Year: Senior
Major: Health Fitness
Sport: Baseball
FP: How old were you when you first started playing baseball?
Adam: I was probably 4 or 5, I have a terrible memory though so I may be wrong.
FP: Do you just pitch, or you do you play other positions as well?
Adam: I’m strictly a pitcher.
Baseball Under the snow on the USM baseball field there is dirt and there is grass. And the Huskies are ready for it.
On March 20, the University of Southern Maine Huskies baseball team will run onto a field without snow, facing William Paterson in sunny and warm Chandler, Arizona.
Coach Ed Flaherty, in his 23rd season at the helm, is optimistic about the start of this 2008 season.
“I feel very good about this team,” Flaherty says. “It is a bit young as there are only two seniors and a handful of juniors.? I feel offensively we will be extremely potent, have decent team speed and good power.”
The two seniors, Eddie Skeffington (Everett, MA) and Adam Ross (Rockland) will be called upon to provide the leadership in the dugout-both have been named captains.
Emily Artesani knows something about efficiency. Whether it’s in the classroom or running the ever-grueling 400 meters, she is adept at managing her energy and coming out on top.
A sophomore psychology major in the university’s honors program, Artesani recently broke one of the university’s longest standing track records in the 400 meter event.
Winning in college sports is hard enough, but things are about to get even more difficult for coaches and players at USM.
While I was in New York City this past week at a journalism convention, Columbia University revealed their plan to do away with student loans.
2/27 – In the annual Little East Conference coaches preseason poll, the Huskies were ranked 3rd of 8 in the conference, below Eastern Connecticut, ranked 6th in the nation, and Keene State College, ranked 30th in the nation. They open their season in Arizona over vacation, and have their home opener on April 1 versus Bowdoin College.
On Friday night, the women’s basketball team walked off the court for the last time this season. It was the first-round game of the NCAA national tournament-the Huskies received an at-large bid to the tournament after losing the conference championship game in overtime to Eastern Connecticut-and though they played one of their best games of the season and led most of the game, the Huskies couldn’t hang on in the end.
Early in the season, head wrestling coach Joe Pistone commented that one of the toughest parts of his sport is that athletes train for 20 to 40 hours for each seven-minute match.
On Friday, after two weeks of training, six hours on planes and four days in Iowa, sophomore Mike Morin (Fryeburg) had just 14 minutes on the mat before he was eliminated from the tournament in a heartbreaking final match.
The annual rite of spring that captivates millions of American sports fans is rapidly approaching: students around USM are not immune to the frenzy that is March Madness in college basketball.
From casual fans to die-hard Dukies and those who bleed Tar Heel blue, the annual college basketball tournaments draw a boatload of attention and even more speculation.
Men’s Basketball
Seniors Drew Coppenrath (Barnet, VT) and Jamaal Caterina (Portland) were named to the Little East Conference (LEC) all-conference team. Caterina earned a spot on the first team, and Coppenrath on the second and also the all-defensive squad.
Last week I found myself on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. I was covering the men’s basketball playoff game at UMass-Darmouth: innocent enough. But as I took my seat in the relatively quiet gym during the final seconds of the Keene State/Rhode Island College game, the atmosphere began to change.
It has been a record setting post-season for the USM men’s indoor track and field team.
Two weeks ago, the team broke three school records at the NEIcAAA championships, including best-ever results in the 4×400 meter relay and the 800 and 5,000 meter runs.
Year: Sophomore
Major: Psychology
Sport: Women’s track
FP: How did you feel when you broke the 17-year-old record for the 400 meter indoor race in NYC last weekend?
Emily: I felt pretty proud, that record has been standing for a long time, so it was exciting to break it.
After a season of winning, the women’s basketball team took a hit in the conference championship game, losing in overtime to Eastern Connecticut, 60-65. They will likely still continue to the NCAA tournament, but have to wait until late Sunday night for the announcement of teams getting at-large bids.
The loss drops their record to 25-3, and breaks a streak of 11 consecutive Little East Conference championship wins. USM has been to the NCAA tournament for the last 13 years in a row, and have gone 21 times since joining the NCAA in 1985.
What made this year different?
“In the past, we’d go to the LEC’s thinking ‘we’re gonna win,'” said senior Shannon Kynoch (South Burlington, VT)after their semi-finals win against Keene.
“This year it was a lot tougher, we’ve had to work that much harder. It wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.”
Hockey is a game that relies on momentum. You have to be able to counter-act every good move your opponent makes and create a good opportunities right away; any sudden mistakes will be detrimental to the objective of winning the game. It’s like chess on ice.
The men’s basketball team may not have won the conference championship, but if you consider achieving team goals a triumph, than the Huskies had an extremely successful close to their season.
Coach Karl Henrikson and his team aspired from the start of the season to accomplish three things: to end the season with a winning record and to both host and win a playoff game.
Stefan Black walks into the ice arena with a confident swagger, giving off the impression that he owns the place. He looks relaxed and certain, and hums a tune as he makes his way down to the rink.
In a way, Black does own the ice.
No, he’s not a star hockey player or the head coach.
The hockey season ended Saturday night for 18 dedicated Huskies. After a painfully close match at New England College that ended 3-4, the women’s hockey team finished their season 7-18-1.
Just one week before, the Huskies had a pair of games against the Pilgrims, winning the first 3-2 at home, but losing in Henniker, NH 2-10.
Men’s
Basketball
Caterina commands Huskies into Semifinals of the Little East tournament
USM Senior Forward Jamaal Caterina (Portland) broke his single game scoring record with 33 points in a win over Eastern Connecticut in the first round of the Little East tournament.
Intramural basketball isn’t for the faint of heart.
Wednesday night in the Sullivan Gym, I found this out first hand.
And while my fondest memories of intramurals from high school include goofy uniforms and shoddy officiating, my newly-acquired impressions are vastly different.
Year: Senior
Major: Athletic Training
Sport: Men’s Track
FP: How many sports did you play in high school?
Adam: I did soccer and indoor/outdoor track
FP: When did you start to become really serious about pole vaulting?
Adam: I started to pole vault my first year of high school, I followed in my big sister’s footsteps.
Men’s Basketball
2/16 – Rhode Island College 79, USM 72
2/19 – Plymouth State 54, USM 53
2/23 – USM 75, Western Connecticut 65
2/26 – USM 79, Eastern Connecticut 69 (Little East quarterfinal)
2/29 – Umass Dartmouth 75, USM 69 (Little East semi-final)
Men’s Hockey
2/16 – Connecticut College 3, USM 1
2/22 – New England College 3, USM 2
2/23 – Saint Anselm 4, USM 2
3/1 – New England College 5, USM 2 (ECAC quarterfinal)
Men’s Indoor Track
2/16 – Little East Championships – #1 Keene State 169, #2 USM 148.
Friday’s game versus Eastern Connecticut meant more to the women’s basketball team than most — it was senior night.
Senior night, usually one of the last home games of the season, is one of the toughest moments in an athlete’s career. It signifies the end: unless you’re going professional, which few Division III athletes do, your career as an athlete is over.
Stephen Holt is USM’s only male cheerleader. Choreographed into routines with nine women, he provides strength and balance to their aesthetically-focused routines: in any given human pyramid, Holt will be found at the bottom center position.
Despite stereotypes surrounding cheerleaders, the last decade has granted cheerleading national recognition and respect for being a physically demanding sport on par with the football and basketball teams they cheer for.
They are among the most the most successful sports programs at USM, right up there with baseball and women’s basketball. And they have been entirely ignored.
“They” are the USM women’s track team.
What exactly constitutes a great team or program —- character? hard work? determination? the ability to succeed when all the odds are against you?
These women, 38 of them this season, don’t complain about the coverage that they don’t get, they just go out and do what they do best — winning.