Sports
November 3, 2022
Men’s volleyball prepares for upcoming season
With only a few months until their season begins, the Goshen College men’s volleyball team prepares to compete as a relatively new team. This year’s team features a significantly different roster from the one fans saw last season. With only one starter returning, senior Ian Fox, many of the team’s players are new. Despite these new players, however, the team as a whole isn’t necessarily young; the group includes two first-years, one sophomore, four juniors, four seniors and two fifth-year players. To prepare for the season, players have been engaging in fall practice. Fall ball allows players to tune their...
November 3, 2022
Basketball begins season looking for growth
College basketball returned to Goshen last weekend, as the Goshen College women’s basketball team won two games at the Ruth Gunden Memorial Classic while the men fell to the University of Northwestern Ohio. “We sure are energized, and we’ve got a lot of talent,” said Stephanie Miller, the women’s head coach, after the Goshen team’s 75-68 comeback victory over William Jessup University, a private California school. “We’re very young,” Miller said, “and you can see that. We’re making a lot of mistakes…we’re not really 100% sure about anything. I think it’s just gonna take some time for us to really...
October 28, 2022
Volleyball fights through adversity: An interview
With a 3-0 loss last night to Spring Arbor University, the Goshen College women’s volleyball team fell to 2-29 overall. The Leafs remain winless in the Crossroads League, now bearing a 0-16 record. The team has just two games left: a Friday night home matchup against Taylor University, and their final match of the season on Saturday at Bethel University. The team hopes to close the season with a strong showing, as they try to break their 21-game losing streak. Sophomore captain Sadie Brenneman shared her thoughts on the past year and all that came along with it. Brenneman is...
October 28, 2022
Leafs battle for tournament berths
The Goshen College women’s soccer team was hit with a killer one-two punch this past week. Playing two of the top four teams in the nation, the Leafs were trounced by a score of 6-0 twice in one week. Goshen fell first to No. 2 Marian University on Saturday, and then last night to No. 4 Spring Arbor University. “[I’m] never happy with a loss,” said Goshen head coach Justin Crew. “But I’m really happy with the effort and the energy.” Crew had strong praise for his players, calling them “focused” and stating that they played “with a sense of...
October 13, 2022
I love you, Goshen: Squirrel signing off
Goshen College on Friday revealed a new mascot and official cheerleader for athletics: Dash the Squirrel. I’m now out of a job. For the last nine months or so, I’ve been going to all the Goshen home games while wearing a crummy little squirrel suit from Amazon, held together with duct tape and safety pins. And in those nine months, the student section became louder than at any time in recent memory. My life as a squirrel began after the GC administration sent an email out to its student body and alumni last year announcing the formation of a mascot...
October 13, 2022
Tennis season ends on high note
Two weeks ago, the Goshen College tennis teams competed at the four-day Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Small College Regional Midwest tournament at Indiana Wesleyan University. “You wake up as a team and you go to bed as a team,” said senior Kevin Bollmann. “You spend basically 24 hours together…and that support showed on the court.” In what head coach Evan Atkinson called “some of [their] best tennis,” Goshen College closed its season by winning two tournaments with strong performances in multiple others while competing against over 200 of the best NAIA players in the Midwest. Sude Aytekin won three of her...
October 7, 2022
Leafs set school record as team
Goshen College cross country is fast — but we all know that. The real news? They’re now faster than they’ve ever been. Ezra Kipruto ran a 24:56 8K with Nelson Kemboi hot on his heels at 24:58, and the men set the school record for the best finishing time of all five scoring runners on Saturday at the Live in Lou Classic in Louisville. The team ran a combined time of 127:26, an average of 25:29 for an 8K. Then, less than an hour later, the women nearly did the same. Led by Naomi Ross-Richer (18:44) in 51st and Summer Cooper...
October 7, 2022
Cougars roar, but fall to Leafs
Capping off a strong week for Maple Leaf athletics, both the men’s and women’s soccer teams snatched their first conference win of the year against the University of Saint Francis through last-second heroics — and a touch of drama. In the women’s away fixture, both teams were scoreless through 85 minutes. Goshen was keeping the pressure on against the St. Francis defense all game but couldn’t find a breakthrough. Then the ball fell to Anita Tavares. With just over two minutes left in the game, Tavares sprinted down the left side with the ball. As a Cougar defender tapped it...
September 30, 2022
Weekly recap: Volleyball, soccer and cross-country
Two-thirds of the way through their season, the 2-19 women’s volleyball team has had to look at things other than winning percentage to keep their spirits up. “We are growing and getting better,” said Kourtney Crawford, head coach of the women’s volleyball team. “I think that the girls are working hard and it shows at moments, but they truly are putting in the effort.” The team has not recorded a win since Sept. 3, when they beat Montreat College 3-0. With just 13 games left in their season, they are looking to hit the reset button. “We’ve started to [reset]...
September 30, 2022
Squashing ANTs and bouncing back
As he enters his fifth year of conference play with the Goshen College women’s soccer team, head coach Justin Crew is adding a new component to the team’s training regimen. “We’ve taken a more intentional approach to the mental side of the game,” Crew said. “We’re actually working with a well-known sports psychologist, Dan Abrahams.” The Dan Abrahams Soccer Academy is an online program meant to improve players’ mental skills and morale. At the start of the year, the team watched Abrahams’ videos and then discussed them together, and goalkeeper Vicky Naylor says that Crew continues to draw on the...
September 15, 2022
Weekly recap: Soccer, volleyball, and cross-country
With mere seconds to play in a scoreless first half against Madonna University last Saturday, Felipe Carli found himself with the ball just outside the center circle. A few seconds later, the ball found itself 50 yards downfield in the back of the net as the clock read 0:01. Carli’s stunner of a goal sent the Goshen College men’s soccer team into a frenzy. The energy in front of a home crowd grew even stronger as, eighteen minutes into the second half, Lucas Bontrager gave the Maple Leafs a 2-0 lead after a beautiful pass from Mathurin Allawai. It was...
September 15, 2022
Men’s tennis bests IWU for first time since 2016
Since the last time the Goshen College men’s tennis team defeated Indiana Wesleyan University, six years ago, the Leafs were 0-8 with a combined score of 9 to 48. Last Wednesday evening, under the lights of Goshen’s tennis complex, Filippo Gallo won a decisive third-set tiebreak and changed that all. With his comeback 3-6, 6-3, (10-6) win in a super-tiebreak, Gallo scored the fourth and clinching point for the Maple Leafs in a massive 4-3 upset of the perennial powerhouse IWU. “I was so happy,” Gallo said. “I was thinking about what an achievement it was. We’d also come back...
September 8, 2022
Women’s soccer beats Golden Bears 6-0 and more: Weekend recap
A strong weekend for the Goshen College women’s soccer team was capped off by a Labor Day win over the West Virginia University Institute of Technology, as the Maple Leafs handed the Golden Bears a 6-0 drubbing. With goals from six different players — a feat that has not occurred since 2012 — the Leafs took control of the game from the first minute and never relinquished it. “We have a lot of players that are staying after training, coming before training, so I think this result speaks to them and to what they’re willing to put in outside of...
September 8, 2022
Men’s and women’s cross-country teams start season strong
As the NAIA cross-country season began last week, the Goshen College men’s and women’s teams both appeared in the preseason national coaches’ poll. The men’s team, which finished 24th at the NAIA National Championship last year, are now ranked 23rd in the nation, while the women’s team received votes. “I always have a word for the year, and this year that word is process,” said head coach Rustin Nyce. “I don’t want to focus on the national meet; we need to focus on doing the right steps throughout the whole process to get ourselves where we want to be in...