MIDDLEBURY — It’s hard to call a 10-5-2 season too much of a disappointment, but for Coach David Saward’s Middlebury College men’s soccer team this 2009 record came one year after a trip to an NCAA Division III Sectional final and two years after the Panthers’ dream season, their 2007 run to an 18-2-2 record and an NCAA championship.
SALISBURY — Some of the fittest triathletes in the Northeast — including a local third-place finisher — came to Branbury State Park on Lake Dunmore Sunday, to compete in the grueling final leg of the Vermont Sun Triathlon Series season, the annual Vermont Half Journey.
The half Ironman distance course consists of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run, making it the longest triathlon held in Vermont.
ADDISON COUNTY — At about 10 a.m. this Saturday, runners from Middlebury, Mount Abraham and Vergennes union high schools will toe the line at a cross-country meet at Keenan Farm in Charlotte, while soccer players from Vergennes and Mount Abe will kick off at two different sites.
Three hours later, the new cooperative Mount Abe and VUHS football program will debut, as will the other local elevens.
BRISTOL — Last fall, an injury-riddled Mount Abraham Union High School football team finished a winless season by dressing just two dozen players for its final game, a number that including freshmen who Coach Ernie Senecal didn’t want to throw into the breach. About a dozen athletes who started the season on the roster couldn’t play.
Times have changed: Over the winter, the Mount Abe and Vergennes Union High School boards approved the state’s first cooperative football program.
MIDDLEBURY — The College Swim Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) late last month honored Middlebury College’s John Dillon as its male “Break-Out Swimmer of the Year.”
Dillon, a two-time 2010 NCAA Division III champion during his junior year, was the only Division III swimmer to receive any of the coaches’ association’s many awards, which were otherwise dominated by D-I athletes.
NEW HAVEN — A good crowd once again packed the main show tent at Addison County Fair and Field Days for the Friday evening armwrestling competition, which in its 31st year drew 126 adults and 127 youths to test their strength and skill.
Organizer Karen Brisson, a former U.S. and world champion who started helping her father Armond Brisson run the event 31 years ago, said the number of competitors and the size of the crowd for the popular event roughly equaled 2009’s totals.
NEW HAVEN — Huge crowds packed into the grandstand near the tractor pad at the Addison County Fair and Field Days Wednesday and Thursday evenings to watch the most chaotic part of the week’s festivities: the No. 1 Auto Parts Demolition Derby.
The crowds — which swelled to over 4,000 each night — got their fix of mayhem as cars collided and somehow kept rolling with only two or three wheels. In each contest one car — or minivan — emerged out of the disorder still running.
The competition was pretty much as chaotic from a driver’s perspective as it was from the crowd’s.
HARTFORD — Local athletes won five state titles this past weekend at the summer-ending Vermont Swim Association championship meet.
Middlebury Aquatic Club Panther Max Moulton won two events, the 14-and-under boys’ 50- and 100-yard breaststroke races, while his 15-year-old Panther teammate Grace Pyne won the U-16 girls’ 100-yard breaststroke. Each also placed in several other events.
MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury Amateur Hockey Association is adopting a new approach this winter that MAHA officials hope will encourage more young skaters to pick up hockey sticks.
MAHA will create the Middlebury Hockey League (MHL), which will be based at the Memorial Sports Center and offer kids a chance to play in and practice for a full hockey schedule without the travel that the sport has typically demanded.
MIDDLEBURY — A young relay squad from the Vergennes Swim Team won twice and two individual swimmers from the Middlebury Aquatics Club (who incidentally share the same last name) won a race apiece at the Champlain Valley Swim League Championships held last Friday and Saturday at the Middlebury Town Pool.
The host team overall swam well enough to earn sixth place, while their neighbors from Vergennes were close behind in seventh in the nine-team league.
