Author: USM

With the leaves trickling off the trees and the winter months approaching, sports fans begin to lick their chops at the near excitement ahead: the winter sports season.

The fall sports season has come and gone with the thrills and disappointments of autumn competition, and it is now up to the realm of winter sports to entertain sports fans across the country.

The winter season provides students at USM and people in the surrounding communities an experience unlike any other during the school year.

Winter sports just seem to bring hysteria to sports fans, no matter what sport it is. That is what creates the undying passion for winter sports that lives inside sports fans like myself.

The USM wrestling team opened up their 2009-2010 season by earning a sixth place finish at the Roger Williams Invitational in Bristol, RI on Saturday.

Senior and number one ranked DIII wrestler Mike Morin (Fryeburg) and freshman Cody Byrd (Londonderry, NH) started the season out strong as they each placed first in their respective weight classes.

The Portland Sports Complex (PSC) serves the greater Portland area with a facility unlike any other around.

All of the athletic facilities in Portland are top notch, but they fail to serve Portland with the flexibility of different uses that the PSC does. There’s the Portland Expo, which is the new home to the NBA Development team The Maine Red Claws. There’s Hadlock Field, home of the Sea Dogs and Portland and Deering High School’s baseball teams. Then there’s the Portland Ice Arena which is where the area’s high school hockey teams play. Finally there’s the Cumberland County Civic Center, which is the home of the minor league hockey team, the Portland Pirates, and is a facility that hosts many concerts throughout the year. Unlike these facilities though, PSC offers people with different options that apply to several sports in one indoor multi-purpose field.

A total of 48 colleges and over 600 runners rolled into Cumberland boasting their school colors and names on the sides of their coach busses, prepared to run the most important race of their season. On a rain soaked day at the Twin Brook Recreational Center, the USM men’s and women’s cross country teams hosted the New England Region Division III Championships with a goal in mind. Both were looking to qualify for nationals as a team. This goal may have not been reached, but each team’s top 5 runners continued their tremendous running in the 2009 season, and look to have at least one individual bid to represent the program at Division III Nationals in Cleveland. The men’s team swiped a 9th place finish out of 48 teams, and the women’s team took the 19th spot out of the 47 teams in their race.

The Athletic Training major at USM is an underappreciated program that is lucky to have its dedicated faculty and staff says Rolinda Mitchell.

Mitchell, who is a Dover-Foxcroft native, is a senior in the program and currently serves as the President of the Athletic Training Student Association.

Women’s team expected atop the LEC once again

The USM women’s basketball team looks to be a force in the LEC this year as they are coming off a 2008-2009 season in which they were conference champions for the 19th time.

Veteran Coach Gary Fifield returns to the sidelines for his 22nd season as Huskies head coach after retiring a year ago.

Unsportsmanlike times in a heated rivalry

As I stood on the sidelines at the beginning of last Saturday’s men’s soccer LEC conference match-up between USM and the Keene State Owls, I knew I was in for a good game.

The rivalry between the two schools is unlike any other in the conference.

Firstly,why did you choose USM? Did you apply to many other schools? What are you majoring in? Do you enjoy it?

Coming to USM was a pretty easy decision. I got accepted to other schools but financially for my parents and myself, USM was the most convenient.

Huskies shut out by Western Connecticut in conference tournament

The USM women’s soccer team’s season ended last Tuesday in Connecticut with a 2-0 loss to fourth-seeded Western Connecticut State University in the first round of the Little East Conference Championship Tournament.