UVM SPORTS
Photo by Jonathan Cohen, Binghamton University
Fast finish
Soccer rides late-season run to America East Championship and NCAA bid
Nearly seven weeks had passed since the Catamounts last loss when the men’s soccer team’s resurgent 2007 season finally came to a close on November 28. Third-seeded Connecticut put an end to the year with a 2-0 victory over Vermont in the second round of the NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship in front of 2,632 fans at Morrone Stadium in Storrs.
“I am extremely proud of this team especially the way they fought back this year,” Vermont coach Jesse Cormier ’95 said after the game. “We were down near the bottom of the barrel and came all the way back to this point. The journey they took persevering and battling adversity the way they did is something these guys will take with them the rest of their lives.”
That uphill journey began on October 17, when Cormier’s Cats began to turn around a season that had stared 4-9-0, appearing to bottom out with four consecutive shutout losses. Then they rallied, rolling up an eight-game unbeaten streak that included seven straight shutouts. The late-season heroics earned an America East Championship and UVM’s first trip to the NCAA Championship Tournament since 2000.
UVM entered the America East Championship tournament as the second seed with a bye into the semi-finals. Behind a goal and an assist by Lee Stephane Kouadio, UVM pushed past sixth-seeded New Hampshire, 2-0, at Centennial Field. Then the Cats hit the road for the conference championship game on top-seeded Binghamton’s home field. With a first-half goal by Jordan Crasilneck and another strong defensive effort led by goalkeeper Roger Scully, Vermont blanked Binghamton, 1-0, for the conference title.
The Catamounts didn’t stop there. Traveling to Dartmouth for their NCAA first-round game in Hanover, UVM was determined to avenge a 1-0 loss to the Big Green in September. Trailing 1-0 with twenty-six seconds left in regulation, it looked like the result might be the same. Then Connor Tobin struck with a stunning goal to force extra time. After two scoreless overtime periods, UVM finally finished off the Big Green, 4-3, in a shootout bolstered by a pair of sensational saves by goalkeeper Scully. Tobin converted the final penalty kick to give Vermont its second NCAA Tournament first-round win in the program’s history, the first dating back to the “Elite Eight” squad of 1989.
This year’s soccer team proved strong in the classroom as well. Connor Tobin, Panos Georgiadis, Loren Hill, and Jordan Crasilneck were named to the America East All-Academic Team. Vermont had the most student-athletes in the conference named to the men’s soccer all-academic team for the second season in a row.Sport shorts
The field hockey team launched to the best start in the program’s history with five consecutives wins. When the Cats finally lost, it was to #14 Virginia in a 2-1 contest in the championship game of the Sheraton Catamount Classic at UVM’s Moulton Winder Field. Senior Danielle Collins has helped lead the way, jumping off to a fast start in defending her America East scoring title from last season.
Kristal Kostiew Kush ’04 had an outstanding summer throwing the hammer. She won the RBC Canadian Track & Field Championships, took the silver medal at the AT&T USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, and finished fourth at the 2007 Pan American Games held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Katie McNamara ’05 took her basketball skills to Ireland in September as she signed to play professionally for the Waterford Wildcats. UVM’s all-time leader in shot blocks spent the 2005-06 season playing for Tichinohosting-Riva Basket in Switzerland. Martin Klimes ’07 has also headed overseas to continue his basketball career. He’ll spend the winter playing for Alcazar de San Juan in Spain.
The hockey and baseball programs both promise to benefit from the arrival of Justin Milo, a multi-talented student-athlete, who has transferred to UVM from Cornell. A lefty-hitting corner infielder, Milo was named to the Collegiate Baseball Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American Team last season at Cornell and was a unanimous section to the All-Ivy League First Team. On the ice, the 5-foot-8, 180-pound forward played in twenty-four games for the Big Red and scored three goals as a freshman. He’ll be eligible to play baseball for the Cats in 2008 and hockey for the 2008-09 season.
Good news on the transfer front for men’s basketball with the announcement that Maurice Joseph will leave Michigan State for UVM. The Montreal native, who averaged seventeen minutes of playing time per game for the Big Ten’s Spartans last season, will have two years of basketball eligibility at Vermont beginning with the 2008-09 season.
Floridians and snowbirds, mark your calendars. The men’s basketball team will take on two-time defending national champion Florida at the St. Petersburg Times Forum in Tampa on November 30. Last year, the Cats upset Boston College in the early season. This year?
The latest on catamount sports: uvmathletics.com
(for UVM staff)