conference – The Hilltop Monitor

Fall sports updates

Trent Brink — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 14:00:00 +0000

The Cardinal football team at the Homecoming game against McKendree University on Oct. 1. Photo courtesy of William Jewell Athletics on Twitter.

October is a busy month for Jewell’s fall sports. This year, the teams are looking at some crucial wins with a lot of talented players.

Football

Despite sophomore Tabren Yates leading a typically successful Cardinal Offense, the football team is sitting at a 1-5 record so far this year. There is no doubt that the “Agents of Change” have been showing signs of improvement every week — displayed by their win against Kentucky Wesleyan College a couple of weeks ago. With five more games to play, the team will hopefully utilize its talents well.

Volleyball

The volleyball team definitely has the talent to win a lot of games, whether it’s senior Haidan Baade recording her 1000th career dig at the team’s first Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) win this season or sophomore Bella LaPorta leading the charge with 284 kills. The team hopes to gain some traction within their GLVC standing in their upcoming Oct. 14 tournament against Lake Erie College.

Men’s Soccer

Currently the men’s soccer team is sitting at a solid 2-4-3 record with a three-way tie for most goals on the team between junior Cole Bulgren, junior Ethan Nichols and senior Carson Lee. They are looking at three remaining conference heavyweights at the GLVC with Quincy University, University of Illinois Springfield and Truman State University, respectively, for the rest of their season.

Women’s Soccer

Despite senior Corrine Hughes having an impressive eight goals so far this season, the women’s soccer team is sitting at a record of 1-11-1. The talent on the roster shows that it is entirely possible they turn their luck around as they face three conference rivals in the weeks ahead to round out the 2022 season.

Men’s Golf

It has been a rollercoaster of a season for the men’s golf team — having reached the heights of second place in the Kansas City Cup and third place at the Rockhurst Fall Invitational. Sophomore Aiden Sanders leads the team with the lowest score average of 75. The team has one final tournament in the form of the Oct. 24 and 25 Tulsa Cup in Oklahoma.

Women’s Golf

The women’s golf team received high placements at both the Kansas City Cup, third place, and Rockhurst Fall Invitational, second place. Senior Frida Hammarlund leads the pack with the lowest average score of 75.8 and was recognized as GLVC Player of the Week in late September. The team will play two more conferences this season: the Midwest Classic on Oct. 17 and 18 in Maryville and the Tulsa Cup on Oct. 24 and 25.

Men’s Cross Country

Performance for the men’s cross country team is high as they head into their final two competitions at the Baker Invitational and GLVC Championship. At the Oct. 8 Haskell Invite, the team placed fourth overall in the men’s 8k and five runners beat their career best time: senior Christian Santiago, sophomore Matthew Ingle, junior Harley Branch, sophomore Fabian Reyes and sophomore Samson Selleck. Santiago and Ingle both finished in the top 10 with eighth place and 10th place respectively.

Women’s Cross Country

The women’s cross country team is staying strong with two competitions left for the season at the Baker Invitational and GLVC Championship. The team placed sixth in the women’s 5k at the Haskell Invite with five runners beating their career best time: sophomore Lottie Vickers, sophomore Brooke Ware, first-year Lauren Flickinger, sophomore Carly Thacker and first-year Lillian Bogard. The team will face 15 college and universities at the GLVC Championship on Nov. 5, but overall their consistent performance should lead them to a good finish for the 2022 season.

Men’s Swimming

Having only started their season this past weekend, the men’s swimming team is off to a hot 2-1 start, having beaten both Maryville University, 226-31, and Truman State University, 121-83. The team scored four first place wins at the Truman State University competition: graduate student Austin Wolfe in both the 800 and 400 free, junior Conner Sawyer in the 100 free and junior Jose Carlos Sanchez in the 200 IM. The Cardinals will have to keep up their momentum through February to achieve their goals for a successful season.

Women’s Swimming

The women’s swimming team is showing signs of a winning season sitting at 1-1 after beating Maryville University, 187.5-59.5, in their opener. At the Truman State University competition, first-year Maddie Atwood placed first in the 50 free and sophomore Martina Torrent achieved first in both the 200 IM and 200 breast. It is no doubt this younger squad will have success throughout their season.

Cardinal Swimmers work pays off at Conference Championship

Jake Marlay — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 14:00:47 +0000

On Feb. 10, the William Jewell College Swim Team competed in the Great Lakes Vally Conference (GLVC) Championship meet. The men’s team finished sixth, with 340 points overall. The women’s team finished fifth with 290 points. Records and personal bests were re-written across the board, as both teams seemed to have standout performances in the big moment. I was able to talk to coach Mark Gole and some of the top performing athletes about this event.

“The team’s preparation for this event cannot be explained in a paragraph or even the length of this newspaper. In short, we got this team to be as physically fit as possible and worked on their technique while pushing them to swim speeds that would help them compete to the level of competition,” said Gole.

“We do a lot of weights, and running as well as swimming to keep us in the best shape we can be in,” said sophomore international relations and french major Delaney Haralson.

Haralson finished the day by placing fourth in the 400 individual medley (IM) event.

“It’s a lot of work, but definitely necessary since we finish with a four day meet that basically lasts all day,” she said.

Many members on both teams had the best performances of their careers.

“The greater majority of the members of the men’s and women’s swimming program went lifetime best times in at least one or two of their individual events,” said Gole. “Only a handful did not go a best time and the coaching staff is still trying to figure out how that happened. I applaud the individuals that commit themselves to working as hard as possible to swim as fast as they do at the end of the year.”

Trey Roggenstein, senior recreation and sport major, was one of these Cardinals who performed well, placing fifth in the 400 IM.

“Everyone wants to be that one person to step up and lead the team,” said Roggenstein. “This year we had some great performances right from the first swim of the meet til the last one. I think many people surprised themselves with how they did.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams also took home the James R. Spalding sportsmanship award from the event.

“Winning the sportsmanship award on both the men’s and women’s side means a great deal to me and the program,” said Gole. “Supporting their teammates and cheering on their opponents has become something that the members of this program see as the right thing to do.”

According to Gole, the men’s team has won the award every year the GLVC has sponsored swimming, and the women’s team has won the award twice in the last four years.

“We do try to make it a point to be the loudest, proudest team by the pool, especially during finals,” said Haralson.

While a few individuals and relay teams will be making an attempt to qualify for the NCAA Division II national championships in March, for the majority of the team, this is an uplifting end to their season. Gole and the team seem eager to improve next season.

Photo courtesy of Jewell Athletics.

STEM students expand learning opportunities at conferences

Caitlin Troutman — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 20:31:44 +0000

When students think of science class, most probably don’t get too excited. However, the science departments at William Jewell College offer several opportunities for science students outside of equations and lab reports. Recently, several Jewell students in the science departments attended national conferences where they had opportunities to network and present research.

Chemistry and biochemistry students attended the Midwest Regional American Chemical Society (ACS) conference in Manhattan, Kan. during the last weekend of October. Seniors Madison Willenborg, a biochemistry and ACT-In major, Larissa Dougherty, biochemistry and ACT-In major, Ashleigh Milne, chemistry major, Camille Love, chemistry major and Trevor Nicks, biochemistry and ACT-In majors; juniors Jesse Lundervold, chemistry and studio art major, Denver Strong, physics and math major, and Seki Anderson, biochemistry and ACT-In major, all attended the event.

The ACS Meeting is for both undergraduate and graduate students interested in chemistry research. The conference consisted of poster sessions focused on chemistry education, networking events, learning about different businesses and PhD programs, and learning about different research opportunities.

“I enjoyed hearing about chemistry outside of the classroom,” said Anderson. “It’s a different way of learning, and it reminds me that I learn chemistry more than just for a good grade.”

The students in the physics department also attended a conference recently. Society of Physics Students (SPS) attended the 2016 Quadrennial Physics Congress (PhysCon) in San Francisco.

Junior physics and mathematics major Macy Tush, senior physics major Daniella Marin, sophomore history of ideas and physics major Megan Anderson, junior physics and mathematics major Denver Strong, and freshman physics, economics and math major Jacob Dice attended the event, along with Dr. Baker, who was honored with the SPC national advisor of the year award.

“It’s also a huge educational resource,” said Tush. “You can get ideas for your SPS chapter, how to make it better, get ideas for research, you can meet other physics students. For us it was really valuable because we have such a small physics department, it was nice to get out and meet people in other physics departments and see how other schools do things. They also bring in a bunch of big-name speakers to give lectures, then they do a bunch of workshops. If there’s something you’re really interested in in the physics realm, odds are you’re going to find a lecture or workshop about it that weekend.”

Among the lecturers were Nobel Prize winners and other big names in the physics world.

“It was cool just to hear them talk because they’re so much smarter than I am or will ever be,” said Tush. “And so just getting to sit and listen to them I really liked.”

Tush also said that she enjoyed the opportunity to meet physics students from other schools.

“I really like the networking, getting to meet people from other departments because our experiences are so different,” said Tush. “I got to meet one girl specifically who goes to a small liberal arts school in New York and she’s a physics undergrad, but her physics program is like 70 percent women, so I got to have some really cool conversations with her that I wouldn’t have had if not for this conference.”

Anderson also enjoyed meeting a range of students at the chemistry conference.

“Talking to the students during the poster sessions was beneficial networking because many of the undergraduates spent their summer at and REU [Research Experience for Undergraduates funded by the National Science Foundation],” said Anderson. “REUs are particularly competitive programs, so the more networking, the better.”

Jewell students also presented at these poster sessions, including seniors Larissa Dougherty, Camille Love, and Ashleigh Milne. Love was also recognized as one of the top presenters in her category.

Both students said that their respective conferences had both graduate students and professors present so that students could look at graduate programs across the nation. Tush also said that there were discussions and opportunities for students who didn’t want to pursue graduate school.

“A lot of people assume that if you get a physics undergrad, you have to go on to grad school,” said Tush. “There are other options, and that’s something I think our department does really well, telling you, ‘no you can a physics undergrad and go to law school, or you can get a physics undergrad and be an engineer, you can be premed, you can do all these things with physics undergrad. They had a session there about that and we [Jewell students] were all sitting like, ‘we know this stuff’ but people around us were amazed that they didn’t have to go to grad school for physics. It’s really nice to know that our department cares enough to share these options with us rather than just tell us the easy answer which is ‘just go to grad school, you’ll be fine’. They’ve gone out of their way to inform us of all our options.”

For students who wish to go to conferences in the future, both Anderson and Tush encourage communicating with the cabinets of honor societies and with the departments. Tush also mentioned that a student doesn’t have to be a physics major in order to be involved with the physics department. She encourages other students to get involved with physics events.

“Every Thursday at 2:15 p.m. we have physics minute,” said Tush. “We talk about physics for one minute, then eat ice cream for 15 minutes. We put a timer on, so you can literally only talk about physics for 1 minute.”

Overall, science students seem to enjoy and benefit from the conference experience.

“Getting to go on these conferences shows you that physics is more than just the classroom setting,” said Tush, “It’s more than the homework problems you do, it’s actually changing the world and finding these problems and finding solutions to these problems, which gets lost a lot in our academic environment I think. We get bogged down with thirty homework problems and I forget that I’m actually learning something that is a really valuable tool and resource.”

Men’s and women’s swim teams revel in GLVC success

Brett Stone — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 15:00:28 +0000

The William Jewell Cardinals men’s and women’s swim teams just returned from a very successful Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) meet. The women’s team placed fourth and the men’s team fifth in the conference. Both teams have noticeably improved from last season.

“The men’s team was fifth place by 79 points last year, and this year we were fifth place by five points,” Coach Mark Gole said. “We’ve closed the gap a little bit on Lewis [University].”

The women’s team was within five points of third place.

“Overall, out of 38 school records, [the men and women’s teams] broke 34 of them. So from top to bottom, our team did very well,” Gole said.

Nationals are looming, with the invite list set to release next week. Paige Meredith, sophomore, is currently ranked 13th in the country for the 100-meter butterfly, and Nationals will invite back 19 women for that event. Meredith currently stands the best chance of receiving an invitation.

The women’s team enjoyed many successes on the first day of Conference, with Maggie Metz, senior, winning second, Alex Millhuff, first-year, sixth and Heather Cistola, sophomore, seventh in the 1000-meter freestyle.

“In the very first individual event in the entire competition we had every swimmer who swam score for us. I believe that event gave our team momentum and confidence, and we ran with it,” Gole said.

The men’s team also enjoyed many successes at the GLVC meet. Matt Luton, senior, Lane Bland, sophomore and Henning Kunkel, first-year, all scored in the 1000-meter freestyle.

“One of the biggest highlights of the meet was freshman João Pedro Granato winning the 1650 meter freestyle. That was the first ever win in the Great Lakes Valley Conference for program. It was very exciting to see him do that,” Gole said.

Granato went on to win GLVC’s “Freshman of the Year,” an award decided on by all of the head coaches at the conference.

“I think the most exciting moment at conference is when I discovered I got selected as Freshman of the Year. I was in the bathroom, and when I got back, I wasn’t sure what was going on. But when they told me [I won], I was super happy and satisfied about it,” Granato said. “I’m happy that the team got where it is right now. We accomplished a lot of things this year, and next year hopefully we’ll accomplish more.”