Leopard Tracks

The Dawning of a New Era

2010-08-31T12:42:00.004-04:00

When the concept of a blog went from thought to reality, the immediate self reaction was “This will be a piece of cake to keep updated.” Well, five months have come and gone between posts, so that theory has been tossed out the window…

A lot has happened since Leopard Tracks was last updated and most of it good. The biggest change is that the department is in the process of getting a new website. With the last design coming in 2003 and the days of updating via HTML falling by the wayside, Wentworth has partnered with PrestoSports to come up with a new, more user friendly website. We are in the final stages of completion and will be launching very, very soon. A post will follow with all of the new features once we are live. I promise…

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2010-03-30T18:43:00.003-04:00

With some idle time before heading back down to the basement and turning the sump pump back on...

The heavy rain which has blanketed the area since Sunday night has wreaked havoc on Wentworth's sports schedules. Please check the website for daily updates.

With Saturday's postponement against Endicott bumping a non-conference game against UMass Dartmouth on Thursday (the latter will be made up on April 14), the baseball team will play eight conference games in five days. After traveling to Endicott Thursday, the Leopards will be at Nichols on Friday (those game will be played at Worcester Academy), "home" against Eastern Nazarene on Saturday (at Adams Field in Quincy - this doubleheader was moved off of April 14 to accommodate late-season makeups and, as of now, allow the Leopards to play UMass Darmouth), and travel to Gordon on Monday.

Wentworth's softball team had its re-scheduled doubleheader against Eastern Nazarene postponed on Monday and it will be made up on Monday, April 5, at home. The Leopards were supposed to play at Gordon this afternoon, but heavy rains forced that postponement. The two teams will try and play tomorrow and if Gordon's field is unplayable, the game could be switched to Wentworth.

The 3-0 Wentworth men's tennis team had its trip to Colby-Sawyer postponed for a week as the two teams will make up a match on Tuesday, April 6.

One Leopard team braved the elements as Wentworth's lacrosse team lost at Gordon, 13-6. The Leopards have their next two games at home, beginning with a TCCC game against Anna Maria Thursday night.

Inclement weather didn't just mess with outdoor sports. The Leopard men's volleyball team had its match at Johnson & Wales postponed until Thursday night, due to travel concerns related to rain, flooding, and wind.

Maybe by the time the next post comes out the sun will be out (and my basement will be dry?)...

Springtime in New England

2010-03-27T11:13:00.003-04:00

While last Saturday saw temperatures in the low 70s, what a difference seven days makes. The below-freezing temperatures from Friday night combined with the sun warming up the field has caused numerous puddles to form. Here, softball coach Bob Long works on home plate to get the field ready for today's doubleheader. Chances of a Noontime start? Not looking good.

This type of weather has just postponed today's baseball doubleheader at Endicott. No makeup date has been announced.

Solid Start for Spring Sports

2010-03-26T19:35:00.003-04:00

Spring has sprung for the Leopards as Wentworth's spring atheltic teams are off to great starts and are in the midst of conference play...

The Leopard baseball team stands at 8-4 after defeating Lasell, 9-1, Thursday night. Wentworth is batting .321 as a team and Leopard pitchers have struck out 95 batters in 93 innings of work. Senior Pete Oggeri, who last Saturday became the 10th member of the 100-hit club, is batting .464 and has an impressive slugging percentage of .878 to pace the attack while senior pitchers Matt Dannenhoffer and Mo Gardner are each 2-0 and classmate Scott Borges has a school record three saves thus far. Oggeri was TCCC Player of the Week last week. A test comes this weekend with a pair of doubleheaders at Endicott (Saturday) and Roger Williams (Sunday).

Softball sits at 5-6 and is 2-1 since coming back from its spring trip. The Leopards dropped their Northern opener to Emmanuel before putting together a solid doubleheader sweep of Castleton last Sunday. Junior Lizz Harvey has belted three home runs so far, with two coming in consecutive at bats against Emmanuel. Harvey has a team-high 11 RBI, followed by junior Bridget Souza's seven, while Souza leads the team with a .367 batting average. Senior Caylee Johanson has a 4-5 record in the circle.

An exciting, 9-8 win over the University of New England in its home opener Wednesday night evened the lacrosse team's record at 2-2. Freshman Mark Pappas has 14 goals through four games while junior Matt Cox has 10 points on seven goals and three assists. The Leopards have won nearly 65 percent of their face-offs and face a tough test Saturday when they travel to two-time defending league champ Western New England.

Men's tennis has opened the 2010 season in convincing fashion, posting a 2-0 record without losing an individual match thus far. In the season opener against Regis, Wentworth dropped just one set the entire match. Senior Dan Alexander had a thrilling victory over Eastern Nazarene on Wednesday, as he dropped the first set 0-6 and came back to win the second set, 7-5, before taking the tiebreaker with a 10-7 score.

A sport that may get overshadowed because of its crossover nature, men's volleyball, deserves more than a passing mention. First-year head coach Rob Mullowney has guided his squad to a 15-8 record this season. The 15 wins are as many as the program achieved in the last three seasons combined. Junior Lowell Jesmer has 211 kills and a hitting percentage of .406 to pace a balanced attack. What is more impressive is that the Leopards returned very few players to this year's team.

Congratulations are in order for the ice hockey team as the Leopards became the seventh NCAA Division III statistical champion in school history as their power-play unit was the most efficient stat-wise this season. Wentworth, which had a game that featured seven power-play goals and another featuring six, converted 32.6 prcent of its extra man opportunities.

The Ark Has Docked

2010-03-13T09:13:00.003-05:00

It's sunny and 62 degrees here in Central Florida and all of the rain from the past two days is long gone. Play ball, right? Nope. All of the rain has caused fields to become unplayable so, for the second straight day, Wentworth's baseball team has had its games cancelled. The Leopards are scheduled to come home Sunday afternoon (though there is also supposed to be bad weather in Boston, so who knows when we will get back) with a 4-2 record. It will mark the third straight year the team has come home with a .500 or better record. Cumulative statistics can be found here.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2010-03-12T11:51:00.003-05:00

The delgue of rain that nost of the State of Florida has gotten since Thursday morning forced the cancellation of Wentworth's doubleheader against WPI. WPI (6-0) came off an extra-inning win over #9 RPI yesterday. Speaking of yesterday...the Leopards got a quality win against perennial regional power St. Joseph's of Maine, 11-10. The Monks are a quality program which has been in the mix for an NCAA Tournament berth on an annual basis, was ranked #26 in the Collegiate Baseball Pre-Season Poll, and was among teams receiving votes in this weeks D3Baseball.com Poll. You can read the game recap here.

Wentworth's softball team completed its spring trip with a 9-1 loss to Juniata yesterday. The Leopards head back north on Saturday with a 3-5 record. Complete statistics through the first eight games can be found here.

So what to do on this rainy day? The players are hanging out in their condos and will be heading off-site for lunch, while the staff is hanging out by the pool. Yes, the pool. Assistant coaches Billy Sittig and Matt Moyen are engaged in a fierce game of pool as this is getting typed, while assistant coach Brian Nelson has joined head coach Steve Studley, his wife Sharon, and son Steven in the pool for a swim. As if they weren't wet enough...

Hopefully the weather will break and we will be able to get in the final two games of the trip against Clark tomorrow at 1:00 p.m., at Southestern University, in nearby Lakeland, Florida. Provided power and internet access are available, we will be providing live stats for both games.

A Few Days Late

2010-03-10T18:03:00.004-05:00

When Wentworth baseball coach Steve Studley held his pre-trip meeting on Feb. 27, one of the things he stressed was that we would be landing Saturday afternoon and the next thing we knew it would be Wednesday. He wasn't kidding and as Leopard Tracks tries to catch up, we are into Wednesday evening and haven't had a post since Friday night.

So here is where we stand...baseball is 3-2 through its first five games. The Leopards trekked over to Dodgertown (where every "street" in the complex is named after a Dodger legend - VERY cool for baseball history buffs) and faced a very good Oneonta State team. The Red Dragons wasted little time in the first game, plating six runs in the first, en route to a 14-9 win and earned the sweep with a 6-0 win in the nightcap. Monday was the shortest trip of the week, with a doubleheader against Newbury played at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex. Newbury is a MUCH improved team from the last couple of years and gave the Leopards all they could handle, but Wentworth took the sweep, 7-4, and 2-1. The third win in a row came in a very entertaining game against Albion. Junior Doug Papuga, who gave Wentworh a 2-1 lead in the second Newbury game, hit a walk-off double to cap off a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth for a 6-5 Wentworth win. The Leopards are supposed to play St. Joseph's of Maine Thursday morning, but the sky looks like we could be for some bad weather, which could impact Friday's twinbill against WPI as well.

A few hundred miles to the northeast, the softball team has a 3-4 record through seven games, with one game remaining on its spring trip. Wentworth opened the season with an 8-1 win over Keystone on Sunday before splitting two games on Monday. The Leopards fell, 9-8, in nine innings to Penn State-Altoona before rallying to defeat College of St. Elizabeth, 10-0. Tuesday saw Wentworth drop both its games, falling to Penn State-Berks, 4-0, and Juniata, 10-2. Wednesday's action saw Penn State-Altoona pull out a 10-2 win, while Wentworth shut out St. Elizabeth, 5-0. Box scores will be available at the official website of the Leopards later tonight.

Random Thoughts: the baseball staff enjoyed a staff dinner at Carrabba's on Monday night where Leopards Tracks HIGHLY recommends the Chicken Parm ... Tuesday night was the annual team dinner at the Outback - pitching coach Billy Sittig's favorite dining establishment. While it was a pay-as-you-go event, for a party of 37, roughly $1,040 was spent on a good meal and a fun time ... today was the off day for everyone. The staff headed to Hollywood Studios (Leopard Tracks was not there as rides have never been high on the list of things to do), while players scattered about. Some went off with their families, while a group headed on a road trip to the beach ... great to see Albion SID Bobby Lee when the Leopards and Britons battled each other. Bobby is a class act and a heck of a play by play guy. Albion bused down from Michigan and it amazes me how many teams actually drive down here ... A good number of Leopard families have made the trip to support their sons and to support the team. A big THANK YOU goes out to them ... As I wrap this up, I am going to meet a very good friend of mine, Jason Fein, who is the Director of Athletics at Drew University for dinner. Jason, a former SID at the College of Staten Island, is down here with his baseball and women's lacrosse teams and has been on a fundraising trip the past couple of days. I succeeded Jason as the president of ECAC-SIDA. His term was during the 2007-08 year, while mine was in 2008-09.

Until next time...

Spring Training, Leopard Style

2010-03-05T22:18:00.003-05:00

Both the Leopard baseball and softball teams went through final preparations in Tansey Gymnasium today before taking off for a (hopefully) warmer climate on Saturday, March 6. The softball team, under the direction of 12th year head coach Bob Long, heads to Myrtle Beach, S.C., for the FastPitch Dreams Classic where Wentworth will play eight games starting on Monday. Sixth-year baseball coach Steve Studley and his baseball team depart for the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational, playing 10 games.

Leopard Tracks will be with the baseball team all week and will provide daily updates to this blog. Live stats and live audio will be available for all games. Check out the Leopards' homepage for links.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Blogging

2010-03-04T17:38:00.000-05:00

The need for social media has become as great as the need for my morning coffee. Since we already have Twitter and Facebook as ways to follow the Leopards, we figured we'd give this blog thingy a try. We can't promise that it will be updated as quickly as the stock ticker is, but we hope to keep it current and incorporate new things such as video and audio clips. Hopefully you'll enjoy it!