The Dartmouth Sports Weekly 05/04/15

5.04. 15

SOFTBALL TAKES SECOND STRAIGHT IVY TITLE

FOOTBALL PLAYS WOMEN’S FRISBEE SPRING SCRIMMAGE QUALIFIES FOR NATIONALS Courtesy of Tom Petzinger, JOSH RENAUD, KATELYN JONES/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 2

BY THE NUMBERS

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Spring football scrimmage unveils new uniforms,

2 Consecutive Ivy League titles for softball

1 Run allowed by softball this weekend

KATELYN JONES/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The football team is returning 12 all-Ivy players to the gridiron next year, leaving the squad poised to compete for the Ivy title.

B y ALEXANDER AGADJANIAN The Dartmouth Staff

12 Returning football players who were all-Ivy

2009 Last time women’s frisbee qualified for nationals

Last Saturday morning marked the culmination of a month of spring practices,, as the football team played its annual spring game in front of a strong turnout in Memorial Field, which is still in the process of being renovated. Having experienced a game-like situation — though with non-contact rules — for the first time in over five months, the Big Green will now prepare for a fall season in which they’ll be one of the favorites to win their first Ivy League championship since 1996.

The lofty expectations come with good reason. Next season, Dartmouth will field a team laden with depth and experience, led by one of the most dynamic offenses in the conference. Six starters on offense and nine on defense will return from a successful 2014 campaign that saw the Big Green (8-2, 6-1 Ivy) finish second to Harvard University. Last year saw 16 players receive All-Ivy honors — amounting to 17 total All-Ivy honors, second highest in the conference — and 12 of those athletes will return to the field in the fall. Ten of these all-league honors

Katie McKay ’16 Editor-in-Chief

5. 04. 15

Luke McCann ’16 Executive Editor

Joe Clyne ’16 Henry Arndt ’16 Sports Editors

Annie Duncan ’17 Kate Herrington ’17 Katelyn Jones ’17 Photography Editor

Justin Levine ’16 Publisher

Jessica Avitabile ’16 Executive Editor

came on the first team — a record for the College and only the sixth time it has occurred in Ivy League history.

The three most notable returners are quarterback Dalyn Williams ’16 and wide receiver Ryan McManus ’15 on offense and linebacker Will McNamara ’16 on defense. Williams, already one of the best at his position in program history, will look to build on his stellar completion percentage and passing efficiency totals, .675 and 157.57 respectively, that led the Ivies last season, in addition to top-five ranks in passing touchdowns and yards. His primary recipient, McManus, had an Ivy-leading eight TDs and fourth-ranked reception and receiving yard totals. On the other side of the ball, McNamara led the conference with 9.7 tackles per game.

Announced at halftime of the spring game, the team voted these three players as the captains for the 2015 season. “[McNamara] has been just the heart of the defense, a tough, physical guy, [who] did a great job last year,” head coach Buddy Teevens ’79 said. “[McManus] has been so steady and made such tremendous football plays for us in the past. And then [Williams], with his leadership at the quarterback position, it’s nice to have three guys that the team really respects, the team elected [and] the team feels strongly about, and they’ll lead us forward.”

Leading the first team offense out on the field, Williams continued to develop a strong rapport with his receiving corps and create productive plays in and outside of the pocket, on the ground and through the air.

Williams went to his top target in McManus — who still has a year of eligibility because of prior injury and will be a fifth-year senior next season — early to convert his opening first

down of the day, following that up with several more first down passing plays between the two. Three possessions later, Williams hit McManus in stride down the left sideline for a pickup of more than 30 yards, reminiscent of the many deep pass plays the two executed during 2014.

Yet this should not indicate that receiving options will be limited.

Saturday’s spring game also offered a glimpse into to the burgeoning connection between Dalyn Williams and Victor Williams ’16, who caught the third most yards on the team this past fall. On Saturday, Victor had receptions from Dalyn on each of the four possessions in the first half. Victor made a brilliant diving 13-yard catch in the right corner of the end zone to conclude the first drive. Later, deep in his team’s own territory, Victor hauled in a third down pass for about 35 yards down the sideline and contributed a few more first down conversions along the way.

Houston Brown ’17, who was named the most improved wide receiver of the spring, and tight end Sam Laptad ’16 saw plenty of targets operating in the first-team offense as well.

“I think they’re going to be nice,” Dalyn Williams said of his receiving options for next fall. “We got a lot of experience, got some young guys that need to contribute, but it’s good to have [McManus] back because he’s really good. Our receiving corps is really going to have fun out there, and I’m going to have fun throwing to them.”

Although Dalyn Williams posted a strong throwing effort on the whole, the junior did commit a few costly mistakes. After twisting his way out of the pocket to scramble left on a fourth-down play, Williams fired an ill-advised pass that got picked off by defensive back Troy Donahue ’15

to put an end to his second offensive possession. Two drives later, cornerback Vernon Harris ’16 jumped in front of an intended receiver near the right sideline to intercept Dalyn Williams’ throw and took it back 70 yards for the pick six, the last play of the first half. After two more possessions in the second half, Dalyn Williams’ day was done.

Williams’ dual-threat presence was also on full display Saturday, as the quarterback had a 40-yard draw play run on his first possession and notched a few more first down conversions. As seen in the past, his mobility aided the passing game too, and the multidimensional attacks that produced a top-five rushing touchdown total and 444 rushing yards, which led all Ivy quarterbacks in the fall,should reap benefits again in 2015.

“Today went well, we did a good job of closing out the spring game, we moved the ball effectively,” Dalyn Williams said about his team’s play.

“I think we need to do a better job [near] the end zone of finishing. But all in all [we went up] against a very good defense, and there were really good signs going forward.”

Teevens also pointed out the progress he has seen in his star quarterback during this spring.

“Dalyn [Williams] really came along,” he said. “He’s been steady in terms of improvements. [This was] probably his best spring, throws the ball well, makes good decisions. He’s very sharp, and he knows the game extremely well. He’s like [a] coach on the field and reacts well.”

During the spring game, running back Ryder Stone ’18 — who exploded for a combined 173 yards and four touchdowns in the final two games of 2014 — assumed most of the first team carries out of the backfield. With leading rusher Kyle Bramble ’16 still recovering from a leg injury, Stone notched first-down carries in the first two drives of the game. The rushing attack fizzled out thereafter, though, failing to bust into the end zone on three plays in a goal line situation.

The Big Green defense had a strong performance on Saturday as well and will seek to remain one of the conference’s top units next season. In 2014, the team allowed the second fewest points per game, yielded the third fewest yards and grabbed the most interceptions in the Ivy League.

In the spring game, linebacker Brian Fordon ’17 picked off second team quarterback Jack Heneghan ’18 early in the first half. In the second half, Heneghan, after moving the ball well, threw another interception on a tipped ball caught by safety Colin Boit ’18. Toward the end of the third quarter, the defense got into the backfield and jarred the ball loose.

Fordon recovered it quickly and found his way into the end zone, the second defensive touchdown on the day — one more than the offense could muster.

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

prepares Big Green for fall season

KATELYN JONES/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The football squad unveiled new uniforms at the spring scrimmage this weekend.

Zach Slafsky ’16 was also able to penetrate the backfield well. The linebacker forced Dalyn Williams to throw the ball away under pressure and later batted down a pass attempt, earning the praise of his coach after the game.

Defensive leader McNamara was pleased with how his unit performed and adapted to the game-like action after weeks of practice.

“Our defense played great,” McNamara said. “I felt the temperature was a little different than it’s been all spring.

We got a lot more plays out there, a lot more guys coming together and kind of have to work as a team more than we did in the spring because it’s not the same transition. I felt our guys rose to the occasion and made great plays when they had to.”

For special teams, while kickoff and punts did not include full units on both sides of the ball, there were some events of note. After a blocked field goal attempt in the 30-yard range by a backup kicker, Alex Gakenheimer ’17 came on in the third quarter and hit an impressive 50-yard field goal straight through the uprights with room to spare.

Gakenheimer’s growth and extensive range should bode well for the fall, as the sophomore’s long for the 2014 season was 41 yards.

“I would say overall the spring went well,” Teevens said. “Sometimes you put it all on the spring game, and the spring game is kind of a heightened sense of awareness, but I thought we were very efficient.”

Women’s frisbee qualifies for nationals

B y HALEY GORDON The Dartmouth Staff

This past weekend, both the men’s and women’s club ultimate frisbee teams competed in the New England college Division I regional tournament at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The men’s team, known as “Pain Train,” made it to the quarterfinals before losing a close match to Brown University 15-11 and ending the tournament tied with Boston College for seventh of the 16 teams.

“Princess Layout,” the women’s team, fared better than the men and finished the day with the first-place spot among the 13 teams, topping Middlebury College 15-5 in the finals.

Princess Layout’s win will send the women’s team to the Division I college championships for the first time since 2009, Sophia Siu ’18 said.

The men’s team competes in the D-I league, and the women’s team competes in D-III. The top two teams at the DIII sectionals competition, however, advance to D-I regionals, which allowed both of Dartmouth’s club teams to show in the D-I competition at Amherst.

The competition began Saturday, and the first day consisted primarily of pool play. In order to determine the bracket for the second day of competition, the first five games for Princess

SW 3

THE

RUNDOWN Baseball SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

COLUMBIA DARTMOUTH PENN CORNELL HARVARD BROWN YALE PRINCETON

16-4 16-4 16-4 9-11 7-13 6-14 6-14 4-16

27-15 20-20 22-15 13-27 18-24 11-28 15-23 7-32

IVY

OVERALL

16-4 13-7 13-7 10-9 8-12 7-13 7-13 5-14

25-16 23-21 22-20 18-24 17-24 13-21 16-28 11-23

Softball SCHOOL

DARTMOUTH HARVARD PENN

PRINCETON CORNELL BROWN COLUMBIA YALE

Men’s Lacrosse SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

BROWN CORNELL PRINCETON PENN YALE HARVARD DARTMOUTH

4-2 4-2 4-2 3-3 3-3 2-4 1-5

12-4 10-5 9-6 6-7 11-4 7-7 5-8

Women’s Lacrosse SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PRINCETON PENN CORNELL HARVARD DARTMOUTH YALE BROWN COLUMBIA

7-0 6-1 4-3 4-3 3-4 2-5 1-6 1-6

14-3 13-4 9-7 8-9 3-11 7-8 7-8 5-10

Women’s Tennis Courtesy of Tom Petzinger

Women’s frisbee qualified for the national championships for the first time since 2009.

Layout and the first three for Pain Train were all within pool play. Each game in pool play was capped at 13 points, although the upper limit was increased to 15 points in bracket play.

The first day of competition ended with Princess Layout beating the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Rhode Island, Boston College, Northeastern Univeristy and the University of New Hampshire to go 5-0 in pool play. Pain Train walked away with wins against Tufts University, Northeastern and Rhode

Island and a single loss against Harvard University.

While most of the women’s games were blowouts, their contest against Northeastern was a close affair, ending with Princess Layout winning 13-9.

The athleticism of the Northeastern players kept the game close, Piper Curtis ’17 said.

“I think part of it was that they are a very physically athletic team, which is sometimes unusual to see because SEE FRISBEE PAGE SW4

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PRINCETON DARTMOUTH BROWN COLUMBIA CORNELL PENN YALE HARVARD

6-1 5-2 4-3 4-3 3-4 3-4 3-4 0-7

12-8 18-5 11-9 12-8 9-9 9-8 9-11 7-12

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 4

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Softball beats Penn twice to take second straight Ivy title

B y daniel lee

The Dartmouth Staff

Softball (25-16, 16-4 Ivy) won its second consecutive Ivy League championship title this past Saturday against the University of Pennsylvania (22-20, 13-7 Ivy), sweeping the first two games of a best-of-three series. Though the team won both games, the victories were by no means easy to clench, as stellar pitching on both ends made it dif ficult for either team to showcase impressive offense.

The Big Green’s Kristen Rumley ’15 and the Quakers’ Alexis Borden took the mound early Saturday afternoon to begin the first game of the series. A solo home run by Penn’s designated hitter Alexis Sargent in the top of the second inning put the Quakers on the board first, and the 1-0 score would hold until the bottom of the fifth.

The Big Green loaded the bases with no outs to begin the fifth inning, looking likely to break the game wide open. After an infield fly by Katie McEachern ’16, Madison Smith ’18 entered the game to pinch hit for Alyssa Jorgensen ’17.

Smith flew out to left field, but her sacrifice fly was deep enough to bring Kelsey Miller ’16 to home plate. Catcher Karen Chaw ’17 popped up to second base, and the game went to the final two innings with the score tied at one.

The sixth and the top of the seventh passed without either team posting another run as the Big Green came to bat in the bottom half of the game’s final frame with a chance to jump ahead in the series. Lourlin Lara ’18 and McEachern opened the inning with back-to-back singles off of a tiring Borden, putting the goahead run in scoring position with no one out.

After being pinch hit for in her last plate appearance, Jorgensen was allowed to bat in the final inning. On the first pitch of the at-bat, Jorgensen smacked a walkoff double to left field, scoring Lara and giving the Big Green the

JIN LEE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The softball team won two straight games at home on Saturday to take the Ivy League title for the second consecutive year. Both wins came by a single run. series lead.

“The weirdest thing about that was that nothing was going through my mind,” Jorgensen said. “I just reacted and [Borden] gave me a pitch that was pretty high and it worked out really well, especially since [Lara} and [McEachern] did an amazing job of getting on [base] early and putting themselves in scoring position.”

The second game was yet another pitching duel, but this time with Morgan McCalmon ’16 on the mound for Dartmouth, squaring off against Borden yet again. In this game, the Big Green would strike early.

McEachern led off the game with a hit-by-pitch and advanced to second after Jorgensen drew a walk. The Big Green seemed to be in the catbird seat with two runners on and no outs, but Borden would battle back. Madeline Damore ’17 and Chaw could not get the ball out of the infield, and McEachern and Jorgenson remained perched on their bases.

With two on and two out, the Big Green’s star pitcher and this

game’s designated hitter, Rumley, stepped into the batter’s box. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Rumley cracked a single, scoring McEachern and giving the Big Green a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the second, the team managed to load the bases with no outs to strike fear back into the Quakers’ hearts. Borden battled back from this jam by inducing a fielder’s choice and then a double play to escape the inning without any further damage.

McCalmon pitched a spectacular game for the Big Green, walking just one batter and allowing no hits in the first three innings.

She allowed four hits and struck out eight Quakers though seven shutout innings.

The Big Green maintained the 1-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh, but the fragile margin would be tested by the Quakers.

With one out in the inning, Penn’s designated hitter Jurie Joyner hit a towering double to left field. The tying run stood on second base with two outs left for McCalmon to nail down.

Vera Barnwell of Penn pinch

ran for Joyner to give the Quakers hope of scoring on any base hit to the outfield.

First to try for the tie was Penn’s right fielder Leah Allen, whose cut on the first pitch generated a foul out to third base. With two outs and the Quakers’ season on the line, Penn’s catcher Korinne Raby stepped into the batter’s box.

Raby batted .276 on the season and needed to drive home Barnwell for the tie. On the first pitch of the atbat, Raby came out swinging and popped up to shortstop, giving the Big Green its second consecutive win in the series and the team’s second-straight Ivy title.

“On the bottom of the seventh, my adrenaline was going crazy, but just trusting what we’ve done as a program this entire year, I was able to settle in and trust my defense even though [Jurie Joyner] hit a double,” McCalmon said. “I had no doubt that we were going to close it out and come through.”

Dar tmouth’s pitching was nothing less than spectacular as Rumley and McCalmon, arguably the deadliest 1-2 punch in the Ivy Leagues, allowed only one run

through 14 innings.

“I have to credit our coach because she calls the pitches. We had them down pretty well and it’s being consistent and trusting my preparation and trusting our team’s preparation,” McCalmon said. “Our defense was spectacular and our offense is always on point, and it’s really easy to pitch with an offense and defense that strong.”

Head coach Shannon Doepking smiled during the celebration as she held the Ivy League Championship trophy.

“We came into the season with goals and our [ultimate] goal wasn’t to win the Ivy Championship, it was to go to regionals and compete and we haven’t done that yet,” Doepking said. “We’re going to enjoy the moment and this is ver y, ver y exciting for us, but we’re going to get right back at it and we’re going to work our tails off so that when we go to regionals, we’re going to compete.”

The team will find out their opponents for the first round of the NCAA tournament when their competitor is announced on Sunday, May 10.

Princess Layout wins regionals, qualifies for national tournament FROM FRISBEE PAGE 3

we’re pretty athletic too,” Curtis said. “It was a good matchup.

They’re also very skilled with their throws and their movement, so it was kind of hard to keep up.”

Entering the second day of play, Princess Layout retained its first-seed ranking. The team faced Middlebury, the first-place team of the second pool, and dominated game play, coming away with a 15-5 victory and a guaranteed

spot at nationals.

“I think the one-seed was enough to make us know that we deserved to be there,” Madeline Parish ’16 said. “But because it was atypical to years past, it kept us competitive enough to be able to take us through and win.”

Middlebury featured a strong, gritty roster, Julianna Werffeli ’18 said. Princess Layout was able to counteract Middlebury’s skills, however, thanks to a zone defense and an adaptive strategy

spearheaded by coach Eugene Yum, Werffeli said.

“It’s really nice to win,” Sophia Schwartz ’13 said. “It’s really nice to get it done when we needed to get it done, and not have to go to the next game between the two and three spots to try to win. It was really nice to stay executive and do it when we needed to do it to take the tournament.”

The men’s squad played against Brown in the quarterfinals, but fell 15-11. The men could potentially

have played again to vie for fifth place, but its opponent, Boston College, left the tournament and forfeited the game.

Schwartz attributed the success of the women to the strength of the individual players’ skill sets.

“This is the strongest team we’ve had yet,” Schwartz said. “I think from the whole team perspective we’re the strongest [we’ve been]. We came in as the number one seed which we’ve never done before…so we had a little bit of

an easier schedule through out the tournament.”

On the women’s team this year there are four players who have played ultimate in junior worlds competitions: Angela Zhu ’17, Eva Petzinger ’15, Curtis and Werffeli.

Princess Layout will be one of 20 women’s teams competing in the 2015 USA Ultimate College Championships. The event will take place in Milwaukee May 22 to May 25.