.
Mendoza-Exstrom has volunteered as an assistant coach at Puget Sound over the past decade. And she leads girls soccer teams at a variety of levels. Most recently, she was the girls director of development at Highline Premier FC before being promoted to director of coaching. Mendoza-Exstrom recently was appointed as the executive director of the RAVE Foundation, a non-profit organization in Seattle with a mission to design, develop and build all-weather sports fields in communities that currently lack places to play. She added that her new role with the RAVE foundation allows her to encourage kids and their families to “get out, get active, get fit and kick a ball, just like it started for me.”
Choosing to attend a Division III member school “shaped everything about my life,” she said. “To be at a university that cultivated all of my passions concurrently -- where the field complemented the classroom and vice versa -- taught me that my student side and my athlete side would never be separate...our campus community nurtured the now guiding principle of my life: pursue passions. “I think the thing that has stuck with me most from my time at Puget Sound is a passion for learning and growing, and knowing that I am far from a finished product, but prepared for the challenges and changes that life will bring me over the next 30 years.”
Save the date below for a reception to honor of all former Division III athletes: February 8, 2014 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Memorial Fieldhouse Reunite with former teammates and college friends while rooting on Logger basketball against Whitman.
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