Category: Club/Intramural

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Club/Intramural Men's Rowing Sports

Crew team makes program history

Andrew Arnao

Sports Editor

The men’s and women’s rowing teams had hectic, event-filled weekends which featured program firsts for both teams. The women’s team raced Drexel and Penn on April 6 in Philadelphia then competed in the Occoquan Sprints in Virginia on April 7. The men’s team split up its squad, with its varsity eight competing in the San Diego Crew Classic in California while the rest of the team dueled with Drexel in Philadelphia on April 6.

The weekend began for the women’s team against Drexel. The varsity eight dominated the race and won by a solid margin of 6.6 seconds. Following a short rest, the team returned to action in the afternoon against perennial powerhouse Penn. In an extremely tight and hard-fought race, the varsity eight was victorious. The Bison defeated Penn with a time of 6:50.3, less than one second ahead of Penn’s 6:51.0 finish. This marked the first time in program history the varsity eight had defeated Penn and was the “highlight of the weekend” according to head coach Stephen Kish.

After a long night of travel, the women’s team was ready for more racing as it competed in the Occoquan Sprints. The team had seven boats in action and all four of the team’s eights made their respective grand finals. Although none were able to find victory in the grand final, they still put up solid performances. These boats and their finishes were: varsity eight (second), junior varsity eight (sixth), second varsity eight (fifth) and the novice eight (fifth).

“We look forward to building off of all the race experience we had last weekend to continue to develop as we move towards the Patriot League Championships in May,” Kish said.

The men’s crew team also had a busy weekend, splitting up its squad to race at two separate venues. The varsity eight traveled to California to compete in the prestigious San Diego Crew Classic. After winning its heat on April 6, the Bison found themselves against some very tough competition in the Cal Cup final on April 7. After a slow start, the team worked its way back through the pack towards the front. Unfortunately, there was not enough room for the team to complete its and the Bison finished in second place behind UC Santa Barbara with a time of 6:09.26.

Head coach Al Monte was “happy to see the varsity eight race a very gutsy and determined race against some very good crews.”

Meanwhile, the remainder of the team raced Drexel and Mercyhurst in Philadelphia on April 6. The second varsity eight finished in third place behind both Drexel boats, but ahead of Mercyhurst. The third varsity eight was also defeated, losing to Drexel’s novice eight but beating Mercyhurst’s third varsity eight.

Both teams will look for victories this weekend in Cherry Hill, N.J. at the Knecht Cup Regatta.

 

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Club/Intramural Men's Rowing Sports

Rowing teams start season strong

“Andrew Arnao”

Sports Editor

The men’s and women’s rowing teams opened their seasons on March 30 at the Murphy Cup Regatta, hosted by Temple University, on the Cooper River in Cherry Hill, N.J.

The women’s team came into the event with seven boats scheduled to race and was looking for strong performances out of all of them. The team completed this goal as they advanced five boats to their respective finals. In the freshman eight, the team cruised easily through the heats, and finished in the final with a time of 7:10.05 to earn the bronze medal. This finish was followed by the second varsity eight which, like the freshman eight, easily advanced to the final, but was not able to earn a medal as they finished in fifth. In the varsity eight event, the Bison placed two boats in the six-boat final.

In the Grand Final, which featured top competition from powerhouses Buffalo, Williams and Navy, neither boat was able to take a spot, finishing in fifth and sixth places.

The best performance of the day for the Bison was in the varsity four event, in which the team recorded a gold medal winning time of 8:05.97. The next event for the team will be this weekend with races against Drexel and Penn on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

The men’s crew team was also looking for a strong early season performance from its team against some tough competition. The day began with the novice eight event where the Bison were not able to qualify for the finals with a fifth place performance in their heat. The freshmen redeemed themselves when the eight split into two fours and advanced both to the Grand Final in the novice four event. In this final, the “B” boat finished sixth with a time of 7:34.48 and the “A” boat earned the silver medal, only narrowly losing to winner La Salle, in 7:10.61. 

In the second varsity eight event, the team cruised to the final after finishing second in its heat to Drexel. In the JV final, the Bison put up a very good fight, narrowly losing a battle for the bronze to Drexel, and settled for fourth, finishing in 6:10.51. The varsity eight’s performance in its heat mirrored that of the 2V and advanced to the final after finishing second in its heat to Drexel.

In the Grand Final, the varsity eight saw a fast field featuring perennial powerhouses Virginia, Temple, Drexel, Williams and UNC. In a tight race, the Bison lost the battle for third with Temple and Williams and finished in fifth with 6:00.22.

The men’s team will split up this weekend with the varsity eight traveling to California to compete in the San Diego Crew Classic, while the remainder of the team will dual race Drexel on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

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Club/Intramural Men's Rowing Sports

Rowing teams look for repeat of last year’s successes

 

Scott Waters | The Bucknellian The varsity eight of the men's crew team trained during the team's winter break training trip in Orlando, Fla.
Scott Waters | The Bucknellian
The varsity eight of the men’s crew team trained during the team’s winter break training trip in Orlando, Fla.

Billy Tyler

Assistant Sports Editor

The men’s crew and women’s rowing teams will begin their seasons this upcoming weekend at the Murphy Cup Regatta. Both teams are coming off highly successful seasons; the women’s team is the defending Patriot League Champion and the men’s team won the silver medal at the ACRA National Championships.

The women’s rowing team has very high expectations for this season. The seven-time defending Patriot League champions have been ranked first in the league’s Preseason Poll. Additionally, the team looks to repeat as overall team champions in the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta and improve its performance at the season-ending NCAA and IRA regattas.

The team has a difficult road ahead of them en route to an eighth straight Patriot League title. The team’s challenging schedule features dual races against Drexel, Penn, Columbia, Georgetown Lightweights, Princeton Lightweights and Delaware, as well as the Knecht Cup, Dad Vail, Patriot League Championship and IRA Lightweight regattas.

“The women have been working very hard and we have a challenging racing schedule so it will be great to see the team in action soon,” head coach Stephen Kish said.

The men’s crew team also has high expectations after coming off a historic season, which concluded with silver medal performances at both the ECAC and ACRA National Championships. The team has been training hard over the winter in preparation for the season.

“Throughout winter training, our freshmen and sophomores pushed our upperclassmen on the ergs and on the water, which had created a great on-water racing dynamic. I expect this trend to continue with young talent taking seats in the top two eight’s and those two eight’s to vie for medals at our championship regattas,” head coach Al Monte said.

The team recently returned from a Spring Break training trip in Columbia, S.C. and is ready to kick off its spring schedule, which is filled with tough competition and includes dual races against Hobart, Drexel, Williams and Holy Cross and regatta appearances at the Murphy Cup, San Diego Crew Classic, Knecht Cup, ECAC Championship and the ACRA National Championships.

The Murphy Cup Regatta will be held Saturday on the Cooper River in Camden, New Jersey.

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Club/Intramural Men's Squash Sports

Men’s squash places third in division at Nationals

*I trust that Andrew knows all this info, but just a heads up, none of us could find this information anywhere.

Andrew Arnao

Sports Editor

The men’s squash team participated in the CSA Nationals tournament last weekend and defended its No. 3 seed in the Conroy division, defeating Johns Hopkins 6-3 and Georgetown 5-4 while falling to Stanford 9-0. As a result of their efforts, the Orange and the Blue improved their national ranking to No. 27 overall.

The Bison kicked off the weekend as the No. 3 seed in the Conroy division, the fourth of seven divisions in the tournament. The Bison started off the quarterfinals by defeating No. 4 seed Johns Hopkins, and advanced to face No. 2 Stanford in the semi-finals. Though the Bison did not record any wins against Stanford, their subsequent victory over Georgetown resulted in the Bison achieving third place in the Conroy division, successfully defending their seeding.

Top performers for the Bison included Hayden Radovich ’15, Mike Gagnier ’16, Henry Gadsden ’15 and Rod Maier ’14, who each won matches against Johns Hopkins and Georgetown.

The Bison’s national ranking for club squash teams improved to No. 2, behind No. 1 Stanford. The Orange and the Blue also improved their overall national ranking to No. 27, an improvement from No. 34 last season.

The men’s squash team will look to build on its recent success in the coming months as they host several more tournaments in their brand new playing facilities, including the Patriot League Championships in January 2014.

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Men's Volleyball Sports

Club volleyball starts 2-0

Shane Kiefer | The Bucknellian King Gorospe '15 prepares to spike the ball in one of the club volleyball team's opening matches.
Shane Kiefer | The Bucknellian
King Gorospe ’15 prepares to spike the ball in one of the club volleyball team’s opening matches.

Billy Tyler

Assistant Sports Editor

The men’s club volleyball team, fresh off a couple of victories this past weekend, is back in action. The Bison are coming off a fantastic season, finishing ninth at Nationals last year. With only one senior graduated from that team and the addition of several talented new members, the club volleyball team has high hopes for an even more successful season this year, which should be capped with a great performance at Nationals in Dallas, Texas.

The Bison began their season this past week with two solid victories over Lock Haven and Desales University. In their first match they handily defeated Lock Haven 3-1, behind solid performances from Mike Wolf ’14 and Andreas Bub ’15. The next match was a similar story. Led by Alex Lin ’13 and Captain Shane Kiefer ’14, the Orange and the Blue shut out Desales 3-0.

“All of us are really excited for how the season is shaping up,” Kiefer said. “The season has just got underway for us, but we started off with two big league wins and we really think that we can make a huge run at Nationals again this year.”

The Bison will be in action this Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in Davis Gym as they take on Penn Tech and Scranton.

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Club/Intramural Men's Squash Sports

Men’s squash team dedicates brand new court

 

Xiaolong Li | The Bucknellian The men's squash team poses with Frank Wiegand '60 in the new squash court. Coming off their Patriot League Tournament victory, the Bison won all four of their matches on Saturday.
Xiaolong Li | The Bucknellian
The men’s squash team poses with Frank Wiegand ’60 in the new squash court. Coming off their Patriot League Tournament victory, the Bison won all four of their matches on Saturday.

Andrew Arnao

Senior Writer

The men’s squash team celebrated the dedication of its new playing facility, the Wiegand Squash Center, with a round-robin tournament against Denison, Fordham, Northeastern and Lehigh on Feb. 2. The dedication came a week after the Orange and Blue won the Patriot League squash tournament, a stunning achievement for a team that was formed less than five years ago.

“With the dedication of these courts, Bucknell has just become a better place,” Frank Wiegand, one of the primary donors, said in a short speech at the event.

The team was the brainchild of Morgan Beeson ’12 and Kirk Bonner ’12, who were both present during the dedication ceremony. When the team formed in 2008, there were only five members during the team’s inaugural trip to Princeton, two of whom had never played squash before.

“We were literally the worst team in the country!” Beeson said.

The squash team faced additional adversity in the outdated American dimension courts, which are narrower than the now standard international dimension courts. The squash team aimed to fix this problem, and last spring enough money was raised by parents and alumni to install four new, international dimension courts.

The men’s squash team has since evolved into a formidable powerhouse. The roster now boasts 16 members. The Bison proved their strength by defeating Colgate to win the Patriot League Tournament last weekend, while impressively outlasting varsity squash teams such as Navy.

In the tournament, the Bison won all four matches, including dominant 9-0 shutouts against Fordham, Northeastern and Lehigh.

The men’s squash team will look to ride this wave of recent success into Nationals next week at Yale.

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Club/Intramural Men's Volleyball Sports

Club volleyball surprises at nationals

By Andrew Lichtenauer

Senior Writer

 

The men’s club volleyball team finished off an impressive 2012 season tying for ninth-place  at the National Collegiate Club Volleyball Division II National Championships. The Bison began the season with the simple hope of rebuilding and developing a competitive squad. As the season progressed, the Orange and Blue realized their competitive potential and became a force to be reckoned with in the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Volleyball Conference (MACVC). I recently spoke with Shane Kiefer ’14, president of the men’s club volleyball team. The following is the conversation we had about the team’s success at Nationals this year:

Q: What were the team’s expectations going in to the season?

A: In terms of our expectations this year, we really didn’t expect to do as well as we did, mainly just because we basically didn’t have a competitive team the past few years. This was the first year in a while that we were able to pay our dues to join the MAC Conference, and after we did that, I was able to start scheduling matches as well as enter us in tournaments. I think a lot of us were just happy that we were actually taking the necessary steps to becoming competitive again.

Q: How often was the team able to hold team practices this season?

A: It was difficult to get practice time this season with varsity sports and intramurals often taking precedence over athletic space, but we usually practiced two times per week on average. Most of the time, it was a late time slot such as 9-11 p.m. If we didn’t have a tournament or match on the weekends, we would usually practice Saturday afternoons as well.

Q: What would you say was the team’s best win of the season?

A: It’s difficult to attribute a specific match as being our best win of the season, but I would have to say that our match against No. 21 Missouri S&T on the second day at Nationals was our best win. We came into the match knowing that if we lost, the highest place we could take at Nationals was 25th, but if we won we couldn’t finish lower than 24th in the nation. It was basically a make or break match for our season, and we came out and got crushed in the first set 25-13 and were down 15-7 in the second set. We ended up making an amazing comeback to win that set, and later finished by winning the final set tiebreak 15-11. We all agreed after the match that it was the best we had ever played, and at the end of the tournament, we had some evidence of that, as Missouri S&T finished by winning the Consolation bracket. In our next match against the No. 6 team in the nation (Adrian U.), we came out and dominated against a great team so I think that the confidence we got from that comeback played a big part in that.

Q: What does a ninth-place finish at Nationals mean for the men’s club volleyball team?

A: We were extremely pleased with our ninth-place finish at Nationals, and I think that our strong finish this year will carry right over into our season next year, since we only lose one senior from the Nationals squad to graduation. We’re already looking forward to making a return trip to Nationals again next year, and I think that our ninth-place finish in the nation this year gave us the confidence that we needed to believe in our abilities and continue making progress as a team.

Q: What do you think the future has in store for the men’s club volleyball team?

A: We definitely believe that we can have an even better season next year and even in years to come after that, as we have a very young team and I have already talked with multiple incoming freshmen who are looking to come in and make a difference next year. Overall, we’re just grateful for the support that we’ve seen from alumni and we’re definitely ready to continue making strides towards leaving a lasting legacy and tradition here on campus after we’re gone. And who knows, maybe bringing home a National Championship is in our future.

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Club/Intramural Ski Team Sports

Ski team sends two to nationals

Alex Wagner

Assistant Sports Editor

Although they maintain a fairly low profile on campus, the members of the club ski team are a successful group of athletes, including snowboarders Josh Leighton ’14 and Sam Wilkins ’12, who qualified for the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA) National Championships.

In the regional competition in Snowshoe, W. Va., Wilkins finished first for male boarders and Leighton in third, qualifying both of them for the National Championships, which began on Monday and end tomorrow in Sunday River, Maine.

“Josh and I qualified for the national snowboarding slopestyle competition by shredding the gnar harder than the other grommets while maintaining an unlimited amount of steez,” Wilkins said.

Many other Bison skiers and snowboarders have seen success on the slopes this year as well, giving the Orange and Blue their most successful season in four years. The women’s alpine team placed third in the conference while the men’s alpine team placed fourth, qualifying them both for the regional competition. Alex Cooperstone ’15 came in eighth place for male skiers and Caroline Price ’15 came in fourth for female boarders.

Despite their success, the skiers tend not to receive as much attention as other sports.

“We tend to go under the radar as we are always travelling,” said Dale Bishop ’12, president of the ski team.  “We travel every weekend to mountains in Maryland, New York, the Poconos, Southwest Pennsylvania and West Virginia.”

The Bison compete in the Allegheny Conference against schools such as Villanova, West Virginia, Navy, West Chester, Davis and Elkins and Penn State. The men’s and women’s alpine teams compete in giant slalom and slalom while the snowboard team competes in giant slalom, slopestyle and boarderX.

In addition to performing well on the slopes, the ski team prides itself on having a good time together and building strong bonds.

“Our team is extremely close and has a deep passion for what we are able to do. Our ability to spend a couple weekends away from campus and from the social norms of Bucknell has fostered a unique bond within our team,” Bishop said.

Even though this season is over for much of the team, Wilkins and Leighton look to bring a great end to their successful season by performing well in the USCSA National Championships.

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Club/Intramural Men's Squash Sports

New era for club squash

Alex Wagner

Assistant Sports Editor

The men’s squash team, led by Chris Santoro ’14, is one of the most successful club programs on campus.

After being ranked No. 54 in the country at the end of the 2009-10 season, the Orange and Blue made a huge leap and are now No. 36, going 6-4 this season.  In fact, the team won the Serues Cup F Division at the Men’s National Team Championships last spring.

Santoro has undoubtedly been a huge part of this rise in play.  His accomplishments include Patriot League honors and an invitation to the men’s individual national tournament.  Despite his personal achievements, Santoro stresses the strength of the team as a whole.

“It started out rough when I first got here, but we really came together as a team towards the second semester of my freshman year,” Santoro said.  “This year I feel as though we have only gotten better.  I have never been on a team I believe in more than the team we currently have now.”

This strong belief in their team has clearly been beneficial, as the Bison have already made important strides this season.  One of the biggest highlights thus far has been beating No. 28 Johns Hopkins, 6-3.

“[The win] really solidified our team as a team to watch out for in the CSA [College Squash Association],” Santoro said.

Other players have also been earning individual recognition, including Rod Maier ’14 who earned Harrow Sports College Squash Player of the Week for his performance at the important Navy Round Robin Tournament in November.  He went 3-1, with victories over Virginia, Swarthmore and Fordham.  His only loss was a close one to Navy at the number six spot.

As a whole, the team is looking to finish the season ranked in the top 40, a goal they are well on their way to achieving.

The team ultimately seeks to repeat as division champs in the Men’s National Team Championships, which will take place at Princeton University the weekend of Feb. 17.