Sport shorts: Track, softball and crew

By Mike McDonald
Collegian Editor
April 26, 2006

Crew

The Explorer women’s crew team competed in the A-10 championships on Saturday, April 22. The event was won by Massachusetts. It was the 11th Atlantic 10 Championship won by the Massachusetts women’s crew team. The event was held in Pennsauken, N.J. on the Cooper River.

La Salle did not fare as well as UMass. The Explorers did not earn a point in officially scored events. La Salle’s Second Varsity Eight Petite boat did win their race, but that event was unofficial.

The men’s crew team competed in the Kerr Cup this week. The Explorers were guests in the event, which is comprised of teams from the Colonial Athletic Association. La Salle’s Men’s Four boat finished ahead of all the CAA teams, making it the best performance of the day for the Explorers.

Softball

The Explorer softball team had another tough week. On Saturday, April 22, the team began a doubleheader against A-10 opponent Charlotte. Charlotte won game one, 4-2, but the second game was rained out and postponed until Sunday.

On Sunday, Charlotte picked up where it left off and finished off the sweep of the split doubleheader. This time, the 49ers won the game by a score of 9-1.

Tuesday, April 25 found the Explorers in University City for a doubleheader with the Drexel Dragons. Drexel played a solid game in the opener, and they won it by a score of 4-0.

In game two, the Explorers fought well to knot the score at 2-2 in the seventh inning, but the Dragons were able to win it in the bottom of the inning on a game winning RBI single by Sandi Wambold off of the Explorers’ Lea Corcoran.

The four losses this week dropped the Explorers to 11-28 on the season.

Track

On Friday, April 21, the Explorers competed in the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton. The big story for La Salle from the event was Rachel Papin. The junior won the 5,000-meter run by 38 seconds and qualified for NCAA regionals.

In addition, Papin was named Atlantic 10 Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Performer of the Week for the second time this season.

Saturday’s Widener Invitational had two Explorer standouts. Freshman Kimberly McIntosh had a big day on the women’s side, winning the long jump and finishing third in the 100-meter hurdles.

For the men, freshman Orestes Medina had a very good meet, with two top-five finishes. Medina placed second in the long jump and third in the triple jump.

In other news…

The La Salle Athletic Relations Council has undergone a name change. The organization will now be known as the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).

The committee is a group of student-athletes from different teams on campus teamed up to provide insight and opinions of the lives of student-athletes. The SAAC is designed to be able to give input and help decide new policies and rules that affect La Salle’s student-athletes every day.

According to Mary Ellen Wydan, La Salle’s, Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and Student-Athlete Services, this is not the only reason for the organization’s name change.

“We’re obviously trying to get back to what the NCAA wants,” Wydan said. “However, it’s supposed to be a student-driven organization, so we’re also hoping to empower our student athletes to get more involved, and have more input into what’s going on concerning student-athlete welfare.”

mcdonaldm2@lasalle.edu