Wow, what a winter

Every winter, Keene State College athletes participate in several sports. Typically the biggest sport in terms of student interest and popularity is basketball. This winter, as the season draws to an end, the sport on everyone in the Spaulding Gymnasium’s mind is swimming.

According to KSC Athletic Director John Ratliff, KSC has more athletes attending the NCAA Division III swimming championships than any year in the past. This year, the Owls will send five female swimmers and the first male swimmer since the 1970s to the tournament.

The swim team won several tournaments this season, including the New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Association Championship for the second year an a row. Male swimmer Cody Larrimore broke two KSC records in the 50 meter and 100 meter freestyle races, as well as in the 100 meter butterfly competitions; all three of which he will compete in at the Division III championships.

As for the women’s competition, there is freshman Kaila Umbarger and seniors Jacqueline Foster, Alea Paddock and Kristine Trutor. Trutor competed at the national championships before and will look to use that to her advantage this second time around.
“We couldn’t be happier with the way this season went,” Ratliff said. “We’re sending five women swimmers to NCAAs, at least one male swimmer and two indoor track and field athletes.”

For men’s basketball, Ratliff said he expects a more experienced team will help KSC become a division leader again.

“We knew this was going to be a rebuilding year. It’s part of a cycle that sports teams go through. If you watched any of the games this season you would have seen four or five sophomores and freshmen on the court most of the game. Next year should be better and the year after will build too,” Ratliff said.

Although the men’s team split the season with 13 wins and 13 losses, the roster consisted of no seniors and only two juniors. Even with that, the season was not without its share of awards. Sophomore guard and forward Derek D’Amours was named to the All-LEC first team after leading the league in scoring, averaging 23.8 points per game.

Also receiving recognition was freshman guard Anthony Mariano, who was named the rookie of the year for the LEC after averaging over 12 points and five rebounds a game.
Head coach Rob Colbert also reached a milestone when he won his 200th career game this season.

The women’s basketball team managed to win 18 of their 27 games this season and made it to the final four of the LEC tournament. Although they lost to Western Connecticut State University on Friday, Feb. 26, the team claimed the top seed of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship and went on to win the ECAC championship in an overtime thriller.

Senior co-captain Kristin Degou was named tournament MVP.
The women’s squad had five seniors, four of whom lead the team in minutes played as well as in points. Degou and Nicole Simmler both topped the 1,000 career point total. Simmler was named to the All-LEC 2nd team and Degou was named to both the All-LEC 1st team and the All-Defensive team.

Not to be outdone by coach Colbert, women’s head coach Keith Boucher’s earned his 300th career win.

Ratliff said he expects next year’s women’s team to be in the same situation as this year’s men’s team with the amount of younger players on the team.

“The women’s team is very senior laden and next year could be a quiet year for the team,” Ratliff said.

The final winter sport at KSC is indoor track and field. Juniors Allison Chamberlain and Bryan Kolacz each excelled this year.

They both competed at the New England Alliance and LEC Championships and set records in their respective competitions. The two will compete in the NCAA championships and, according to Ratliff, both have a chance to win.

A third KSC track and field athlete who’s made strides in the school’s program is senior Peter Najem who recently competed at the USA Indoor Track and Field National Championships with elite runners from all over the U.S.

Although Ratliff wouldn’t speculate about potential recruits for next year, he said the school tries to recruit competitively.

“I’ve seen what some of the recruits can do and it’s a lot,” Ratliff said. “We focus on recruiting Division II athletes to come here because that’s what’s best for our programs. Sometimes we don’t know who were getting until June though because the Division II schools recruiting them may be able to offer a scholarship which we can’t do.”
Ratliff continued about what’s best for the school and said, starting this year, the school is making the coaches full time employees.

“We travelled to the top schools that fit the same dynamics at Keene and we looked at what they do differently than us. We saw that they all had their coaches full time,” Ratliff said.

While not every team won the LEC championship this year, that’s not to say it was an off year by any standards.

In fact, some winter athletes still have competition to look forward to in the NCAA championships coming up later this month. And for those not graduating this year, there’s always next year.

Sean O’Donnell can be reached at sodonnell@keeneequinox.com