Both teams have been selected to play in the Howey Cup (top eight) for the last six years. The men came in 7^th last year and the women 8^th.  Members of the women’s and men’s teams both expressed positive feedback about their seasons with Tori Dewey, a ’16 on the women’s team saying “The team was really good. Squash is an interesting sport because there are so few people on the team and everyone got along really well. The end of the season we were able to win the B division, dropping only one match the entire tournament which is amazing.”

However, the end of the regular season (just before the draws for the national cups were released) came with controversy for both teams. The final match of the regular season for both the men and the women was against Brown. At the time, both Dartmouth squads were ranked 8^th in the country and Brown 17^th. If Dartmouth won this match, as was expected against the far inferior Brown, both teams would have been selected to play in the Howey Cup and thus given a chance to win a national title.

The match was to take place on a Sunday. However, instead of the expected win, so many members of both the men’s and women’s sides were benched that Dartmouth was forced to forfeit the match. Coach Hansi explained that while the teams had beaten Brown 8-1 in November, “multiple team rules were broken,” and due to these transgressions, players were benched and Dartmouth forfeited the match.  

Sources close to the teams shed more light on the disobediences, explaining that the team has a rule which prohibits drinking within 48 hours of a match.  The match against Brown was on a Sunday and the team members drank on that Friday, thus violating the rule. An unconfirmed number of the women’s team drank and all but three members (Captains Robbie Maycock and Chris Hanson as well as junior Chris Jung) of the men’s team drank. The more interesting part of the controversy is how the Coach and athletic directors discovered the disobedience. Sources close to the teams confirmed that the captains of the women’s team blitzed Coach Hansi the names of the women who drank. As to how it was discovered the men drank, there are two theories circulating. Either the women’s captains included the names of the men who drank in their whistle blowing blitz, or upon discovering that the women drank Coach Hansi asked the men’s captains who drank and the truth was discerned.

Athletic Director Harry Sheehy confirmed that the players broke the team drinking rule which prohibits players from drinking within 48 hours of a match, quipping that while no NCAA rules were broken “although New Hampshire State Law might have been,” but that the NCAA “in most cases doesn’t drill down to that level.” Mr. Sheehy also discussed his own involvement in the decision to sit the players saying, Richard Witmore, the associate Athletic Director in charge of squash as well Sheehy and Coach Hansi all sat down to discuss how to punish the players. “It wasn’t a department rule that was violated. It was their own rule,” said Sheehy. “We thought about it a little and we wanted to make sure the message gets out. There are things that you do that impact the whole team.” Sheehy went on to make clear that he sees the education and integrity of Dartmouth sports as more important than the success of the programs. “We’re always going to try to do the right thing at Dartmouth. We’re going to make sure that what we makes sense and we’re not going to worry about Ws and Ls over doing the right thing.”

Ivy League sports, with a few notable exceptions such as squash, are rarely noteworthy in the world of college sports. Sheehy’s attitude is one of the prevailing reasons for this lack of notoriety. Would Alabama or LSU bench players for a transgression which would have had no impact on the season? Would the more academically comparable Stanford make a similar decision? The Ivy League’s repute is based on academic excellence and while that identity should come first and foremost, is the Dartmouth Athletic Department doing a disservice to the school by handicapping our few nationally significant programs?

Dartmouth forward Doug Jones hails from Marietta, Georgia. (Photo courtesy of Mark Washburn).

The Indian men’s hockey team traveled to Manchester last Saturday to face off against its formidable state rival, the University of New Hampshire Wildcats, for the RiverStone Cup. New Hampshire has defeated the Indians six out of the last nine contests for the RiverStone Cup. Division I men’s hockey rankings on USCHO.com place New Hampshire at seventh while the Indians stand at eighteenth. Although UNH was favored going into Saturday’s contest, the Indians outlasted the Wildcats in a 5-4 victory and their first RiverStone trophy since 2008. 

Dartmouth junior Doug Jones pushed the Indians to victory as he scored with just over a minute to play in the final period. With two points and the game winning shot, Jones was awarded Most Valuable Player in the Battle for the RiverStone Cup. Despite his spectacular individual effort, Jones modestly played down his performace after the game, saying, “Everyone contributed and the end result was a bonus to our hard work.” His work helped boost the Indians to a 10-5-2 record, while New Hampshire fell to 12-4-4.

“All year, we have harped on keeping the game simple and playing with consistent energy for 60 minutes.” Jones said, “We did this for most of the game against UNH by getting pucks out of our zone, into theirs, and finishing hits.” Saturday’s game was an exciting 60 minutes with nine goals scored, 68 shot attempts and five lead changes. 

The Indians and Wildcats traded goals during the first two periods. After New Hampshire took a 1-0 lead at 5:07 in the first period, Dartmouth senior Scott Fleming responded with a goal at 18:55. Rob Smith ’11 scored early in the second period to give the Indians a lead, but New Hampshire’s John Henrion hit back at 9:30 to tie the score 2-2.

         The Dartmouth Indians men’s soccer season came to a close in a heartbreaking manner typical of many recent Dartmouth athletic programs after a 2-1 loss to the Bruins of UCLA in the final minutes of overtime on Sunday, November 28. In spite of its unsavory end however, the overall season will be recalled by both the team and its supporters as an exceptional success, as the Indians claimed third place in the Ivy League with a 4-3 conference record, and reached the Round of 16 in the NCAA tournament as an unseeded team for the second time in the past four years before their unfortunate defeat at the hands of the 8^th-seeded Bruins. Indians Lucky Mkosana was named earlier in the season to a watchlist for the Hermann Trophy, collegiate soccer’s Heisman.

        The team’s success did not come as a surprise to Jeff Cook, its head coach of ten years who noted the gradual progress the program had made during his tenure. “We knew we had the talent and experience to compete for an NCAA championship,” he recalled describing the optimism present amongst him and his players prior to the season. 

        According to Cook, the high expectations the team placed on itself, drawn from the desire to build upon the modest success of the Indians 3-4 2009 season, initially may have worked against the team as they fell to a .500 record after a tormenting 1-0 loss to the University of Pennsylvania on a single early goal followed by another defeat at the hands of Boston College on a goal given up in the game’s final minutes.

        “[The Homecoming victory against Harvard] was undoubtedly the turning point for us,” said Cook of the Indians’ 2-1 win that laid the foundation for their consequential victories against the University of New Hampshire, Cornell University, and Brown University, and their march to the third round of the NCAA tournament. Cook gratefully credited the “determination and strength of the team” for the recovery, as well as a prominent shift in the team’s playing strategy. “The key was our defensive improvements,” he described recounting the restructuring efforts the team underwent after the loss to Boston College. Abandoning the aggressive offensive press in favor of a deeper defense helped to “prevent soft goals, and also created space for counterattack” that enabled the Indians to play with the confidence and stability necessary to compete with the powerful offenses of their opponents.

        As the team began to accumulate success, the excitement and support of the Dartmouth community grew in kind. “We are so appreciative of the fan support; it really made a difference, particularly to the student athletes,” Cook noted, describing how the spirit of the supporters had a particular, palpable impact during the Indians’ victory in their regular season closer against Brown University, as the energy levels of the coach, players, and fans had all risen to a simultaneous summit.  “[The Dartmouth fan-base], and the entire culture over at Burnham Field, have really grown consistently,” he appreciatively recalled of the deepening connection between the program and the campus community.

Volleyball looks to finish out the season with big wins this weekend in home games against Princeton and Penn, two Ivy teams that the Big Green has not been able to topple yet this fall. Only other two teams went undefeated by Dartmouth: Yale and Brown, both of which defeated the Dartmouth girls this past weekend in matches away from home. While the losses were disappointing, the team is focused on moving forward, taking things day-by-day and finishing strong. Kendall Houston ’12 said that the team is very excited and especially motivated for a rematch with the teams that have not yet been beaten.Houston described the team’s attitude as “ready to fight hard.”Senior Kelsey Johnson goes up for a spike.

Hard fights have been a defining characteristic of this fall’s volleyball season. Dartmouth volleyball enjoyed an incredibly strong start: the girls dominated the first seven games of the season and enjoyed ten big wins in September. Presently, the team stands with records of 13-10 overall and 4-8 in the Ivy League. This record may be disappointing for the team after such a successful start; however, the majority of Dartmouth’s losses have been very closely contested matches. Only three teams have “swept” Dartmouth, or beat them 3-0. Jessica Hartman, team captain, attributed the determination and focus the team has exhibited to the existence of great harmony and energy, which she says has been present in the team since pre-season. Big Green volleyball beat Cornell two weekends ago, a huge victory that marked the first time Cornell had been overtaken by Dartmouth in the round robin tournament. The win gave the team momentum going into the game against Yale last Friday, but the match still proved to be a struggle.

After finishing third in the Ivy League last year, Dartmouth’s women’s soccer team had high hopes for this season. With eighteen strong players returning from last year’s squad, including six starters and ten with starting experience, the team appeared to be a force to be reckoned with. After suffering some major setbacks early in the season, the squad finished with an impressive record of 4-2-1 Ivy.Chrissy Lozier '14 dribbles the ball downfield.

The beginning of the 2010 season was full of ups and down and it was uncertain if the Indians would be able to uphold or surpass the third place rank (4-3) in the Ivy League that they earned last year. The team was on a rollercoaster, experiencing a mixture of exhilarating wins and disappointing losses.

Dartmouth’s first regular season faceoff was with the number seventeen ranking team, University of California, San Diego. This nail-biter went into double overtime after sophomore Kim Ross headed in the Indians’ only goal – this was also Ross’s first collegiate goal. It was not until the last seven minutes of the game that UCSD was able to score a goal, tying up the game. After two overtimes, the game ended in a tie, which was a solid start for the squad, based on UCSD’s high rank.

The first decade of the new millennium was not kind to Indian football. From 2000-2009, the squad averaged a record of 2.1 wins per season and went winless in 2008. The program had just over half of its allotted slots filled. Attendance at games was abysmal. In 2004, then Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg wrote a letter to the president of Swarthmore College, applauding the elimination of the school’s football program, calling the sport and the surrounding culture “antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as [Swarthmore and Dartmouth].” Considering the relative success of the previous decade when the program averaged 6.2 wins per season with an undefeated record and Ivy title in 1996, calling the last ten years disappointing might be an understatement.

This season has been different.Like senior WR Tanner Scott, fans of Indian football have a reason to celebrate.

As of this writing, the Indians sit at 2-3 in conference play and 5-3 overall, more than doubling the 2009 win total and one win away from topping  the best record of any Indian squad since 2003. While that may not seem to be a terribly impressive win-loss column at first glance, it’s important to remember that two of the losses were by a combined ten points. The Indians took Penn, the reigning Ivy champions, to overtime in their first Ivy game and lost to Yale the next week on an Eli field goal that ricocheted off the upright in the game’s waning seconds. If a handful of plays had gone differently, Dartmouth could be 7-2 right now.

There’s no question that this year’s gridiron gang is quite different from those in years past.

Perhaps due to our short trimester system, or maybe just because of the multi-talented, driven, and somewhat frenetic type of students that Dartmouth College tends to attract, we are all perpetually “pretty busy,” “hangin’ in there” or otherwise over-extended. Nevertheless, we Dartmouth students periodically initiate projects, programs, and various other sorts of extracurricular endeavors, both time consuming and impressive, out of the genuine conviction that the import of certain causes transcends that of other claims on our time.Chris Hanson '13, Miles for Moms founder.

One such example is Sophomore Chris Hanson. Last year, as a freshman, Hanson finished the season as the top-ranked player on the Varsity Men’s Squash team, as well as earning the honors of All-American and All-Ivy. Coming into his second season, he had two daily practices to balance, along with a heavy course load and the considerable time commitment involved in pledging Alpha Delta fraternity. Nevertheless, Chris had a different focus for the term: raising money for breast cancer research.

In 2002, Chris’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, a disease that Chris’s grandmother had also suffered and defeated. For Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October, Chris was determined to raise money for the National Breast Cancer Research Foundation. “I had gotten into running over the summer,” Chris explained, “and I enjoy it a lot, so I thought I could use that to fundraise.” Chris got the idea to run as far as he could cumulatively during the month of October, and decided to invite his friends and teammates to sponsor him per/mile in order to raise money. Chris’ roommate Dave came up with a fitting name for his initiative: Miles For Moms.

The term “field general” is often used to describe quarterbacks. The analogy is appropriate; QBs are the leaders of the offense and much of a team’s success rides on their arm strength and decision-making

Kempe scans downfield for targets.

ability when they stand in the pocket. And when he takes the field wearing Indian green, Conner Kempe ’12 looks every inch the military commander with his towering 6’4” and 225 pound frame. Opponents are quickly learning to fear Dartmouth’s latter-day Schwarzkopf. Kempe led the offense in the ’09 homecoming win over Columbia that snapped a seventeen game losing streak and this season he’s led the squad to a 1-3 Ivy record and 4-3 overall.

All of this becomes more remarkable when one realizes that the junior, who hails from Benjamin High in Tequesta, Florida probably shouldn’t be able to walk right now. In fact, the odds say he should be dead. During November of his junior year in high school, Kempe suffered a severe injury while kite boarding, a sport where one surfs the ocean while attached to a parachute. A strong gust hoisted Kempe up 60 feet into the air and carried him inland in a flight path more reminiscent of a Tomahawk missile than of one of his passes. Upon arriving over solid ground, he proceeded to slam through a fence, flew into the seventh story of a building, dropped down and removed a bumper from a Mercedes, and finally augured into a fountain before getting dragged three hundred yards down a street. The damage was bad enough that after being found unconscious, he was airlifted to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach and read his last rites. After all, not many people can survive a laundry list of injuries that includes a collapsed lung, fractures to the face, ankle, patella and mangled legs. One would probably stand a better chance of surviving a high-speed pile up on the highway.

For Peter Williamson, success came on the very first try. A standout on the Men’s Golf team, Williamson earned his laurels back in the spring of 2009, when as a freshman he became only the fourth Dartmouth golfer, and the first since 1995, to secure the Ivy League Championship. That stellar performance, which capped off an equally successful year, earned him the honors of both Ivy League Player and Rookie of the year. Now in his third year, Williamson remains one of the most dominant players in Ivy League golf and has since emerged on the national circuit.

While its 4-2 record might not seem overly impressive, in order to judge the quality of Indians football this season, it’s most instructive not to look at where the team is today, but rather where it’s come from.  Only two years ago, Dartmouth football was in the midst of its first winless season in over a century, and more than a few critics were calling for Coach Teevins to be fired. Even last year, the excitement on campus that resulted from the team snapping its 17-game losing streak by beating Columbia could be seen as a sign of just how far standards had fallen.