1. Jeremy Kaminer ’10 Hits 30-Footer to Beat Amherst

Wesleyan men’s basketball had lost 16 straight contests to Amherst since the 2001-02 season, a span in which the Lord Jeffs dropped just nine total NESCAC games—four of which came in 2001-02—and hosted the conference tournament all but two years. On Jan. 6, then-9-0 Amherst looked poised to make it 17 in a row, as the Jeffs held a 57-45 lead with ten minutes to play in Middletown. Wesleyan, however, rallied to take a five-point lead with 30 seconds left, only to see the visitors tie the game with seven ticks remaining. After a timeout, Kaminer found himself double-teamed along the far baseline with time running out. The Cardinals’ point guard threw up a 30-footer as the clock hit zero that hit the glass and swished through the hoop, sending the Silloway Gym crowd into hysterics and giving head coach Joe Reilly his first career victory against the national power.

 

2. Ali Fourney ’09 Breaks Women’s Basketball Scoring Record

Fourney, who tallied her 1,000th career point in a victory over Trinity on Feb. 8, 2008—becoming only the second Wesleyan junior ever to reach the milestone—entered the Cardinals’ Feb. 4 game at Emmanuel needing 11 points to break the career scoring record held by Angie Palmer ’95. With a layup with 7:49 to go in the second half, Fourney reached 1,418 career points to clinch the record, eclipsing Palmer’s total of 1,416. She finished her illustrious career with 1,498 career points, including 430 in 2008-09. She finished the season with a career-high average of 18.7 points per game, which led the NESCAC. She also finished second in the conference in steals (3.7 per game), seventh in field-goal percentage (47.4%), eighth in assists (3.53 per game), and ninth in blocks (1.0 per game). Fourney is the only player in Wesleyan women’s basketball history with 100 career field goals, three-pointers, free throws, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals.

 

3. Men’s Ice Hockey Shuts Out Amherst for First Time

Entering its Nov. 22 home game against Amherst, Wesleyan had a fair amount going against it. The Lord Jeffs had taken the last eight games in the series—including back-to-back shutouts—and spoiled Wesleyan’s first-ever home NESCAC tournament game with a 2-0 victory in 2007. Amherst kept the Cardinals off the board through the first two periods, but Dallas Bossort ’09 scored just 39 seconds into the third period to give Wesleyan a 1-0 lead—one it would not relinquish. Cardinal netminder Tim Archibald ’10 was spectacular in net, stopping 34 Amherst shots, including 16 in the second stanza. Amherst displayed impressive sportsmanship, racking up 38 penalty minutes in the contes, but it was Wesleyan that emerged with a victory, its first shutout in the 82-game series. Even more impressive was that Wesleyan was the only NESCAC squad to defeat Amherst in a conference game, and one of only five teams overall to take down the NESCAC champion Jeffs in 2008-09.

 

4. Diver Dave Wilkinson ’09 Named All-American

Wilkinson became the second Wesleyan diver in the last seven years to compete at the NCAA Championships and placed 19th and 13th (out of 22 divers) in the one- and three-meter dives, respectively, the latter of which earned him honorable-mention All-America laurels. Wilkinson scored 392.25 on the one-meter and 417.35 on the three-meter. He had finished fourth on the one- and three-meter boards during the NESCAC Championships and also earned the Senior Diver of the Year award, given annually to the senior diver with the most career points in the Championships. At Nationals, Wilkinson’s 13th-place effort in the three-meter dive earned Wesleyan four team points, placing the Cardinals in a tie for 53rd place among the 57 scoring teams.

 

5. Women’s Lax Snaps 18-Game Skid Against Amherst

A year after snapping a 25-game losing streak against Williams that dated back to Ronald Reagan’s first term, the Cardinal women did it again, taking down Amherst last Saturday for the first time since 1994. The Lord Jeffs had taken 18 straight against Wesleyan since an 11-8 Cardinal victory that year, including a pair of one-goal decisions in 2008. On a cold, rainy afternoon, Wesleyan used a pair of scores from Maggie Lile ’11 to jump out to a 2-0 lead with barely ten minutes gone and, after Amherst tied it midway through the first, scored eight of the next nine goals en route to a 12-5 thrashing. Lile and Charlotte Hastings ’10 led Wesleyan with four goals each, and goalie Abby Sedney ’10 made eight saves to keep the Jeffs at bay. Coupled with Amherst’s victory over Williams the previous weekend, Wesleyan has already clinched a share of the Little Three title and will go for the outright crown this weekend in Williamstown.

6. Rachel Stemerman ’09 Breaks 3,000-Save Mark

With a 35-save performance in the women’s ice hockey team’s season finale, Stemerman ran her career total to 3,012 stops, the second-highest total in NCAA Division III history. Despite missing two games with an injury, Stemerman stopped 923 of 999 shots in 2008-09, an average of 42 stops per game and 148 higher than the previous Wesleyan record (and the fifth-highest in Division III history). She had back-to-back 51-save games against Colby and Bowdoin on Feb. 6 and 7, bringing her career total to ten 50-save games. Seven of those games came in 2008-09, including a 66-save performance at Holy Cross on Jan. 20. She made 34 saves against Nichols on Dec. 6 for her fourth career shutout. Stemerman opened her Wesleyan career with a 53-save performance against Trinity and recorded 46 stops in a shutout of Hamilton five games later. Stemerman was named second-team all-NESCAC in recognition of her performance.

 

7. Lisa Drennan ’09 Named NESCAC Volleyball Player of the Year

Drennan, who was also named NESCAC Player of the Year after her sophomore season (2006), established herself as one of the best all-around players in NESCAC history. She led the NESCAC in kills (4.70 per set)—and was third in Division III in that category, her third straight year in the top five nationally—and finished second in the conference with a .315 hitting percentage. Drennan was also named an American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Division III second-team All-American—the only player in New England to receive such an honor—and was also named a New England Women’s Volleyball Association (NEWVA) and AVCA New England Division III first-team all-star and a CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine second-team Academic All-American. She finished her career with 1,865 kills, second in Wesleyan history; her average of 4.92 is a program best. Drennan also helped lead the 2008 Cardinals to their fourth straight winning season and ninth in the last ten years, as Wesleyan finished with a 21-7 record.

 

8. Men’s Lacrosse Wins 12th Straight Over Amherst

On April 17, 1999, Amherst men’s lax won its second straight 9-7 game over Wesleyan. Amherst hasn’t beaten Wesleyan since, as the Cardinals have racked up 12 straight victories over their Little Three rival. Two of those games have come in the NESCAC tournament—the 2001 quarterfinals (16-11) and 2005 semifinals at Middlebury (13-9). Wesleyan extended the streak last Saturday with a 6-5 road victory—its fourth straight one-goal win over the Lord Jeffs. Faced with a 3-1 deficit after the first quarter, Wesleyan made it a 3-3 game at halftime and, after the teams traded goals twice in the third, took the lead for good with 1:52 left in the quarter on Jon Killeen’s ’10 17th tally. Neither team scored in the fourth, as Mike Borrero ’09 had a spectacular performance in goal, making 12 saves and helping Wesleyan kill off a minor penalty with 51 seconds left.

 

9. Wrestling Coach Drew Black Gets 100th Wesleyan Victory

Drew Black became a household name this past winter when he helped revive an alumnus who had collapsed in the fitness center, but he also finds time to coach a Wesleyan wrestling match every now and then. Black, who took over the Cardinal matmen in 1998, picked up his 100th win in the red and black with a 33-9 victory over Coast Guard, Wesleyan’s sixth straight over its in-state foe, on Jan. 25. Black set the school mark for victories in a season with a 17-2 showing in 2001-02 and has finished .500 or better seven of the past nine seasons. Black’s milestone added to the team’s impressive highlight reel, which featured a pair of NCAA qualifiers (Dan Bloom ’10 and Greg Hurd ’10), a New England champion (Bloom), and four National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Scholar All-Americans (Bloom, Hurd, Dan Conroy ’10, and Dave Bachy ’11).

10. Tommie Lark ’11 Breaks Own Indoor Triple-Jump Record Twice

During the Cardinal Invitational on Feb. 9, 2008, Tommie Lark ’11 broke the Wesleyan indoor triple jump record with a 46’ 0” performance, eclipsing the distance of 45’ 10 1/2” set in 1990 by Richmond Simmons. Unlike Simmons’ mark, that record did not last 18 years—or even one year—as Lark bettered his mark by nearly a foot during the Wesleyan Invitational II this past season on Jan. 17, with an effort of 46’ 11 1/4”. The following Saturday, during the Cardinal Invitational I, Lark placed second in the event and again broke the record with a jump of 47’ 1 3/4”. The latter jump exceeded the provisional qualifying standard for the NCAA Championships by over a foot, though Lark did not receive a bid to the Championships. Lark has continued his dominance in the outdoor season, as he took first in the triple jump (45’ 2 1/4”) during last weekend’s Elmer Swanson Invitational.