Daily Word: Daily Word: Construction of New Balance Field Underway

It has been a year of new venues across the America East. Stony Brook unveiled its new track and field facility with more projects still in the works. Albany announced and broke ground on its new multi-sport facility. Vermont’s Virtue Field opened this spring playing host to men’s and women’s lacrosse games.

Back in February, Boston University announced plans for New Balance Field, the future home of Terrier field hockey. A ground breaking ceremony on Thursday at the current Babcock Street parking lot, where the new field will stand, got the construction of the $24 million facility underway.

Boston U. president Robert Brown, Director of Athletics Mike Lynch, senior VP for Operations Gary Nicksa and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino joined New Balance Executive VP John Withee to unearth the first soil on Babcock Street.

“This is another giant step forward for our program, with strategic investments in programs that are vital to the continued development of our department and the enhanced national visibility of the BU Athletics' brand,” Lynch said when the project was announced.

New Balance Field will be built on top of a 350-space parking structure and provide a home to the field hockey team which has played all of its ‘home’ games off-campus since 2001.

You can view the Boston University release, here and check out a Boston Herald blog post about the ceremony.

Sticking with the Boston theme, the Terrier softball team begins its NCAA Tournament quest when it takes on Arkansas tonight at 8 p.m. in Berkeley, Calif. The Boston Herald ran a nice preview of the Terriers highlighting their pitching staff led by the conference tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Holli Floetker and their offense which gets sparked by leadoff hitter Jayme Mask.

The America East will be well represented tonight in the home opener for the Boston Breakers. Three former Boston University Terriers will suit up and two women’s soccer head coaches will don the blue and white, as well. UVM coach Kristi Lefebvre and Albany coach Mary-Frances Monroe lace up the spikes tonight at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville, Mass. Check out the game notes for more on the America East connection.

The baseball regular season wraps up this weekend with playoff seeding on the line. Stony Brook clinched its second straight regular season title last weekend and will travel to Maine to close out the year. Albany plays host to Hartford and Binghamton is at UMBC. The Black Bears, Danes and Bearcats have all locked up playoff spots.

Miles Thompson

The Bangor Daily News ran a story to today on senior pitcher Jonathan Balentina, a native of Curacao, who tore a ligament in his pitching elbow for the second time in his college career during Maine’s spring trip earlier this year. Instead of hanging up the cleats, Balentina altered his mechanics, now employs submarine style delivery to home plate and has held opponents to a .205 batting average this season. Check out the full article on Balentina, here.

The film ‘Crooked Arrows,’ the first major motion picture about the sport of lacrosse, opens in select theatres today and features several Albany men’s lacrosse players. Miles, Ty and Lyle Thompson all make appearances in the film. Meet the Crooked Arrows, here.

Video Roundup

Travis Jankowski

Even though the spring season is drawing to a close, we’ve still got plenty of video to share with you from all around the conference.

We’ll start first on Long Island, where the MLB draft stock of centerfielder Travis Jankowski continues, like his batting average, to soar. Jankowski, the 2011 Cape Cod League MVP, ranks among the nation’s top 25 in batting average (.393), stolen bases (32), runs scored (55) and leads the country in triples with nine. National media attention, thus, is not in short supply for the junior as he was recently featured in a story on MLB.com and in Ultimate Athlete Magazine.

Check out the video portion of the feature from UA.

Meanwhile, in somewhat related news, a Boston University student threw out the first pitch at Tuesday’s Boston Red Sox game against the Seattle Mariners. Dylan Moir toed the rubber at Fenway Park and fired towards home plate…

After a run to the America East championship game, the Albany men’s lacrosse team has its fingerprints all over the upcoming motion picture ‘Crooked Arrows.’ Ty, Miles and Lyle Thompson all make appearances on the silver screen in Hollywood’s first feature film on the sport of lacrosse. Check out the trailer…

The film opens in select theaters tomorrow and will be playing everywhere starting June 1.

Daily Word: Maine Baseball Plays BC Tonight

We’ve only got one game on the schedule tonight but it is no ordinary game.

The Maine baseball team heads south to meet up with ACC foe Boston College at Hadlock Field, home of the Boston Red Sox Double-A affiliate Portland Sea Dogs. The two teams get underway at 6 p.m. this evening as the Black Bears make an appearance in the southern part of the state.

This is the first time Maine has played at Hadlock since the 1998 season when it beat UMass by the score of 21-8.

The Bangor Daily News ran a piece on the game tonight speaking with head coach Steve Trimper about the game and what it means to play at a such a great venue.

“We’re really excited to play in the southern part of the state,” Trimper told BDN’s Pete Warner. “Playing an ACC school is going to be a great challenge. Coupled with that, we’re playing at a great stadium in Hadlock Field.”

Maxx Tissenbaum

You can check out the rest of Warner’s article, here and make sure you get all the prep you need for this game from Maine’s official preview.

More baseball news from around the conference as we check in on the national statistical leaders. Regular season champion Stony Brook boasts some gaudy numbers across the board and ranks in the top 10 nationally in team fielding percentage, batting average and ERA. The Seawolves are third in team batting average (.334), seventh in ERA (2.81) and second in fielding percentage (.981).

That team batting average checks in so high due in large part to a collection of hitters who just do not strikeout. Maxx Tissenbaum is the toughest player in the country to strike out having only fanned three times in 174 at-bats in 48 games. His teammate Pat Cantwell ranks fourth, only going down by way of the ‘K’ seven times this season.

Check out an article about Tissenbaum and the difficulty opposing pitchers have striking the Seawolves out, here.

The CBS Winter Highlight Show featured a look at the national champion ski team from the University of Vermont. You can watch the video below.

Daily Word: Barwise, Van Ingen Qualify for Olympic Trials

Allison Barwise (left) and Erik van Ingen

It’s certainly one if not the ultimate goal, for any track or field athlete – representing your country and competing at the Olympics.

Two of America East’s best are one step closer to London after their performances this weekend.

Binghamton’s Erik van Ingen and Boston University’s Allison Barwise, both All-Americans during the indoor season, qualified for the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials June 21-July 1 in Eugene, Ore.

Van Ingen qualified in the 1,500-meter run after placing first in the event at the Virginia Classic with a time of 3:38.06 to come in under the qualifying time of 3:39.0. Van Ingen’s time is the third fastest collegiate time in the nation this season. He becomes the second Binghamton athlete to take part in the Olympic Trials as the 2008 NCAA pole vault champion Rory Quiller competed that same year.

The Press and Sun Bulletin has more details on van Ingen’s feat while the Pipe Dream takes a look back at his illustrious career in Vestal.

Barwise took her jumping talents to Princeton, N.J. for the ECAC Championship and cleared 1.87 meters in the high jump to win the event and meet the qualifying standard. The fifth-place finisher at the NCAA Championships during the indoor season, Barwise posted the nation’s second-best jump this year and came in just short of the Boston U. school record.

The Daily Free Press has more on an impressive junior season for Barwise.

Minnesota Twins lefty and former Binghamton Bearcat, Scott Diamond, twirled another gem on the mound for the Twins yesterday. Diamond picked up his second big league win in as many starts this year after being called up from Triple-A Rochester last week. The southpaw fired seven scoreless innings while striking out four. In his 14 innings of Major League work this season, Diamond has yet to allow a run. Check out a highlight package of his outing as well as a print recap.

Boston University captured its third softball title in four years yesterday with a 5-0 win over defending champion Albany. Holli Floetker got the win in the circle and picked up the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award. To see where the Terriers are headed in the NCAA Tourney, check out GoTerriers.com.

The baseball championship field is set after this weekend’s action. Stony Brook wrapped up the regular season championship and will host next week’s tourney. Joining the Seawolves will be Maine, Albany and Binghamton in some order as the last weekend of conference play will determine seeding.

Several spring seasons officially came to a close over the weekend after losses in the NCAA Tournament.

The Albany women’s lacrosse team put a scare into top overall seed Florida but the Gators came out the victors in their first round matchup with the Danes, 6-4. The Times Union and Troy Record both have recaps of Albany’s near upset.

In men’s lacrosse, Stony Brook ran into a tough Johns Hopkins team down in Baltimore and came out on the short side of a 19-9 decision. Newsday has more from Baltimore.

America East’s tennis champions, the Binghamton men and Stony Brook women, saw their seasons finish up with first round losses to nationally ranked Ole Miss and Stanford, respectively. The Bingham men won their fifth straight conference championship this season while Stony Brook won its first ever league title.