Category: Sports

By Tim Alford
Transcript Correspondent

Only a few weeks into the season, the men’s swimming and diving team won their second meet against Urbana over the weekend.

According to junior diver Anthony Peddle and sophomore swimmer Thomas Horsfall, the team has started off the season strong.

Peddle said having a diving coach this season has given him more confidence.

“We are all working through our dive lists strengthening what we already have and moving towards newer dives, as well as increasing our degree of difficulty as we go along,” Peddle said. “We should improve on how we approach competitions. We’re an awesome team, and we can hold our own.”

Horsfall said the team is consistent and is dedicated. He said this is shown by the amount of training that takes place outside of the pool with activities such as running and lifting. Despite this, he said he still thinks there needs to be some improvements with the team.

“What I think the team needs to improve on is communication among the team,” Peddle said. “I feel as a whole, the team can split itself into smaller cliques of people and that causes some separation from different parts of the team. But the season is young and I believe as we get deeper into the season, those walls will be broken down.”

Unlike many other sports teams, the swimming and diving teams are scored together. Also, both the men’s and women’s teams practice and travel to meets together. Junior swimmer Jacob Beach said he has never been on a swimming team that definitively separates the guys from the girls.

“This is a defining characteristic of swimming and I think it leads to why swimming is such a close sport,” Beach said. “You are spending so many hours a week with the same people, you have to love each other.”

Peddle agreed with Beach and said the teams work together well.

“Our camaraderie is unlike any other team, in my opinion,” Peddle said. “We have men and women, swimmers and divers, mixed grades. We don’t have starters…we’re all one team and compete as such. I love this team and I’m so lucky to be a part of it.”

Horsfall said while he thinks working alongside the girl’s team and the dive team opens up more possibilities for friendships and building unity, he feels it can divide the team sometimes.

“I hear people disagree with listening to members of the team for that reason,” Horsfall said. “We are a team. Yes, by gender we are different, but we all make up the OWU swim team and that (disagreement) is something that needs to be changed. If we can change that, I think the teams’ unity will be stronger.”

Peddle explained how the scoring for the diving team factors into the team score.

“Diving is an individual scoring event, so each of our dives count towards our personal score,” he said. “(This) will place us first, second, or third, which if you place in the top three, you win points for the swimming and diving team – which determines if we win or lose.”

Peddle said the divers have some goals for this season.

“One goal we all have is to continually improve,” he said. “(Also) beat our scores from our previous meet and learn a new dive, or two, or three a week to increase our degree of difficulty.”

Horsfall said he plans to improve individually but has goals for the team as well.

“For the team, my goals are to win more meets than last season,” he said. “We work hard and I think our new, strong freshman class really gives us an edge on other teams. For myself, the only goals I have are to improve my stroke and to drop time.”

Horsfall said staying consistent in practice will be key to reaching the goals.

“Swimming is a sport where just a few days out of the water is detrimental to what you have been working on all season,” he said. “They say a day out of practice for a swimmer is comparable to three days out for any other athlete.”

The next meet for the team is Nov. 17 and 18 at home for the Corbiere/Merion Invitational. Beach said this meet is a big deal for the team as they swim against several Division II and III teams. At press time, the starting time for the meet was still unannounced.

By Taylor McGinnis
Transcript Correspondent

Despite not making the playoffs, the Ohio Wesleyan women’s soccer team knows the season was not a complete loss and the team is already getting ready for their next season.
During their fall season, according to the Ohio Wesleyan Athletics page, the team posted a 6-11-1 with key conference losses to Otterbein, Depauw, Wittenberg, Wooster and Allegheny. Although their home record was positive at 5-3-0, road games didn’t work in their favor, as they were 1-7-1.

Freshman defensive midfielder Danielle Kaylor said the team’s record does not reflect how well they played.

“Our season didn’t go as planned,” Kaylor said. “We had our ups and downs but we stuck together as a team. The whole season we played well, but when it came down to it we didn’t really shoot that much, and obviously you need to shoot to score. Most games we just couldn’t get the job done at the end.”

The final game of the season for the lady Bishops came last Saturday when they played at Wooster.

Freshman goalie Makenzie Howell said the Bishops made a strong comeback against the Scots but it was too late in the game.

“We were down the whole game,” Howell said. “By the time there was only 10 minutes left we were losing by three, but we had a spurt of energy, and we scored two goals before it was over,” Howell said the lack of scoring is what hurt the team all season. She said one of the problems is no one took the lead on the field to be the one to score.
“I wish my team would have been a little more selfish when wanting to score, especially when the game was on the line,” Howell said.

Howell said a highlight during the season came when the team played Denison at home.

“It was the best game we played together all year,” Howell said. “We really finished strong, and won the game 1-0 in the second overtime.”

Kaylor agreed with Howell and said some of the team members had stand-out performances during the game.

“Although we all contributed, some of our players that really did well were Jessie Huschart, Hannah Zacharias and Sarah Stachowiak,” Kaylor said.

According to the Ohio Wesleyan Athletics page, Huschart accumulated the most points on the team with 14, Stachowiak added 4 points and Zacharias had a team high .792 save percentage.

Unfortunately for seniors Devon Bradley, Jessie Huschart and Ally Miess this was their last season, but the underclassmen are very optimistic about the future.
Kaylor said the team members who will return next season plan to learn from this season to build into next year.

“I think we will work hard in the off season, and do much better next fall,” Kaylor said. “I think we will use our motivation from this fall to help us succeed next year.”
Howell also had high hopes for the future of the team.

“We need everyone to come in ready to go, be able to score, and win games,” Howell said.

Similar to most division three sports, the woman’s soccer team will get an opportunity this coming Spring to have a short month long season that will consist of around four practices a week, and one or two scrimmages at the end of the season.

By Tim Alford
Transcript Correspondent

The women’s track and field team started training for the winter indoor season with a goal to win their seventh straight NCAC Championships.

Senior Nicole Lourette, a triple jumper and long jumper, said the runners who do not run cross country began non-mandatory captain’s practices in the third week of school.

“That time is used to build the sprinters, jumpers and throwers up and prepare them for the regular season, as well as to build close relationships with the freshmen,” Lourette said. “It is a crucial part of our training that is less intense, but a vital first step in the preparation process.”

Junior Antoinette Jolliff, who runs the 400 meter hurdles and pole vaults, said from now until the first meet, the team will be strengthening themselves and preparing their bodies to run 100 percent at meets.

The track team has not had success in just the indoor season, but also in the outdoor season in the spring. Coach Kris Boey, who is entering into his eleventh year as the coach for the men’s and women’s team, said the women’s team has also won four straight outdoor championships.

Senior Clare Duffy, who participates in the heptathlon, said the strong freshmen class will be wonderful additions to the “dominating upperclassmen.”

Lourette said their numbers and the depth of the team is a strength that they can use to compete with other teams. She said if the freshmen combine their skill with the skill of the upperclassmen, the team could be “unstoppable.” However, she also cited success as a potential weakness for the team.

“Our weakness could possibly be getting complacent at the top of the conference,” Lourette said. “Our tradition of winning has been so strong, that the younger members on the team may just take it as a given – but it’s not. We have to continue to work to get that title and, as our coach always tells us, we need to ‘stay hungry’ because that target is always on our back.”

Throughout the season, the men’s and women’s teams practice together. Lourette said the teams work together all of the time and often lift together as well.

Jolliff said her brother, Silas Jolliff, is a senior on the men’s track team and it has never been a problem.

“Personally, I get along very well with the men’s team,” Jolliff said. “…We practice together and cheer for each other at meets, so I like the atmosphere. The girl’s and guy’s team overall get along well, (and) every once in a while there is a little competition between the two, but it makes everyone better.”

Duffy said the team has some goals going into the season for continuing their winning tradition.

“We’re looking to have the senior class graduate with a perfect record (winning every conference title indoors and outdoors),” Duffy said. “Through the indoor season, I’m hoping for the team to remain healthy. It’s difficult to stay healthy and injury free for four months of competition, but we set ourselves up to come as close to that as possible.”

Lourette said she is hoping to reclaim her spot in the top three of the triple jumpers in the conference during the indoor season. For a team goal, she said she would love to see the team win the conference championship again.

“We definitely have what it takes skill wise, we just have to stay hungry for it,” Lourette said. “During indoor, the most important thing is to not get complacent before outdoor starts. It’s a whole new season and all the other teams are going to step it up; that means we have to as well.”

Jolliff said that while she likes to win, she also wants to have fun.

“I want to have fun mainly,” Jolliff said. “Yes, I like to win. But some days that won’t happen, so I think just doing my best every meet and working harder for the next one is my goal.”

Boey said he and the team will work to continue to be the best overall program in the NCAC.

“I want each individual to improve, stay healthy, have success (individually and as a team) and have fun in the process,” Boey said. “We will represent OWU, our team, and ourselves in the best possible manner regardless of the results.”

The first indoor meet for the team is the Marietta Open at Marietta College on Dec. 1.

By Sadie Slager
Transcript Reporter

Haley and Tirion Sheafor say everything’s better when they’re together. The identical twins, who hail from Charlotte, N.C., are first-year students on OWU’s swimming and diving team.

Tirion said their swimming careers started very early in life.

“Since we were four, we always liked the water,” she said. “So our parents signed us up for swim lessons. North Carolina is one of the biggest states for swimming and the times are generally faster there.”

Haley said that while they participated in a summer league swim team from ages four to nine, they had to choose swimming over soccer when they entered high school.

“It was a joint decision,” Tirion added.

Another joint decision was the twins’ decision to come to OWU.

Tirion said swimming had a big influence in their school choice.

“Ever since we chose to do swimming, we knew we wanted to go to a smaller school so we would be able to swim,” she said. “There is a nice new pool here and the swim team has a good reputation. Before we even started looking at schools we knew we would go to the same one.”

Also at the top of their list, Haley added, were UNC Asheville and Dickinson College.

“We went to a small high school, so we also wanted a small college so we would know everyone,” she said.

Tirion recalled OWU coming up on their radar during the college search process.

“We did personality tests online to see what schools would fit us, and OWU was one of them,” she said. “Then we visited here a couple of times.”

Haley and Tirion are glad to be a part of a college team, as the team they were on in high school was a club team and didn’t do anything together outside of practice and meets.

“We’re looking forward to that team feeling,” Tirion said.

Haley said she and her sister share many similarities in the pool, but excel in some different areas.

“For the most part we do the same events,” she said. “But Tirion is better at butterfly, and I am better at freestyle. We usually have
the same times for backstroke.”

In addition to participating in the same sport, Tirion and Haley chose the same area of study at OWU.

“We want to major in early childhood education,” Tirion said. “We both want to do the same thing. We have three classes together, and two separate.”

Tirion said she and Haley tend to make similar decisions, but make them on their own.

“We just like the same things,” she said.

Another thing they agree on is their favorite moments from the swimming portions of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

“Our favorite swim was Katie Ledecky’s 800 freestyle,” Haley said.

“And our second favorite was Brendan Hansen’s third place finish in breaststroke because he started in lane eight and still got third place,” Tirion added.

Haley said she and Tirion don’t currently have any Olympic aspirations, but they would consider being swim coaches after college.

In their first college meet, the Kenyon relays meet on Oct. 20, Tirion and Haley teamed up for the 200 backstroke relay and competed in a few other events separately.

While Haley specializes in freestyle and backstroke, Tirion’s main events are usually backstroke and butterfly.

Both sisters agree that they are more successful when they do things together.

“We’re generally better together, whether it’s in school or sports,” Haley said.

Tirion echoed this statement.

“We’ve always been together, so when we’re apart it feels like something is missing,” she said.

By Tim Alford
Transcript Correspondent

Over the weekend, the baseball team concluded their fall training which senior catcher Tim Heinmiller said had a much more competitive atmosphere this year.

Heinmiller said the four weeks of training during the fall, nicknamed “fall ball,” began with tryouts.

While the team has had tryouts every year, he said the team has only had 30-35 guys out in the past and this year the team had almost 50 guys.

“So the tryout felt more like a tryout, as the coaches had many more kids to see,” Heinmiller said.
Heinmiller said the number of players at the tryout helped the players to work even harder to earn a spot on the team.

“I think this was good for the team, as it created a more competitive atmosphere, and I also feel that this was necessary in order to get a good first impression of the freshmen we brought in,” Heinmiller said.

Tyler Mott, the head coach of the baseball team, said the competition served as a motivator.

“More competition forces players to step their game and effort up during practices,” Mott said. “It helps us coaches evaluate and take notice of the players who consistently work hard and want to compete for time.”

Heinmiller said the rest of fall ball consisted of four practices per week.

“One practice is an actual practice where we go over the nuances of baseball, such as bunt coverage, pick up moves, and communication,” he said. “The other practices are intra-squad scrimmages.”

Heinmiller said fall ball ends with the team separating into two teams and playing games against each other. He said this series, known as “Red/Black,” is played for the annual bragging rights.

Mott said the coaches will communicate with the players on what they need to do to make themselves better to prepare for the spring.

“The guys worked extremely hard this fall and competed consistently,” he said. “We will be working all winter with them laying out their expectations and roles.”

Heinmiller said Mott will give the team a weightlifting program and conditioning program to do over the winter. He said the conditioning program will focus on speed, agility, and explosiveness.

“This year, we will need to be a fast and scrappy team, so the conditioning will be important to allow us to stay strong throughout the season,” he said.

Senior shortstop Zach Bott said the winter training period is important for the team

“During the season, it is hard to condition and lift because you are playing two games during the week and four times on the weekend, so this is the time when we need to get stronger so we can make it throughout the season,” he said.

Mott said the team has most of the pitching staff back from last season as well as some experienced players in the infield and outfield.

“We will expect a lot from those returners, as we will count on them to help the guys who don’t have as much college game experience,” Mott said. “They will have to be good leaders each and every day for us.”

Heinmiller said that while the team has some upperclassmen who will be returning to take some spots, some freshmen will also fight to get some playing time.

Bott said these freshmen are full of talent and many will be major contributors right away.

Heinmiller said he has some goals for the team this year.

“I believe that this year we have a very realistic shot to win the NCAC and make it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in my four years here,” Heinmiller said.

“However, we still have a lot of work to do to get to this point. We need to work hard this off-season and we need to come back focused and hungry in the spring.”

Bott said he has some goals for both the team and himself.

“As a team, I think our goals are obviously to win the conference and go to regionals but I think more importantly it is to get better every day,” Bott said. “Personally, one of my biggest goals is to become a better leader.”

“Being a senior and playing for the last three years, I have been through a lot of the growing pains that the younger guys are going to go through in the coming months. So I want to influence the team and especially the young guys to keep their heads up and keep grinding every day.”

The baseball team’s first scheduled game is against Transylvania University on March 2.

By Margaux Erilane
Transcript Correspondent

The women’s volleyball team has long been the brunt of OWU’s sports jokes, but having already won more games this season than in the previous three seasons combined, things can only improve for the Lady Bishops.

The Bishops currently have a record of 11-15 and have qualified for the NCAC tournament. The question now most likely on everyone’s mind: How did they do it?

The answer has a lot to do with the performance of freshman libero Danielle Birney.

The libero is the one in the different colored jersey who only plays back row. They serve as defensive specialists and can replace any player on the court without using a substitution. Each team is allowed to have one libero and they can enter the game at any time.

Though liberos often receive little recognition compared to their offensive counterparts, they hold one of the most important positions on the court.

Volleyball is a game that can’t function without defensive players as they are needed in every play. Birney has greatly assisted in strengthening the Bishop defense.

Senior outside hitter Megan Weissenberger said Birney’s back row play is a major factor contributing to the success of the team.
“Our defense wouldn’t be as strong without Birney in the back row,” Weissenbergr said. “She’s scrappy and picks up a lot of balls, which allows us to run a more effective offense.”

Senior setter Brittany Vickers said Birney’s smart game play and ability to play alongside other teammates makes her a good addition to the line-up.

“Danielle is great at reading the attack and she makes a lot of hustle plays,” Vickers said. “She and (junior defensive specialist) Emily Stewart compliment each other well.”

Currently in her rookie season, Birney holds the highest average digs per set with 5.74 since 2007 when Jaime Scharf averaged 6.94 in 2007. In addition to her defensive contributions, Birney has also recorded 22 aces, 20 assists, and seven kills, making her an all-around benefactor.

Birney said she came into preseason this year after a summer of preparing herself for the college game.

“Over the summer, I worked out on a regular basis, played at a local high school, and participated in beach tournaments weekly,” Birney said.

This proved beneficial for her as she quickly secured her spot in the starting lineup as libero.

Despite her statistical contributions, Birney still relies on her teammates. She said her favorite part of being on the team is, “having the support of 14 other girls no matter what.”

Birney said she hopes the team will continue to improve and grow while building off of the accomplishments this year.

“There were a lot of close games we could have pulled out but we’re taking them as a learning experience and preparing for the next ones,” Birney said. “I just hope we can improve our record more and more each year.”

The Bishop’s play date is Saturday Oct. 27 where they will play Oberlin College and Buffalo State College.