From left: Assistant women’s hockey coach Emma DeSimone, seniors Amanda
Muller and Tory Serues, and coach Jim Plumer |
- Women’s hockey flies high with first-class coach
- Winter sports wrap-up
Women’s hockey flies high with first-class coach
As the minutes and seconds ticked
down in the Amherst women’s hockey squad’s regular season finale
on Feb. 17, co-captain Tory Serues ’04 couldn’t let
herself celebrate—yet.
Sure, the game’s outcome was almost certain—the Jeffs led 5-2 and
would surrender only one last goal in the final seconds—and with the 5-3
win over visiting conference opponent Connecticut College, the team’s 13
wins would set a new school record for single-season victories. Several days
later they would discover that their victory earned them the fifth seed in the
NESCAC Tournament. “Obviously, it
was very exciting, and there was a lot of adrenaline going,” said Serues
after the game. But, she added, “Things could still go wrong, and you just
want to stay calm and focused.” When the final buzzer sounded, however,
the Jeffs could rejoice; for one night, all the calm and focus that had allowed
the squad to earn win after win could take a breather on the bench.
In the locker room after that game, head coach Jim Plumer brought out a list
of goals that the team had set at the beginning of the season; the list, typed
and signed by all the members of the squad, had hung in their locker room since
its conception. Now, with the regular season wrapped up, the Jeffs could revisit
their ambitions.
End the regular season with an over-.500 record? Check.
Make the NESCAC playoffs? Check.
And the third goal—to win a NESCAC playoff game—was still within
reach.
“I told them I was proud of them,” Plumer said afterwards. “I
told them
that really, I thought this was a defining moment for our program.”
Added Serues, “He was saying nothing but good things.” Indeed, it’s
been hard to say anything but good things about what the Amherst women’s
hockey team has done this season. With a final regular-season record of 13-11
(7-9 in NESCAC play), the Amherst squad, in addition to setting a team record
for total wins, also exceeded last year’s victory
total by 10 games. “Everyone’s so excited,” said Serues, “just
knowing that we’ve set
goals, and have really gotten there and have really worked hard as a team.”
Only a few months ago, it was difficult to imagine that the squad would accomplish
so much in the upcoming winter.
Jim Plumer, a former assistant for the women’s hockey program at Bowdoin
College, had assumed head coaching
duties in July, and with that change came high hopes, yet also some uncertainty. “We
didn’t really know what to expect going into the season,” said fellow
co-
captain Amanda Muller ’04, who was
recovering from reconstructive knee surgery at this time last year. “All
that we knew about Jim was that he came from
an excellent program, but that was it.”
However, the pieces were in place for
a successful season. “When I interviewed and talked to all the seniors,” recounted
Plumer in his office a day before the Jeffs ended the regular season with three
straight wins in as many games, “I was
really struck by how committed they all were to wanting to be part of a winning
program. I think I started to get pretty excited even before we hit the ice.
And once the freshmen started to see how committed the upperclassmen were, these
guys worked really hard. At the beginning of the season, they were all ready
to go.”
Plumer, drawn to the head coaching position because he saw in Amherst’s
women’s hockey “a program that was ready to mature,” used his
skills as a former businessman to propel his athletes
to new heights, in part by bringing more intensity and discipline to the program.
“The season definitely has a more
intense tone than the previous seasons,” Muller said. “Practices
are rigorous and demand high levels of focus and intensity. Jim expects hard
work from every member of the team each time we step on the ice.”
“One of my big philosophies in life,” said Plumer, “is that
the little things you do when no one’s looking end up making you who you
are—and that flows through to practice. One of the things we really stress
is being ready to go at the drop of the puck in the first period, and so we have
to practice that [by being] that way when we get to practice. These students
have a lot of physical skills, so it’s mastering the mental part that I
think will ultimately make us better.”
Plumer, a self-described “hockey junkie,” created a team playbook
and a team handbook and also developed a mission statement for the program, along
with a set of expectations for its members—expectations that don’t
just apply to the several hours each day that the players spend at the rink. “These
are sort of our guiding policies,” says
Plumer, “whether it’s how you’re treating your academics or
how to prepare for games. We’ve
approached a lot of the other things—mental, psychological, preparation
for games. Hopefully they’re learning about hockey, and they’re learning
about how
to prepare for an exam, or a job interview, or a big presentation or some big
event in their life.”
Plumer has also brought a new style of play to the hockey program. “We
play a very aggressive style,” says Plumer, “and I think a style
of play that the players really enjoy. We do some unconventional things in terms
of hockey systems, but we’ve been effective in scoring more goals and preventing
[opponents’] goals. We’re
definitely playing a hybrid of two or three different styles, some of which are
kind
of European. We don’t even have regular hockey positions on the team, except
for the goalie.” Becoming familiar with this system has taken time, making
the Jeffs’ feats in the midst of this change all the more impressive. “I
think that one of our biggest challenges this year,” says Muller, “was
learning how to play the style of hockey that Jim taught us in the beginning
of the season. Learning these new plays and the new positions took some time
to adjust.”
The style of play was first put to the test in the squad’s opening game
against Trinity. “So here we are,” recounts Plumer, “we’re
changing the way we approach hockey completely. We come into this game and we
haven’t really done it very much, but we scrimmaged an intramural team
for about 25 minutes the week before. So I think there were a lot
of people who weren’t sure this was all going to work.” The Jeffs
went on to win that game, 5-1, putting any uncertainty to rest. “I walked
into the locker room after the game,” says Plumer, “and Amanda Muller
had a smile that was about two feet wide on her face.” A month and a half
later, the Jeffs, whose record after eight games stood at 3-5, had climbed back
to
a record of 5-5 before traveling to New England College on January 18 to take
on a team that, according to Plumer, “had beaten a top-10 team in the country” and
is “on the fringe of being nationally ranked all the time.”
The Jeffs were 26 seconds away from again falling below .500 when sophomore Renee
Sisti scored the tying goal, and
then in overtime posted the winning goal, vaulting the Jeffs to a 6-5 record.
For her individual efforts in that game, among others, Sisti was named NESCAC
player of the week.
“After [that win],” says Plumer, “I walked into the locker
room and I said, ‘Muller, show me the smile.’ I think all of a sudden
the kids looked around at each other and said, ‘We can do this.’ That
was the turning point for us. The next day at practice and most of the days after
that, there have been a lot of smiles.” Indeed, there has been much to
smile about,
despite several challenges—the biggest
of which, according to Plumer, has been having only one regular goalkeeper, which,
in accordance with league rules, has forced one player each game to be
designated as a backup.
The squad has been bolstered by a
star-studded first-year class: Starting goalkeeper Lindsay Grabowski hasn’t
missed
a minute in net all season (“a tremendous accomplishment for a freshman
goalie,” says Plumer) while Rachel Simon, Alena Harrison and Meghan Dickoff
finished the regular season third, fourth and fifth on the team in points (21,
18 and 14 points scored, respectively). The team also has enjoyed strong leadership
and performances from the upperclassmen. “The
captains have been very good at rallying the team at certain points,” says
Plumer. “We’ve had some points where we’ve really needed the
team to focus. The whole senior class has really stepped up.” Senior Alison
White finished second on the team in points with 23. “[She’s] having
a great senior year,” says Plumer. And sophomore Renee Sisti “has
had a phenomenal year,” ending the regular season as Amherst’s leading
point-scorer with 25
on 14 goals and 11 assists.
But as strong as the individual accomplishments are, the Jeffs, like that championship
football squad about two hours east of here in Foxboro, Mass., are all about
team. “Our team is a group of 21 girls who would do anything for each other,
on or off the ice,” says Sisti, “and that family aspect is one of
the best
qualities we have. We pride ourselves on outworking every team we come against
and never giving up.”
“I really feel like we’re on the right track,” Plumer says. “I’m
happy for the kids. They wanted this program to succeed, and we’re not
unrealistic about where we are now. But I’m happy for them, and we’re
going to continue on that.” Other teams, too, are starting to take notice. “I
think we’re gaining more respect in the NESCAC,” says junior Ellie
Roe. “We’ve had other coaches come to our coach and say, ‘Wow,
your team works hard every shift of every game, and we
really respect that. We like competing against you.’ Even if it’s
weighted to their side, we give them a good game, and that’s something
to be proud of.”
“Ultimately, the goal is to overachieve,” says Plumer. “The
kids are learning how to compete, and if you look at where we’ve come from
the beginning of the season to now, we’ve made huge strides. And the kids
believe.”
“I love this team,” said Serues. “I love playing. The only
thing I can really stress [about this season] is the improvement. It’s
a completely different experience to play with such a young team. There’s
so much excitement, so much heart, and everyone comes to practice and every game
with the best of intentions and the best of expectations. And we really just
try to leave everything out there every game. I’m pretty excited right
now,” she added, her final collegiate regular season game at Amherst having
ended about half an hour earlier. “My adrenaline is still way up there.”
Amherst women’s hockey is now up there, too—and there’s every
reason to believe they’re going to keep on rising.
—Ezekiah Phillips ’05
Next: Winter
sports wrap-up >>
Photo: Frank Ward
|
