America East Daily Word - September 30

Stony Brook athletic director Jim Fiore (@JDFiore) becomes our first two-time recipient of the prestigious Daily Word Tweet of the Day. 

Fiore tweeted this morning about the new America East commissioner Amy Huchthausen saying, “she WILL do great.”  We are all excited to have Amy on board here at the office in Cambridge and look forward to having her back in the America East.

Women’s soccer and volleyball teams played their conference openers last weekend and it’s time for men’s soccer and field hockey squads do the same.  Both sports kickoff conference schedules this weekend, starting the journey towards an America East championship.

We’ll start in men’s soccer where conference supremacy is up for grabs because no team has really stood out as the clear-cut favorite.  Vermont currently sits in first-place but three teams are directly behind them and the preseason conference favorite sits in the cellar.  So, the door is wide open.

In action this afternoon are New Hampshire and Stony Brook.  Those two teams square off in Durham and are currently tied in the overall standings, both teams entering today’s game with .500 records.  Business really picks up on Saturday, though, with six teams playing their conference openers.  Binghamton travels to Vermont to take on the Catamounts, Boston University heads down to Hartford in a battle between the two bottom teams in the standings and Albany makes its way to Baltimore to tussle with UMBC. 

With four nationally ranked teams in the conference, field hockey conference play will have some implications on the national scale.  No. 10 New Hampshire opens its conference slate this afternoon against Fairfield, which has won five games in a row.  No. 15 Maine and No. 17 Albany square off in Orono tomorrow which should be a great game.  Also tomorrow, No. 18 Boston U. hosts Vermont in Allston. That wraps up the first weekend in conference play, but several teams play one final non-conference game on Sunday. 

Volleyball continues conference play this weekend with all seven teams in action at least once.  Tonight, Stony Brook hosts Albany, UMBC welcomes Binghamton and New Hampshire ventures south to take on Providence.  On Sunday, it’s Albany’s turn in Baltimore taking on the Retrievers, Hartford battles at Providence and Binghamton is at Stony Brook.

For the complete weekend schedule head on over to AmericaEast.com.

Last night eight women’s soccer teams tangled with conference foes to begin the second weekend of America East play.  Hartford continued its best start in program history with a 1-0 win at Binghamton.  The Hawks have only surrendered three goals this year and all six of Binghamton’s losses of been of the 1-0 variety.  Vermont gave Boston U. a challenge in the first half but the Terriers flexed their muscles in the second half scoring four times en route to a 5-0 victory.  UMBC tallied the first goal against Stony Brook but the Seawolves then scored four unanswered to topple the Retrievers,4-1.  In the final game of the evening, New Hampshire got five points from Meghan Ledwith and defeated Albany, 5-3.

Courtnay Pilypaitis

In other news, Vermont women’s basketball alum Courtnay Pilypaitis and the rest of Team Canada advanced to the semi-finals of the FIBA America’s Championship.  Canada defeated Jamaica to conclude preliminary play on Wednesday and will play Argentina today.  The winner of this tournament will get an automatic berth into the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.  Elsewhere, on the professional basketball front, 2011 Vermont grad Tonya Young has signed a professional contract to play basketball for Clube Desportivo Torres Novas in Portugal.  Young is the fourth lady Catamount in the last seven years to ink a pro deal.  

The New Hampshire: UNH wins conference opener
Hartford Informer: Fall softball welcomes fresh faces
Vermont Cynic: Athlete Spotlight - Ellie Mills

America East Daily Word - September 29

What a night in the sports world!  You can’t script what happened in Major League Baseball.  The scenarios for the wildcard playoff spots were simple enough but the way they played out was anything but.  Walk-off homerun in the twelfth inning after being down seven runs just four innings earlier?  Two blown saves in the ninth by guys who have been solid all year?

And Vermont joining the SEC?

No, that will never happen – geography and football will prevent it – but that doesn’t prevent some folk from speculating (joking) about the prospects of the Catamounts bolting for the southeast.  SB-Nation, a college football blog, tweeted (@sbnation) a post referring to a poll conducted by ESPN Sports Nation about whether or not some conferences should get more automatic BCS berths.  Apparently (you can read the post here), Vermont was the only state, in addition to SEC country, to say yes.  SB-Nation drew the only possible (not-so-serious) solution – the Catamounts must be reinstating varsity football and heading for the SEC.

The pool of eligible teams for ESPN’s Sears BracketBusters event, a three-day challenge pitting NCAA Tournament hopefuls against each other, was released yesterday.  And for the first time in conference history, all nine America East men’s basketball programs have a shot at an ESPN game come February.  An America East school has been chosen for a BracketBusters game in five of the last seven seasons with the most recent coming last year when Vermont played at the College of Charleston on ESPNU. 

The Catamounts will join Albany, Maine and New Hampshire as home teams for BracketBusters while Binghamton, Boston U., Hartford, UMBC and Stony Brook will all be on the road.  The matchups will be announced on Jan. 30. 

Maine's Gerald McLemore

Kevin Crowley, one of the best lacrosse players ever to play in the America East Conference, was drafted first overall in the NLL last week and Inside Lacrosse Indoor talked to the former Stony Brook star about playing for the Philadelphia Wings.  The magazine raves about Crowley citing him as a reason for Philly fans to get excited about lacrosse again.

In the midst of all the drama in baseball last night, three America East squads took to the playing surface for some non-conference action. 

The Boston U. men’s soccer team needed a win last night against Harvard heading into conference play this weekend.  Scoring a goal in each half, the Terriers held off a barrage of Crimson attacks in the closing minutes to get the win, 2-1.  Providence volleyball did not fare so well against Rhode Island.  The Friars dropped the match to the Rams in straight sets.  Vermont and Dartmouth clashed in a non-conference field hockey tilt in Burlington.  With the scored deadlocked at 3 with just about a minute to go, Vermont’s Emily Bastiaanse found the back of the cage to secure the win for the Cats.  

Eight women’s soccer teams are in action tonight as we’ve got four conference games on the schedule.  League-leading Hartford travels to Binghamton.  Both teams are coming off 3-0 wins in America East openers over the weekend.  Albany travels to Durham, N.H. for a date with the Wildcats.  Stony Brook hosts UMBC and Boston U. welcomes Vermont to Nickerson Field.  For all the live stat links head on over to AmericaEast.com.

And for some more news from around the conference, here are some links for your reading pleasure…

Maine Campus: Vancouver trio shine for UMaine field hockey
Maine Campus: UMaine women fall to Binghamton

Binghamton bounces back from Homecoming heartbreak, knocks off Syracuse on road

Following a disappointing Homecoming game loss to Adelphi University, the Binghamton University men's soccer team pulled out a much-needed win at Syracuse University on Tuesday night.

Adelphi netted the game-winner with just 33 seconds remaining in regulation on Saturday in front of over 2,400 fans at the Bearcats Sports Complex.

The Panthers, who allowed the game-tying goal to Binghamton senior Jerome Robinson with under 10 minutes remaining, silenced the home crowd as Mauricio Mora rocketed a shot from the right side of the BU box past sophomore goalie Chris Hayen for what would prove to be the 2-1 final score.

With that loss, Binghamton dropped to 3-5 and 1-2 at home. Adelphi improved to 2-4.

The Bearcats headed back to practice seemingly determined to right the ship and traveled to Syracuse on Tuesday night for one of their final non-conference match ups.

Robinson netted his second goal in as many games to give Binghamton a 1-0 lead in the second half. The assist was credited to junior Jake Keegan, who also assisted in the game-tying goal on Saturday night.

The Bearcats then padded their lead 20 minutes later as sophomore Luke Halberg finished on a feed from freshman Steven Celeste. The goal was Halberg's second this season, and Celeste's assist marked his first collegiate point.

Though Syracuse was able to get on the board late (88th minute), its comeback effort fell short. Senior Dan Summers, who scored the lone Orange goal, fired a shot on goal as time expired but his effort was denied by Hayen.

Binghamton, now 4-5, returns to action on Saturday night as it is set to head to America East to take on the Vermont Catamounts. Kick off is set for 1 p.m.

Aaron Gottlieb

Assistant Sports Editor, Pipe Dream

Binghamton University '12

America East Daily Word - September 28

Buster Olney’s column this morning on ESPN.com got us thinking here at America East.

The Vermont native speculates as to who will be the hero in tonight’s pivotal baseball games with Wildcard implications.  Who will be the “Bobby Thompson or Aaron Boone” of the final day of the 2011 MLB regular season?  You can read Buster’s (@Buster_ESPN) column here in our Tweet of the Day.

We’ve got three games on tap tonight, so let’s play a little take your pick.  Who is going to be the hero tonight for the three America East squads in action? After we throw out some predictions/analysis, feel free to take your pick – we’ll put a poll on the side of the blog to vote.

Who’s it going to be America East fans?

We’ll stay local to start our inaugural rendition of take your pick.  No we aren’t talking the Boston Red Sox.  The Boston U. men’s soccer team has been plagued by severe scoring droughts and a tough non-conference schedule.  Tonight, the Terriers don’t have far to go when they face Harvard on the road.  If you’re Boston U., the player you most desperately need to break out his Ben Berube.  The senior scored a career-high eight goals last year but has been held scoreless in the Terriers’ first seven contests.  Boston U. ranks 181^st in the nation in goals per game and Berube could be the key to turning that around tonight.  Last year Boston U. upset the then No. 20 Crimson, but will need big performances tonight to earn the same result.

The Providence volleyball team hasn’t played a match since last Wednesday when it lost to Manhattan.  The week-long hiatus ends tonight with a road contest at rival Rhode Island in Kingston.  Alright Friar fans, who needs to be the hero tonight?  Is it senior Lauren Fletcher who led the league last year in points and blocks per set and currently ranks third with 210 kills?  Or maybe it will take a standout effort from the supporting cast. Fellow senior and fellow Lauren, Hendel that is, and freshman Colleen McCollom will need to have big games to stop the Rams. 

Vermontfield hockey clocked Siena last Saturday and will have its hands full with 6-2 Dartmouth this afternoon.  The Big Green’s only two losses came to conference powerhouses Maine and New Hampshire.  Scoring has been balanced this year for the Cats with five players scoring at least two goals but Wednesday’s bout will be won in the defensive third.  Sophomore Stephanie Zygmunt ranks fifth in the nation in saves with 77 and will have to be a force in the cage for UVM.

 Check out the right hand side of the blog to take your pick – who will be tonight’s hero?

Maine's Alexa Binnendijk

The ECAC released its weekly awards yesterday and for the third straight week the field hockey offensive player of the week goes to an America East player.  Maine’s Alexa Binnendijk earned the honor this week after scoring four goals in two wins for the Black Bears over the weekend.  Stony Brook men’s soccer midfielder Leonardo Fernandes was also named ECAC offensive player of the week after he registered five points in two Stony Brook wins last week. 

Last night on the soccer pitch, Hartford and Binghamton both collected wins while UMBC was stunned late in regulation by La Salle.  The Hawks scored a 3-0 win over Sacred Heart and the Bearcats beat Syracuse for the fifth time in seven tries, 2-1.  UMBC rallied to tie La Salle at 1 with about 13 minutes left but the Explorers scored with 13 second remaining to shock the visiting Retrievers.  

For all your news and notes make sure to visit AmericaEast.com and check out the links below… 

Bangor Daily News: Women's basketball team begins practice Sunday
Daily Free Press: Field hockey firing on all cylinders
Retriever Weekly: AOTW: Pete Caringi III
Retriever Weekly: Spotlight: Hannah Schmidt
Retriever Weekly: Men's swimming and diving goes for 15 straight
Retriever Weekly: Women's swimming and diving prepare for new season

America East Daily Word - September 27

Richard Barron, Maine’s new women’s basketball coach, was in Philadelphia this morning, according to his official Twitter page (@CoachBarronUMWB).  His celebrity encounter at the airport in Philly, shared with the world via Twitter, is our Tweet of the Day.

Apparently, Barron ran into former Philadelphia Eagle quarterback and current ESPN personality Ron Jaworski.  The new coach said ‘hello’ to the NFL analyst and remarked that Jaws was “not as tall as [he] thought.”

Let’s hope Jaws controlled his language…

There were no games on the schedule last night but we’ve got three men’s soccer matches tonight to start the week off.  We’ll take you through them, one by one…

First, Binghamton tries to right the ship when it travels to Syracuse to face the Orange.  The Bearcats lost a homecomingheartbreaker to Adelphi over the weekend in front of over 2,000 fans.  Jake Keegan leads Binghamton in scoring with four goals this season but the Bearcats have lost four of five since winning two of their first three to start the season.  Binghamton holds the all-time series lead winning four of six, but both of the losses have come in Syracuse. 

UMBC broke a three-game winless streak when it defeated Longwood over the weekend and tonight the Retrievers head to Philadelphia for a non-conference bout with La Salle.  UMBC is ranked 10^th in the Northeast region (tied for that spot with Vermont) and holds a 6-1-0 all-time series advantage over the Explorers. 

Capping the night off is an in-state matchup between the Hartford Hawks and Sacred HeartPioneers.  Harford currently sits near the bottom of the America East standings with conference play opening this weekend but the Hawks have won six of the eight all-time meetings against Sacred Heart.  Tom Poitras and company are coming off a 1-1 draw with Marist and six different players have scored this season. 

For the live stats and live video, head on over to AmericaEast.com.

Now it’s time to crunch some numbers.  National statistics were released yesterday and we’ll take you through some top conference performers on the national scene.  In women’s soccer, Hartford ranks third in goals against average (0.287) and second in save percentage (0.94) in large part due to the performance of goalkeeper Erin Quinlan who ranks second is goals against average and save percentage. 

In men’s soccer, Vermont ranks 11^th with a 0.63 shutout percentage.

Valentina Cerda

Field hockey is where most of the national damage is done.  No. 15 Maine leads the nation in scoring (5.53), goals per game (5.55), points per game (15.09) and scoring margin (4.17).  Hayley Rausch, of the tenth-ranked New Hampshire Wildcats, is second nationally in points per game and goals per game while Maine’s Kelly Newton leads the country in assists per game and Boston U.’s Valentina Cerda leads all goalies with a 0.844 save percentage.  

For more news, check out the links below...
Press and Sun Bulletin: Binghamton's Gormley honored
Bangor Daily News: Maine women's basketball and baseball teams land recuits
Pipe Dream: Diamond in the rough
Pipe Dream: Binghamton enshrines three
Pipe Dream: Women's soccer opens conference play with win
Pipe Dream: Volleyball struggles in AE opener
Stony Brook Statesman: Inconsistencies defining Seawolves season
Stony Brook Statesman: Cross Country teams continue run of success
The New Hampshire: Wildcats take home Nike Fall Classic

America East Daily Word - September 26

America East baseball has ties to the movie, Moneyball.

The glorious world of Twitter has once again graced us with a great bit of information to start the Daily Word in style.

On October 9, the Catamount Classic: Lacrosse for a Cure event kicks off with 16 Division I lacrosse teams flocking to Braintree, Mass., for a day of preseason lacrosse for a great cause.  The Classic’s official Twitter account (@catclassic) let us know about a video promo published by Lax.com.  You can watch the video here.

Make sure to keep following AmericaEast.com because we will be at the Catamount Classic talking with coaches and players about the event.

America East went Hollywood this weekend.     

Moneyball, the movie based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name, debuted as the No.2 movie at the box office this weekend.  Former America East baseball stars played an important role in the film – or at least their actors did.  Actor Adrian Bellani plays former America East all-conference player Carlos Pena, who played forty games in an Oakland A’s uniform in 2002.  Billy Beane traded for the former Northeastern star during the 2002 off-season and then traded him to Detroit later that year. 

The movie also includes major league game footage strarring Pena and former two-time America East Player of the Year, Kevin Mench.  The outfielder attended the University of Delaware, won conference Rookie of the Year in 1997, Player of the Year in both 1998 and 1999 and then was selected by the Texas Rangers in the fourth round of the ’99 MLB Draft.

Boston U.'s Taylor Krebs

America East Conference play began this weekend with volleyball and women’s soccer action.  We’ll take you through some of the scores, first in women’s soccer.  Hartford took a 1-0 lead into halftime at UMBC and scored twice more after intermission to win, 3-0.  The Hawks’ win gives them the best start in program history.  Boston U. is nipping at Hartford’s heels in the overall conference standings and the Terriers started conference play on the right track on Sunday against Albany.  Two Boston U. first-half goals sunk the Great Danes by the score of, 2-0.  Vermont stayed unbeaten at home under first-year head coach Kristi Lefebvre downing Stony Brook, 1-0, and Binghamton ran past Maine, 3-0. 

We had an exciting weekend in volleyball with three conference matches.  Albany needed four sets and 41 assists from Brooke Stanley to get past Binghamton, 3-1.  Fellow preseason conference favorite, UMBC, did not fare so well.  Stony Brook earned the win in a five-set thriller over the Retrievers in Baltimore.  And lastly, New Hampshire apparently forgot about a rough 1-14 non-conference record, starting the conference slate off strong by defeating Hartford, 3-2.

The Lone men’s soccer wins came from New Hampshire, Stony Brook and UMBC.  The Retrievers beat Longwood, 3-1, while the Seawolves defeated Temple, 4-3.  New Hampshire earned two 1-0 wins over Air Force and Hartwick to take the crown in the Nike Fall Classic in Durham over the weekend. 

Field hockey played a host of ranked teams this weekend.  Seventh-ranked New Hampshire will likely slide in the polls after dropping its first two games of the year to Northwestern and Louisville.  No. 14 Maine stretched its winning streak to ten, scoring 14 goals in two wins.  No. 16 Albany, No. 17 Boston U., Fairfield and Vermont all collected wins on the weekend.

For all your scores and updates make sure to visit AmericaEast.com and check out the links below… 

 
Three Village Patch: 10 chances to root for the locals
Press and Sun Bulletin: BU loses to Adelphi in men's soccer
Portland Press Herald: Maine falls to Binghamton
Daily Free Press: Men's soccer fails to capitalize
Daily Free Press: Peters, cross country perform well at Codfish bowl
Maine Campus: Maine baseball looks to improve
Albany Student Press: Albany learning under new coach

Boston U. Drops Albany in America East Opener

The University at Albany women's soccer team came into today with an opportunity to stake their claim as one of the elite teams in the America East Conference.

Their goal? To knock off a Boston University side that went a perfect 8-0-0 in conference play last year, en route to a fourth straight conference title, and who were picked to win the conference again prior to the season.

Their execution, however, left something to be desired as Boston cruised to a 2-0 victory at Varsity Field.

Boston set the tone early in the match, with the Terriers getting players forward right away, something that the Great Danes failed to do for the majority of the match, as they were outshot by a 20-7 margin. The Terriers were rewarded for their aggressive play with the first legitimate scoring chance of the match; a corner kick in the 19th minute from the right side.

Sophomore Kylie Strom took the kick and, while the ball appeared to be cleared away from goal by the UAlbany defense, a flag was raised by assistant referee Kevin Shultes signaling that the ball had crossed the goal line, and was indeed an impressive goal.

After conferring referee Emilie Buse, it was official. The Terriers led 1-0 through the Strom wonder strike.

From there Boston dominated possession, using skillful, one touch passes to move the ball around the pitch at will. When Albany was able to take the ball back, the Terriers reclaimed it quickly.

In the 35th minute, Boston struck again, as senior Katherine Donnelly found freshman Taylor Krebs in the penalty area, where she deftly snuck the ball past Great Dane goalkeeper Dani Britt to double the lead for the Terriers.

At the halftime intermission, it became clear that UAlbany needed to push forward and look to create more chances to pull back within striking distance of the four time conference champions. Once again, the execution failed them.

In a Barcelona-esque display of ball handling, Boston controlled the ball for the vast majority of the second half, outshooting the Great Danes 13-4 in the final 45 minutes in what turned out to be a scoreless second half of play, sealing their 2-0 victory.

The win improves Boston's record to 8-2-1, while dropping UAlbany's record to 2-7-0.

Both teams return to action on Thursday, with Boston heading home to host Vermont at 7 p.m., and Albany traveling to New Hampshire for a 3 p.m. match.