Wed 28 Oct 2009
Athletics Round-Up: NESCAC Championship Edition
Posted by jeffz under Admissions, Alumni, Athletics at 6:30 am
- Men’s and women’s soccer will both be hosting NESCAC playoff games on Sunday. In each case, the ultimate opponent is yet to be determined. Women’s soccer is aiming for its third straight NESCAC title, and has almost certainly locked up an NCAA bid; but first things first, they need to beat Middlebury to secure home field advantage throughout the NESCAC championship and keep their three year regular season unbeaten streak alive until 2010. Men’s soccer will probably be the second seed, but could wind up either first or third depending on Saturday’s result against nemesis Middlebury, who has defeated the Ephs four times (out of five meetings) in two years and ended the last two Eph seasons. The Ephmen are also very likely to be an NCAA selection, but at least one win this weekend would help secure their bid. If all goes well, both men’s and women’s soccer may end up hosting the final rounds of the NESCAC championship on November 7-8.
- Field hockey will also be participating in the NESCAC championship Sunday, but may need to beat Middlebury Saturday to secure a first round home game. Meanwhile, men’s and women’s cross country both compete in the NESCAC championship on Sunday; both squads are always among the favorites both in NESCAC and nationally.
- High school quarterback D.J. Petropolus is, accordingly to this article, deciding between (where else) Amherst and Williams. Hopefully he will make the right choice. Williams and Amherst may be headed for a titanic showdown this season, as Williams is 4-1 and has (as usual under Coach Whalen) been improving over the course of the season. Meanwhile, Amherst is 5-0 and, if they can score an upset victory over Trinity at home, will probably come to Williamstown undefeated.
- Another high school athlete interested in Williams: Kalle Jahn is applying to Williams early, and hopes to compete for the nordic ski team.
- Matt Zanedis 10’s hometown paper featured this photo of him with Fay Vincent.
- Check out this great Record article on football captain Nick Caro ‘10. Caro made a big splash as a sophomore, when he was featured on ESPN (anyone save that on Youtube?). He was dominating NESCAC last year before suffering a gruesome injury, but he has made an impressive recovery to rank among the league receiving leaders despite missing time due to careful management of his injury situation.
- Central Michigan handily beat Bowling Green in Saturday’s Bajakian-Clawson showdown. Central Michigan is on the verge of cracking the Top 25 (remarkable for a school from the MAC), and will likely do so if they can upset Boston College this weekend.
- Professor Morgan on the fastest route around the baseball diamond.
- Finally, for those on or near campus, don’t forget to check out Jim Brown speaking tomorrow.
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20 Responses to “Athletics Round-Up: NESCAC Championship Edition”
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1980 says:
What a great story about Nick Caro!
frank uible says:
Not as good as Nick himself.
1980 says:
You are right Frank – it’s a great story about a great kid.
frank uible says:
Actions speak louder than words.
frank uible says:
From purely a football standpoint Petropolus’ decision is easy. At Williams he would have the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the line of great Williams QBs of recent and not quite recent years. At Amherst in whose footsteps might he follow?
JeffZ says:
I was a little off on dates, Williams played Middlebury today to conclude the regular season. Field hockey is getting killed, and men’s soccer continued their frustrating streak against Midd, losing 1-0, but will still host a home playoff game on Sunday (and there is a decent chance they will be playing Midd again on Sunday; the pressure will really be on as they probably need to win to feel good about their NCAA chances). Women’s soccer, however, beat Middlebury, wrapping up their insanely impressive third straight undefeated regular season and the top seed in the NESCAC championships beginning Sunday.
JeffZ says:
Frank, are most of the guys on the Williams football team recruited by Amherst, and vice versa? If so, do you have a sense of how Williams does in head-to-head recruiting battles? Just curious.
frank uible says:
Don’t know.
David says:
I hope they have a good time.
Is it true that only athletic recruits, like Petropulos and Jellison, are allowed to stay overnight during week-end visits? If so, why do athletes get special privileges?
JeffZ says:
Good catch on his teammate also visiting Williams, DK. More on Jellison (who sounds like he may be leaning towards Amherst) here:
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090918/SPORTS01/909189976/-1/XML07
Williams soccer secured the second seed in NESCAC and will host Conn College on Sunday.
JG says:
@David: Don’t know if it’s true that nobody else can ever do it, but I do know that to see games in the sports they might play, sometimes it is necessary to be there on a weekend.
David says:
So, presumably, baseball and softball recruits, for example, are not allowed to overnight on fall week-ends . . .
I doubt it!
This is just one way that Williams treats athletic recruits differently from other prospective applicants, while offering some weak tea rationalization for the preference.
It may be a good policy. It may be a bad one. But the first step is to figure out what the policy is, and for the College to not mislead us about the reasoning behind it.
David says:
For those interested, here is the College’s official policy on overnight visits.
Perhaps Petropulos and Jellison are staying overnight on Sunday and missing school on Monday . . .
Am I just imagining that athletic recruits can stay over on Friday and Saturday nights . . .
frank uible says:
David: Do you issue a public apology when one of your innuendos proves innaccurate? In case your readers are not knowledgeable, the definition of an innuendo is an Italian suppository.
nuts says:
Based on David’s lazy muckraking on this thread (if he were serious he’d do his homework first) and his research on Jim Brown’s history of domestic violence on a thread about Jim Brown’s address to students on campus this week, I would venture to conjecture David is going through stress and needs our support.
disgusted says:
So much for not using pre-Frosh names to make a point. If I were those football players, googled my name and saw David’s rant, I would go to Amherst. Nice work, David.
David says:
“lazy muckraking?” What does this even mean? The College has one policy for athletic recruits and one policy for everyone else. Recall this Record article from 2005:
That would be Sunday morning October 23, 2005. So, as of 4 years ago, athletic recruits were allowed to stay over on Saturday nights.
Nothing there about not allowing recruits to visit on weekends anymore. And note that this basketball recruit was not in town to watch a game!
“Administration has been aware of?” Ha! More likely, Harry Sheehy sees no reason to tell the Record the truth . . .
David says:
The origin of that practice was 4 years ago. I believe it was Jeff (among others) who suggested my current practice. I don’t post the names of pre-frosh in a new post and in the same post make a tangentially related political point. For over fours years, I have kept that pledge (with one, contested, counter-example). I have no plans on changing that practice.
But that is not what is going on here. First, this is not my post! I did not know about Petropulos and Jellison. If you are proposing a new rule that, in the comments to posts that mention pre-frosh we can’t discuss anything political, then feel free to make that suggestion. Second, the discussion topic here is not political, at least not in the way that we initially used it with regard to prior examples. (Reasonable people may disagree.)
To the extent that it makes you happy, I won’t mention their names again.
Fortunately, I doubt that they are as weak-kneed as you appear to be. Ever play football? Ever known any football players? As a rule, they are made of sterner stuff.
JeffZ says:
Huge day at NESCAC’s for the Ephs. Men’s and women’s soccer both win in dominant fashion, locking up spots in the NESCAC tourney (and almost certainly in the NCAA tournament). Field hockey stuns Middlebury, who beat the Ephs 7-1 just two days earlier. Men win conference championship in cross country; women come in second. Next weekend women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, and field hockey will all be looking to earn NESCAC titles.
Football meanwhile continues to roll. Middlebury stunned Trinity which means the Ephs now control their own destiny; if they win their next two games, they will finish in no worse than a tie for the conference title with either currently-undefeated Amherst or with Trinity, who plays at Amherst next Saturday. Eph fans are in the unusual position of rooting for Amherst next weekend, as facing an unbeaten Amherst team looking for a conference title would be an incredible end to the season, and if the Ephs pulled out a win, even thought they’d be tied in record, winning the head-to-head would make them a clear number one.
frank uible says:
But in the meantime Williams football must face Wesleyan this coming Saturday, which beat Bowdoin which beat Middlebury which beat Trinity which beat Williams.