Author: Cooper Sutton

By Chris McCree

Writer

The men’s water polo team upset host No. 15 Navy en route to a second-place finish at the Southern Championships in Annapolis, Md. this past weekend. Coming into the tournament as the fourth seed, the Bison advanced to the championship game but fell to No. 17 Princeton by two goals in the finals.

After an 11-7 victory over Mercyhurst in the first round earlier in the day, the Orange and Blue took down Navy 13-12 on Saturday for one of their most significant victories of the season. Coming into the tournament, the Bison had lost to Navy twice this season. The two teams were tied at halftime and close for the entire game, but with just over five minutes left to play, Howie Kalter ’11 sealed the victory for the Bison with his fifth goal of the game. The loss was a shocking blow for Navy, who previously had an all-time tournament record of 53-5 and had never lost to the Bison in the Southern Championships.

Overall, the team looked at the victory as the result of a combined effort by everyone involved.

“We did well because we made an effort to work for each other. For both our offense and defense, there was a lot of communication and we were able to stick with and effectively run our game plan. Everybody was enthusiastic when somebody stepped up and scored; it created a good atmosphere,” Paul Reamey ’11 said.

“We were able to prevent our opponent’s counterattack and forced them to take outside shots that our goalies could easily block,” Brian Barron ’13 said.

The Orange and Blue took their momentum into the final matchup against Princeton, but fell to the Tigers 8-6 after leading by two at the half. The Bison offense stalled in the second half of the game as they only scored twice in the third quarter and had no goals in the fourth. Barron was the team’s only multi-goal scorer with two goals.

The senior class propelled the Bison to win two out of their three contests as Richie Hyden ’11, Kalter, Reamey and Sean Coghlan ’11 combined to score 18 of the team’s 30 goals. Goalkeeper Miles Gilhuly ’11 was another significant contributor to the Bison success as he registered 19 saves over the three-game stretch.

In the end, the team’s second-place finish was not only historically important because it was the program’s best-ever performance at this event, but also because it qualified the Bison to play in the Eastern Championships, which the team will host the third weekend in November.

“To prepare for Eastern Championships, we just need to remember what has made us successful in the past, and each person needs keep working to make the other guys on the team better,” Reamey said.

By Mike Wolf

Contributing Writer

The volleyball team ended a three-game extended losing streak with a great game against a tough Lafayette team this past weekend. The host Bison swept the Leopards on Saturday after slipping in five games to Lehigh the previous day.

After a tough loss on Friday, the Bison recovered well as they dominated Lafayette on Saturday night. The Orange and Blue won the match in three quick sets 25-22, 25-19, 25-14.

The team had needed a change of strategy after the Lehigh loss, especially with playoffs coming next weekend.

“It was a wake-up call to how hard we’re going to have to work this upcoming weekend in order to make it to the playoffs,” McAhren said.

Following a close first game where a late run let the Bison pull ahead, the team took total control of the match and never looked back. The win put the Bison back in the running for the playoffs, as they now hold the final playoff spot.

Friday’s game was close until the very end as the Bison went to five sets in the match. The Bison alternated winning and losing sets until the match was split at two games apiece. In the fifth set a quick start by Lehigh left the Orange and Blue unable to get a streak together. The match was lost 17-25, 25-17, 20-25, 25-18, 15-8.

Kyleigh McAhren ’12 and Heidi Kamp ’11 led the team with 13 and 10 kills, respectively. The Bison also made a positive offensive step with 13 aces, which was a season high, including five by Kristen Titley ’14.

Though the Bison put together a very solid four sets at the beginning of the match, they fell quickly behind in the fifth. Lehigh’s Paige Kruse started the set with multiple aces and the Orange and Blue found themselves down 6-0, a deficit from which they could not recover.

The Bison have two huge matches this weekend that will decide whether they make the playoffs. Friday’s game against Holy Cross is at 7 p.m. and is also Senior Night. Saturday’s game is at 5 p.m. against Army and is themed “Rock the House,” where masses of fans come to make the court as loud as possible.

By Greg Stevenson

Senior Writer

After last year’s shocking loss to rival Holy Cross in the Patriot League Tournament opening round, the 2010-11 season could not come fast enough for the Bison men’s basketball team. The quick and surprisingly early end came just days after the Bison secured the number two seed in their conference and earned the right to play their first home playoff game since 2007.

With every new season come new goals, and this season is no different. Even though last season has come and gone, its bitter end still lingers for the Orange and Blue.

“The one aspect of last season that I will remember going into this season is the emotions I was feeling when Holy Cross defeated us in the Patriot League Tournament last year,” said Bryan Cohen ’12, the projected starting small forward this season. “It allows us as a team to realize that we have the ability to be there again this year, but also that we must stay focused and motivated to attack every day of practice with intensity.”

That focus and motivation to attack will be on display right away for the Bison as they face two major conference opponents in their first weekend of the season. The Orange and Blue travel today to Villanova, the sixth-ranked team in the nation, and on Sunday to Marquette, another Big East power. But even though the Bison take on a few of college basketball’s blue-bloods early in the season, the early games are not what the Orange and Blue are focusing on.

“There is no single game that is important this year,” starting point guard Darryl Shazier ’11 said. “We will build off of each game and look to get progressively better as the year goes on.”

“As a team, we’re very passionate about not looking ahead,” Enoch Andoh ’12 said. “We strive to take one game at a time, one possession at a time. Nonetheless, our ultimate goal is the Patriot League Championship and a March Madness berth. Each game until then is an equally important test on our long journey to success.”

Picked a close second behind American in the Patriot League preseason polls, the Bison return all five starters from a team that won nine conference games in 2010 and lose just one player who tallied significant minutes last season. Despite the appearance of having the same team, the 2011 roster is much different than last year’s team.

“The main difference between this year’s team and last is our depth,” starting shooting guard Bryson Johnson ’13 said. “Everyone on our team will be able to contribute this year and that helps when guys are having an off night.”

“I think the biggest difference this year is experience,” said Mike Muscala ‘13, this year’s starting center. “We had a young team last year and are still relatively young, but a lot of guys, including myself, were able to get that year of experience and go through the process. I think we then did a good job of using that experience in the off season to work on weaknesses that we discovered throughout our season.”

As it is every season, the goal for the Orange and Blue this year is to take home the Patriot League Championship trophy and advance to where only four other Bison men’s basketball squads have been before—the NCAA tournament. But with a tough conference and non-conference schedule, winning the title will not be easy this year.

“We plan to hoist up the Patriot League Championship trophy at the end of the year, but talk means next to nothing,” G.W. Boon ’11 said. “There is an old proverb that says, ‘All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.’ We have worked hard, so I know we will be have a great season. Now we just have to prove it between the lines once the ball gets tipped up.”

With the Villanova and Marquette games this weekend, the Bison will have to waste no time showing off all their hard work in the offseason and proving that they belong in the conversation for the Patriot League Championship.

By Cooper Sutton

Sports Editor

On a windy pitch behind the University soccer stadium, the Bison rugby team beat Lafayette this Saturday 13-12 to win its first-round playoff game.

Coming off of a loss to Gettysburg the week before—the team’s only loss of the season—the Bison were determined to play hard.

“It was definitely the best game of rugby our team has played all season,” forward Harry Bradford ’13 said.

Early in the match, the Orange and Blue seemed to dominate possession, but they could not break through Lafayette’s defense.

“Our forwards played exceptionally well, I think; we dominated scrums throughout the entire game and we stole a bunch of opposing line-outs, which really helped us keep control of the ball during the game,” Bradford said.

The Bison struck first as back Jon Shaheed ’11 converted a field goal to give his team the 3-0 lead. Lafayette then scored a try to take a 7-3 lead into halftime.

In the second half, the Bison tacked on another field goal to make the score 7-6. Lafayette added another try, but Bison forward Peter Haxton ’13 forced a missed two-point conversion to keep the score at 12-6. As the Lafayette kicker moved forward to kick, Haxton ran at him, causing him to miss.

Bradford then added a try for the Bison, giving the team the 13-12 lead that it carried to the end of the match.

Both teams racked up a large amount of penalties, and the Bison earned two yellow cards. Three Bison were injured: Trevor Kauffmann ’14 and Ryan Ward ’11 with concussions, and Ross McMonigle ’13 with a cut to the head.

The Bison hope to continue success next weekend on the road against The College of New Jersey.

By Cooper Sutton

Sports Editor

Travis Nissley ’11, mechanical engineer and middle linebacker, is the second student-athlete in Bison history to be nominated as a finalist for the Campbell Trophy, which is awarded to the most deserving student-athlete in the nation.

Nissley currently carries a 3.96 GPA in one of the University’s most academically challenging majors and is a standout on the football field. He is a team captain and fifth on the team for tackles this season.

For his achievement, Nissley received an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship from the National Football Foundation. He will find out whether or not he is the winner of the Campbell Trophy Dec. 7 at the awards dinner in New York City.

The Bucknellian: What, above all else, has allowed you to be one of the 16 finalists for the Campbell Trophy?

Travis Nissley: I think I would have to go with my grades. If you look at the evaluation criteria that they evaluate the award on, it’s a combination of your scholastic performance, your athletic ability, your athletic performance and your leadership and maybe a few other things. I really didn’t think that I stacked up well enough overall, but I guess my grades brought me through to get to be a finalist.

The Bucknellian: What aspects of this process are you most looking forward to? Anything you are worried about?

TN: I’m not worried, but I’m really looking forward to the trip to New York City. I’ve never been to New York City, except to play Fordham, and I guess that doesn’t really count because you don’t get to go anywhere but the hotel and the field. The only other guy to make it to be a finalist from Bucknell, David Berardinelli, he e-mailed me, congratulated me and said that the trip to New York was one of the best experiences of his life. It should be really cool—I get to meet all those people that I would consider to be in a whole different league athletically and football-wise.

The Bucknellian: What does being nominated for this honor mean to you?

TN: It means a lot. I’ve worked hard over the last couple of years, but I’ve been blessed intellectually, too. It’s a huge honor to represent the school. It’s like a football win almost: when you win, you’re glad you won for yourself, but the glory goes to the school and to everybody who helped contribute to that win. It speaks to all my professors, my coaches, my parents, my family and friends who have helped me over the years. It’s great to be able to represent all those people and all the things that went into it by being named a finalist.

The Bucknellian: How do you find time between playing football and being a mechanical engineer?

TN: I’ve been very fortunate to be gifted intellectually, so I can do well on tests and that stuff without studying too much. As far as the time management aspect of getting homework and projects done, you just have to be focused. It’s tough sometimes when your friends want to do something fun and you have to go get work done. It’s more about being able to sacrifice fun stuff for what you want later on down the road.

The Bucknellian: Has football ever affected your ability to perform in the classroom or vice-versa?

TN: Yes and no. It affects it, but at the same time, you can’t let it affect it. When we go on the field for football, we have a thought box and we symbolically toss our thoughts into the thought box. It’s meant to symbolize that when you go out to the practice field you have to clear your head of everything. So I can have a really long day, be all stressed out because of school, but I can’t let it affect me. If you want to be a good player, you can’t let the school aspect influence it, and it’s the same way for school. Sometimes I’ll roll into class feeling ridiculously tired or beat up, and all I want to do is sleep, but if you want to be good in school, you just can’t let it affect you.

The Bucknellian: What first inspired you to become an engineer?

TN: Well, I grew up on a farm, so I’ve always been around machinery and that kind of stuff. My dad was into snowmobiles, so I grew up around snowmobiles, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, that kind of stuff. That’s one of my biggest passions, I love that, engines and stuff like that. I didn’t really know what real engineering was all about until I got to Bucknell, but it’s verified my initial interest in things that engineering is relative to.

The Bucknellian: How have your team and your coaches helped you in your academic pursuits?

TN: They help to keep me focused. The group of guys I live with all try very hard in school and help to keep me focused. It’s easier to stay focused when the people around you are focused. Every coach that I have played under here always stresses the importance of academics and an academics-first mindset.

The Bucknellian: What do you value more, your achievements in the classroom or on the field?

TN: I would definitely say on the field. It doesn’t come nearly as easily on the field. I’ve been very fortunate to be gifted intellectually, and I don’t think I’ve been gifted like that athletically. Athletically, I’ve always had to work very hard to achieve any success that I wanted. When I achieve on the field, it’s definitely a greater feeling than in the classroom. That’s not to take away anything from the intellectual achievements, though.

The Bucknellian: What do you see yourself doing with the rest of your life? How are both your academic and athletic pursuits at the University going to help you with this?

TN: The time management and being able to sacrifice what you want at the moment for what you want overall is going to be huge in life. There are a lot of things in football: leadership experience and life experience about toughness and discipline that help in the workplace. There is obviously no direct correlation—you don’t need to be tough in the workplace—but the concepts transfer. Obviously I’ve received a great education here. You put all this time into the training of being an engineer here, learning everything, and you get to a point where you just want to get out and do something with it. I don’t know exactly where I see myself. I don’t want to get a job that drives me like a slave, but I definitely want a job that challenges me intellectually, somewhere that I could be a leader, as well. I want a job that combines both the technical side of things and also leading people, some type of team environment where we are striving towards something.

By Justin Cohen

Contributing Writer

Last season, the Miami Heat finished in the middle of the pack in the playoff landscape of the Eastern Conference. The talent of a young Heat squad, even with Dwayne Wade, did not make it past the first round, losing in five games to the eventual Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics.

The Heat made major changes to their roster in order to free up salary cap space by releasing or trading seven of their 15 players. A free agent class headed by LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, Paul Pierce, Amar’e Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer, Joe Johnson and many others was more than enough for the Heat to risk it all this past summer.

After spending $330 million, they re-signed Dwayne Wade and added Chris Bosh and LeBron James.

As soon as James announced his intention to play for the Heat, debates instantly began about the Heat’s status in the NBA and about the ability of three of the best players in the league to play together on one team.

The Heat refilled their roster with additional players like Mike Miller, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Eddie House, as well as drafting Dexter Pittman out of the University of Texas. With the big three looking toward next June and the prospects of having a successful 2010 season looking very strong, the Heat were poised to take the league by storm.

Five games into the season the Heat sit on a 4-1 record with the big three all beginning to work together for their common goal of a championship. The Heat were confident in their ability to win, despite a minor setback in Wade’s preseason injury. The experts began to say that without Wade, the big three would take a while to develop chemistry on the court, and because of their new roster, much of the pressure would fall to the role players on the team.

After the Heat dropped the season opener to the Celtics, critics said the Heat had no dominant big men since Bosh is more of an offensive player. They said the big three will always have to control the ball with Mike Miller hurt and the role players not being suited for the responsibility.

Amid all of the talk, the big three are putting up solid numbers: all three have an average of about five rebounds per game, while Lebron and Wade are both adding 20 points and four assists per game. Amazingly, the big three is only shooting a combined 44 percent from the field. But the Heat are still winning thanks to their defense which is ranked number one in most defensive categories in the league, allowing only 80 points per game.

The Heat will have a serious challenge in front of them when they face the Los Angeles Lakers, who maintained almost their entire roster from last year’s championship team.

By Joe Ruby

Writer

The men’s soccer team dropped two difficult road games this week, losing 2-1 in overtime to Lafayette (7-7-3, 2-3-1) and 3-2 against Binghamton (6-6-4). Tommy McCabe ’11, Luke Joyner ’12 and Andrew Powell ’12 scored for the Bison, who now need help to qualify for the Patriot League Tournament.

Against Lafayette, the Bison trailed 1-0 at halftime but struck late to force overtime. McCabe, assisted by Brendan Burgdorf ’13, cleaned up a loose ball in the box 73:06 into the match to equalize the score at 1-1. The goal answered the Leopards’ 20th minute strike off the foot of Jeff McLaughlin.

Lafayette finished the game 2:13 into the first overtime when B.J. Glenn fired the game-winning shot past Marc Hartmann ’12, who could not manage to save either of the shots on goal he faced in the contest. Leopard goalie Andrew Pianko made three saves on four shots on goal. Overall, Lafayette held a 12-7 advantage in shots.

The game against Binghamton started with four goals scored in the first 23 minutes. The Bearcats got on the board just 2:22 into the game. Austin Hughes missed a shot, but Kyle Manscuk put in the rebound. The Bison answered at the 10:42 mark, when Joyner headed in a McCabe corner kick. Five minutes later, Binghamton reclaimed the lead on an Adam Whitehead penalty kick, but the Bison battled back. At the 22:39 mark, Powell converted a 20-yard free kick into his second goal of the year, and the score remained tied at two until halftime.

Binghamton took the lead for a third and final time in the 57th minute when Tommy Klim crossed the ball into the zone to Jake Keegan, who headed the ball past Tommy Caso ’12, who had relieved Hartmann at the half. Overall, the Bearcats put seven of their 12 shots on goal, whereas the Bison could only manage six of 13.

The Bison’s loss to Lafayette leaves them needing a win against Lehigh (8-6-2, 4-1-1) on Saturday to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Bison (7-8-2, 2-2-2) would also need Lafayette to defeat or tie Navy (7-4-4, 2-1-3) on the same day. The Midshipmen qualify with a win or with a draw and a Bison draw or loss, while Lafayette qualifies if it defeats Navy and the Bison lose to Lehigh.

By Greg Stevenson

Senior Writer

The football team fell 33-22 to Lafayette at home on Saturday thanks to four long scoring plays put together by the Leopards. The two teams had entered the game with identical 1-6 records, but the Leopards gave the Bison their second defeat in conference play.

“When a team strikes fast, there are varied reasons,” Head Coach Joe Susan said about Lafayette’s long plays. “The main result is the immediate score. Momentum changes, and there are snaps they don’t have to take.”

It did not take long for the Leopards to get on the board. On their second play from scrimmage, Lafayette tailback Patrick Mputu took a swing pass out of the backfield 75 yards for the opening touchdown just 50 seconds into the contest.

With its offense getting the job done early, the Lafayette defense countered with its own pivotal scoring play. Starting their second offensive series deep in their own territory thanks to an impressive punt, the Bison went backwards 11 yards in two plays for a safety, leading to a 9-0 Lafayette advantage.

Trailing by two possessions, the Bison defense forced a failed fourth-down try by Lafayette. The Bison proceeded to drive 69 yards in 12 plays, only to have their drive end on a costly turnover.

In a span of four plays, possession changed three times, all on fumbles. Lafayette ended up with the ball at its own 17-yard line. Nine plays later, the Leopards handed the ball back to the Bison via another fumble, setting up the first touchdown drive for the Orange and Blue that cut the lead to two at 9-7.

Over the next 18 minutes of play, Lafayette scored three unanswered touchdowns, all on plays longer than 30 yards, bringing the Leopard lead to 30-7. Tyler Smith ’13 then scored two touchdowns for the Orange and Blue, one through the air on a trick play and another on the ground, but the scores came too late as the Bison fell 33-22.

Although he has lost seven of the first eight games of the season, Susan recognizes the importance of these games in building his squad for years to come.

“Our younger players continue to develop,” Susan said. “Brandon Wesley ’14 is learning by experience. He is a very dedicated player and will work not to repeat mistakes. Travis Friend ’14 has continued to improve physically. Defensively Sean Rafferty ’12 is consistent. Tyler Anderson ’11 and Josh Eden ’12 continue to play well.”

For the third straight weekend, the Bison will try for their second Patriot League win of the season. The Orange and Blue host the Fordham Rams at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium Saturday at 1 p.m.

“This team has responded to the loss by working very hard,” Susan said. “Now it is time to get rid of the play hard and add to it play hard and win.”