Bobcats of the week of Oct. 17, 2011
Noah Graboys ’14 The No. 9 nationally ranked Bates men’s cross country team had five runners in the top seven for a dominating team win in the Maine State Intercollegiate Cross Country Championships, hosted by Bates on Saturday at Pineland Farms.Beyond the fact that sophomore Tully Hannan(West Hartford, Conn.) led the Bobcats by finishing in second place overall, choosing the most remarkable performance among them is something of an exercise in futility. JuniorAndrew Wortham (Newton, Mass.) showed he continues to get stronger as the season goes on, taking fifth place overall in 26:14. JuniorKen Whitney (West Hartford, Conn.) also ran an excellent race, maybe the best of his career, earning his first All-State honors by placing seventh. Senior captain Devin Dilts (Roscoe, Ill.) fought off illness to finish sixth and win his fourth — count ‘em, four — All-State laurels.But if the Bobcats are going to receive a team bid to the NCAA Championship and make some noise, they might need Saturday’s third-place finisher, sophomore Noah Graboys (Glencoe, Ill.), to be at his best. Graboys gave his strongest indication yet that he may well be getting there. Last year’s runner-up at the state championships by a margin of less than a second, Graboys was 16 seconds behind the race winner and 10 seconds behind Hannan, but he outraced the rest of a high-quality field with a time of 26:09.
Next up for the Bobcats is the NESCAC Cross Country Championship, taking place at Amherst on Oct. 29. The women’s race starts at 11 a.m., followed by the men’s race at 12 p.m. |
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Annie Burns ’12 Annie Burns’ clutch play down the stretch was a huge part of both of last weekend’s 1-0 NESCAC wins for the Bates women’s soccer team.The Bobcats needed all of Burns’ four saves at Connecticut College on Saturday, and all eight of her stops the following day at home against Tufts, in order to pull off the team’s first two NESCAC conference wins this season, both by 1-0 scores. In both games the opposition turned up the offensive heat towards the end of both games, but Burns’ “intelligent goalkeeping down the stretch preserved the lead” in both games, said head coach Kelsy Ross.Bates went 3-0 on the week, including a 9-0 win at UMaine-Farmington on Tuesday in which Burns played 51 minutes to share the shutout with sophomore Anabel Schmelz (Monmouth Beach, N.J.).
Bates’ starting goalie for virtually all four of her years, Burns is posting career-best numbers this season in goals-against average (0.83) and save percentage (.899), ranking sixth and third in those respective categories among NESCAC goalies. The co-captain’s save percentage is 16th best in Division III entering this week, and her 80 saves this season lead the conference. Bates takes on Middlebury in another NESCAC showdown on Saturday at 11 a.m. The game can be followed online via live video webcast. |
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