Ice of the Tiger

It’s that time of year again –  ice is melting, grass is growing, flowers are blooming, and birds are chirping. In other words, hockey season is coming to an end and it’s time we shift our focus from the ice to the fields.

Only eight colleges are left rooting for Men’s Division I winter sports: the Final Four and the Frozen Four.

My guess is that most of you filled out a bracket, and can name every team remaining in the Final Four because you guessed they’d be there – Louisville, Syracuse, Michigan, and Wichita State.

The Frozen Four is a completely different story. When we think of the Frozen Four, we think of Michigan, who has made it 24 times; we think of BC, 23 times; BU, 21; Minnesota, 20; and maybe even our own Colorado College Tigers who have made it 10 times.

This year, however, three of the four teams remaining are making their Frozen Four debut – Quinnipiac, U Mass – Lowell, and St. Cloud State. And the fourth team? Yale. They’ve made it to the Frozen Four only once before…in 1952! Talk about a bunch of bracket busters.

(Yankees fans I hope you get the reference).

Both the Men’s and Women’s lacrosse teams were on the road over the weekend, but I was able to log some time in the bleachers at SOMETHING (I’ll get the name for you) Field.

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is where our club baseball team plays. And for those of you who didn’t know we had a club baseball team – you do now. A makeshift group of individuals make up the Colorado College Tigers baseball team. This team is student run, but boasts a plethora of leadership. Coach, captain, starting pitcher, and stud shortstop senior Will Allenbach has an abundance of responsibility creating a schedule, putting a team together, and assigning positions. Not to mention his role in the field.

Over the weekend, Allenbach stood tall on the mound for a grand total of 13 innings. Over the span of about 20 hours, Allenbach threw 233 pitches, which would have shattered Tom Cheney’s record for most pitches in a similar time period, were CC’s club team in the Major Leauge. Cheney set that record in 1962.

The Tigers lost the first two games of the series in embarrassing fashion, but showed the fans a sense of urgency and resilience by taking the third and final game 7-2.

More to come, baseball fans.

Alex Woolford

Staff Writer