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| SEP./OCT. 2005 VOLUME 108 NUMBER 2 | Sports |
BANNER YEAR The 2004–05 academic year was one of the best ever for Cornell athletics, with Big Red teams winning a school-record eight Ivy League titles. Cornell squads captured championships in men's ice hockey, wrestling, lacrosse, volleyball, men's indoor and outdoor track and field, and women's indoor and outdoor track and field. In addition, men's polo won the national championship, the baseball team won the Ivy League/Gehrig Division title for the first time, and the softball, golf, and men's basketball teams all had strong years to finish in second place. The eight Ivy titles moved the Big Red up to fourth place on the all-time Ivy League championship list, with 156.
INDUCTEES Eleven new members will be welcomed into the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame during the twenty-eighth annual induction ceremony on October 7. They include seven new members who earned All-American honors during their collegiate playing careers: Bob DeLuca '66, men's basketball; John Sponheimer '69, football and men's basketball; Joe Mui '76, men's soccer; Adley Raboy '80, men's track; Bob Cummings '87, men's lacrosse; Caroline Hahn '87, women's polo; and Laura Woeller Baker '95, women's cross country and track. They will be joined by Dave Thomas '62, football; Joanne Powell '80, women's lacrosse and field hockey; Allison Goldwasser Blunt '88, women's soccer; and Mike Teeter, who has volunteered his time to Cornell athletics for more than 40 years. Among other things, Teeter has served as an equipment manager and goal judge for the men's hockey team, an equipment manager for the men's lacrosse team, and a sideline official at home football games since 1973.
MORE HONORS Hockey great Ken Dryden '69 was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) Academic All- America Hall of Fame in Philadelphia on July 6. Dryden joins fellow Cornellians Joseph Holland '78 and Ellen Mayer Sabik '84 in the CoSIDA Hall of Fame. Norman Engelke '81 will be inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame on November 12. Engelke was a two-time second-team All- American at Cornell before winning four national club championships with the Long Island Lacrosse Club and four United States Club Lacrosse Association all-star honors.
ROYAL
ROWERS After
going 8-1 during the regular season and
finishing second in the nation at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association
Regatta, the Cornell lightweight men's crew earned an invitation
to the
prestigious Henley Royal Regatta in London. The Big Red opened its
Henley trip with a win over Dublin's University College in
the first round,
and then beat Abingdon School by a boat length in the second round.
In
the quarterfinals, they lost to Oxford Brookes by three-quarters
of a
length. It marked the Big Red's first appearance in the Henley
Royal
Regatta since 1992.
BIG GAME JULY 15, 2005
|
In the
World Series of Poker's No Limit Texas Hold 'em Tournament,
held in Las Vegas, Brad Kondracki '03 surpassed the efforts
of
5,610 other high-stakes players to reach the final table. Kondracki,
who majored in computer science on the Hill and is now a law student
at the University of Pennsylvania, finished in eighth place
overall, taking home a cool $1.15 million. His $10,000 entry fee
was paid by the Pokerstars.com website after Kondracki won an
online tournament that he had entered for $160. Highlights of the
tournament will be broadcast on ESPN in November.
ON THE AIR Cornell football fans will once again have a chance to watch the Big Red on television when the YES Network telecasts Cornell's October 29 game with Princeton. YES will air five Ivy League games during the 2005 season, and there's a chance that the November 19 finale against Penn could also be picked up by the network. The YES Network is available on cable systems throughout New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, as well as parts of Pennsylvania. It is also available on DirecTV (channel 622).
FIRST
ROUND Defenseman
Sasha Pokulok
'08 became the first Cornell hockey player
to be selected in the first round of the National
Hockey League entry draft when he was chosen
14th overall by the Washington Capitals. "It is a
great honor for Sasha and a great accomplishment
for our program for him to be drafted that
high," said head coach Mike Schafer '86. In 26
games last year, Pokulok scored three goals and
had seven assists.
NEW HEAD COACHES Chris Wilson has been named head coach of women's crew after serving as interim coach, and Iryna Dolgikh has come to the Hill as head fencing coach after serving as an assistant coach at Penn State.Wilson had previously served as assistant to the athletic director for special projects and freshman rowing coach at Cornell. A native of Kiev, Dolgikh was the 1976 women's foil world champion and won a gold medal in the 1977 World Cup competition. While at Penn State, she helped guide the Nittany Lions to a pair of national runner-up finishes.
AQUA MAN John Kenny '02 keeps on swimming and swimming and swimming. The holder of Cornell's second-best mark in the 1,650 freestyle, Kenny won the U.S. National 25K Open Water Championship on June 2 in Fort Myers, Florida. Kenny covered the 25- kilometer Gulf of Mexico course in 5 hours, 29 minutes, and 44 seconds, finishing more than four seconds ahead of his nearest competitor. Kenny won the 1999 25-kilometer national title and was third in the world championships that year; he also won the national 10-kilometer title in 2001.