UVM SPORTS
photo by Sally McCay
Champs again
Cats take America East, earn NIT bid
In 2005-’06, Mike Lonergan’s first season as UVM’s head basketball coach, he led one of the youngest teams in the country on a surprising America East tournament run before falling to Albany in the championship game. Another year older, this season’s Catamounts promised to be strong and they didn’t disappoint, running away with the America East regular season championship, tying the school record for the most wins in school history with a 25–8 mark, and earning a post-season bid to the National Invitational Tournament.
Though a return to the NCAA Tournament was nearly in the Cats’ grasp as they rolled through the early rounds of the conference tournament and returned to Patrick Gym to host Albany, the Great Danes prevailed in a very tight championship game. “Big Dance” dreams were over for the Catamounts, but they weren’t done playing. By virtue of their regular season conference championship, they earned a place in the NIT, the fourth time in the past five years that Vermont has competed in the post-season.
Playing on Kansas State University’s home floor, the Cats put in a gritty performance that evoked memories of the 2005 NCAA upset of Syracuse. Vermont was up twelve points with ten minutes to play, but momentum swung and the lead eroded under Kansas State’s high-pressure defense and the din of the home crowd. Final score: Kansas State 59, Vermont 57. Seniors Martin Klimes and Chris Holm had outstanding performances, combining for twenty-six points and nineteen rebounds, in their final game as Catamounts.
Looking back over the year, highlights included a non-conference road win over powerful Boston College in the early season and a late-season string of thirteen straight wins. Coach Lonergan and a number of players piled up individual honors for the season. Chris Holm was an America East All-Conference first team selection and made second-team Mid-Major All-American. Freshman Joe Trapani overcame a broken foot that hampered his season to earn a place on the America East All-Rookie team and the Mid-Major All-Freshmen team. Mike Trimboli made the America East All-Conference first team and also drew the most votes as the conference’s Fans’ Choice Player of the Year. Martin Klimes was named to America East’s All-Defensive and All-Academic teams in addition to getting a third-team All-Conference nod. Coach Mike Lonergan was named the America East Coach of the Year and the National Association of Basketball Coaches District I Coach of the Year.
Women’s basketball:
Duo takes all-rookie honors
The Catamounts finished the regular season with an 8-8 America East mark, good for third place in the conference. In the America East tournament, UVM fell in the semi-finals to eventual champion Maryland-Baltimore County. The team closed the year with a 19-12 record, the most wins since the 2002-03 season and the most victories in head coach Sharon Dawley’s four years at Vermont. Freshman Courtnay Pilypaitis was named the America East Rookie of the Year and also earned spots on the All-Rookie team and All-Conference third team. May Kotsopoulos joined Pilypaitis on the America East All-Rookie team and also earned All-Defensive honors.
Skiing
Cats fifth at nationals
Vermont finished fifth overall at the 2007 NCAA Ski Championships in New Hampshire. Freshman Kara Crow earned second team All-American honors by finishing seventh in the women’s slalom. Sophomore Juergen Uhl placed ninth in the men’s 20k classic to earn second team All-American honors. At the EISA Championships, Vermont came in second behind Dartmouth. Three Catamount skiers earned Rookie of the Year honors from the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association. Erik Gilbert was top pick among the male alpine skiers, while Jennie Bender and Jesse Kosiba took the female and male Nordic awards. After the collegiate season, Bender competed in the World Junior Championships in Italy.
Men’s Hockey
OT loss to BU closes year
Coach Kevin Sneddon’s team finished the year at 18-16-5 with a 12-10-5 mark in Hockey East, good for fifth place in the league. Ranked No. 19 in the nation at the end of the regular season, the Catamounts fell to Boston University in overtime of the decisive third game of the Hockey East quarterfinals, played at BU’s Agganis Arena. Over the course of the season, UVM was ranked for sixteen straight weeks, rising as high as ninth. Junior goalie Joe Fallon extended his school record for shutouts to seventeen and was named a semifinalist for the 2007 Walter Brown Award, which is presented annually to the best American-born college hockey player in New England.
SPORTS SHORTS
The women’s hockey team finished their second season in Hockey East and their first under head coach Tim Bothwell with marks of 3-27-2 overall and 1-19-1 in conference. “Throughout the season we made some positive strides and we need to continue to move forward,” Bothwell said at the end of the year, which included the program’s first Hockey East win. “All of us have a lot of work ahead this off season.”
The swimming and diving team finished fifth in the ECAC Championships, wrapping up an 11-5 regular season in which they scored a school record 454 points at the America East Championships.
After dropping a three-game sweep to Texas Christian University to open the season, the Catamount baseball team got on track during the opening of their spring break trip by winning three of four, including defeats of Valparaiso and Fairfield.
Latest on Catamount sports: uvmathletics.com
Record rewrite
Carmen Lagala wears a simple bracelet, crafted of paper and Scotch tape, with 2:06 written on it. It’s her current goal for the 800 meters and if the trend of her UVM career continues, she’ll soon have to make a new one and scratch out another motivational milestone. She’s keeping fast company on the women’s track team. While Lagala has rewritten the Catamount record book in the middle distances, Jan Carlson has been knocking down the sprint marks. The two Vermonters now own eight school records between them.
Lagala has set indoor records at 500, 600, and 800 meters to go along with outdoor marks at 400 and 800 meters. In March, the English and film major was named to the conference All-Academic Team for her 3.51 GPA and 800 meter titles at the America East, New England, and ECAC Championships.
Carlson’s times of 25.00 seconds indoors and 24.45 outdoors for 200 meters are the fastest since women’s track began in 1976. She repeated as the conference champion in the 55 meters in February, breaking the school record of 7.13, set by Regan Coffey in 2000, to become the first Catamount to win the event in back-to-back years.
Matt Belfield, head track and field coach, compares the approach of Lagala, a smart runner who he says stays within herself, and Carlson, a graceful performer with a history of clutch performances, to someone on a journey in search of higher ground. “They thrive on exploring new territory,” Belfield says. “It’s an adventure to see if they can take themselves places they’ve never been before. In order to run faster than you ever have before, you have to be willing to explore yourself, and that’s not always easy.”
After graduating from Montpelier High School, Lagala took a year off and spent time as a volunteer in Puerto Rico and England working in children’s shelters. “I really wanted to travel before I started college,” she says. “It was a great experience for me. It was hard to run over there, so I came here as a freshman with little training. Once I started running more in college, and I started getting faster, I was like ‘Oh, that’s what I’m capable of doing.’”
Carlson is a multi-talented athlete from Brattleboro who was steered toward track when her gymnastics coach noted her lightning sprints down the vault runway. Competitive horseback riding and Irish step dancing are also among her talents, and she’s added the outdoor pole vault to her list of UVM records.
Carlson, who was named conference rookie of the year last season, and Lagala now have a shot at qualifying for the NCAA national championships. “I like that we’re Vermonters and that we run for UVM” Carlson says. “It shows that Vermonters can compete at a high level. It’s cool to wear a Vermont uniform at some of the bigger meets, like regionals in Miami, where you wouldn’t usually see a UVM uniform among the big name track schools.”
—Jon Reidel G’06
(for UVM staff)