July 30, 2012

Beyond Box Scores: Fall 2011 In Review

By Rob Daniels

Linh Nguyen isn’t a boastful fellow by nature, but when his UNCG men’s cross country team won the Southern Conference championship last October, he had a pretty good vibe as he walked to the spot where the women’s team was warming up.
 
"Neither team wanted to be the one that didn't perform on a given day," coach Nguyen said. "And going into the conference meet, I was confident about the women and nervous about the men. After the men dominated in such a strong way, I knew the women were going to win it and win it big. I walked over to them as they were getting ready, and a couple of them looked at me and said, 'Well, we have no choice now; we have to win.' "
 
Simply put, the Spartans delivered the best season in their 21-year Division I history and the most impressive showing by any group of UNCG athletes across the board in the fall of 2011. They provided an appropriate entrée for a season review of all competitors.
 
Cross Country

Men's Team Achievements
 Southern Conference champions; 8th place of 32 in the NCAA Southeast Regional.

Men's Individual Awards
 Paul Chelimo: All-American, SoCon champion, SoCon Runner of the Year, All-SoCon; NCAA Championship participant
Joey Thompson: All-SoCon, NCAA Championship participant
Paul Katam: All-SoCon
Abraham Kemboi: All-SoCon
Mike Koech, All-SoCon (second team)

Women's Team Achievements
 Southern Conference champions; 7th place out of 35 in the NCAA Southeast Regional.

Women's Individual Awards
 Ashley Schnell: SoCon champion, SoCon Runner of the Year, All-SoCon, NCAA Championship participant
Chelsea Sumney: All-SoCon
Kerry Hartman: All-SoCon
Shaina Sumney: All-SoCon

The men's and women's teams won the Southern Conference championship for the first time and nearly swept individual league-wide awards. Coach Linh Nguyen and athletes Paul Chelimo and Ashley Schnell were named the SoCon's best for 2011, and Paul Katam was named Freshman of the Year on the men's side.
 
The Spartan men dominated their competition by claiming five of the first 11 spots at the SoCon meet. Chelimo won the race, becoming the first Spartan to do so, and was followed in short order by Joey Thompson (third), Katam (fourth) and Abraham Kemboi (seventh). It added up to a team score of 26, the lowest (and therefore best) by any team in the event in 13 years. The Spartans' margin of victory of 47 points was the largest by any squad in 20 years. 
 
The team proceeded to earn its best NCAA regional finish in UNCG history, an eighth-place standing in the 32-team Southeast meet. In so doing, they bested three ACC programs and Chelimo earned a spot in the NCAA Championships by taking second overall. His time of 29:52.6 in the 10-kilometer race obliterated the existing UNCG record by 88 seconds. 
 
A day later, Thompson joined him as an at-large selection and they became the first Spartan men to qualify for the biggest day in college cross country.
 
Chelimo's 13th-place overall finish in Terre Haute, Ind., made him the first All-America honor in the school's Division I membership era. 
 
Thompson earned NCAA recognition for having the highest grade-point average of any competitor in the field.
 
The UNCG women didn't settle for anything less than their Spartan brothers achieved. 

Schnell, one of the most acclaimed student-athletes in the university's history, defended her individual championship from 2010 and led her team to an easy triumph. The Spartans' total score of 35 was the best by any program in seven years and the margin of victory of 45 points represented a radical departure from form in the SoCon meet, the previous eight of which had been decided by a total of 42 points.

Schnell's teammates followed when Chelsea Sumney took fifth, Kerry Hartman was sixth and Shaina Sumney placed seventh. 
 
UNCG's sweep of the team and individual titles in the meet was only the second of its kind in the 27-year history of men's and women's SoCon competition. Chattanooga was the last team to accomplish the feat in 2004.
 
The Spartan women, again led by Schnell, finished seventh in the regionals. Schnell became the first UNCG athlete to qualify for the NCAA Women's Championship race. 
 
“To be able to do it as convincingly as we did and have both teams win (the SoCon) on the same day, you don’t have a better outcome than that,” Nguyen said. “Everybody’s happy. Nobody’s walking away from that saying, ‘I’m happy for my teammates.’ To an individual, everyone was excited.”
 
Men's Soccer

Record: 10-8-2 (5-1-1 SoCon)

Team achievements 
Regular-season SoCon champion; conference tournament finalist.

Individual awards
 All-Southern Conference: F Hakan Ilhan (first team); D Kris Byrd (first team); M Austin Miller (second team): GK Peyton Ford (second team); M David Reittinger (all-freshman team); M Austin Miller (all-freshman team) 

Although it didn't conclude with another NCAA Tournament appearance, the 2011 season still enhanced UNCG's reputation as an exemplary program in the Southern Conference. The Spartans, behind a defense that pitched five consecutive shutouts down the stretch, secured the regular-season title with a 1-0 win at Elon on Oct. 29. That gave the program a piece of SoCon supremacy -- whether regular-season or tournament -- for the sixth time in eight seasons. 
 
"We've won quite a few titles in our time as both coaches and players," coach Justin Maullin said after that Elon win. "But for me, this is the best of them all. We overcame a lot of adversity and injuries, and players have stepped up and stepped forward."
 
Two weeks later, the teams hooked up again and the Phoenix appeared headed for a surprisingly comfortable victory in the tournament championship game. But down 3-0, the Spartans rallied and got two goals from Brian Graham in a one-minute stretch and were within one with seven minutes to play.

The rally ended there, but the season again validated the team's depth, which compensated for injury-related attrition that took hold in September and kept testing the Spartans.

Women's Soccer

Record: 8-10-1 (7-3-1 SoCon).

Team achievements
 Earned the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament.

Individual Awards 
All-Southern Conference: F Kristin Player (first team), Karin Sendel (second team), Stephanie Partenheimer (second team), GK Kelsey Kearney (second team).

Change was the theme of the year in 2011 with the hiring of Georgia assistant Steve Nugent as the Spartans' new coach. Nugent was left with several spots to fill and with an exceptionally ambitious schedule that had been made by his predecessor, Eddie Radwanski.
 
Still, UNCG won seven or more SoCon games for the ninth straight year and went into late October on a seven-game unbeaten streak. Dreams of another league title dissipated though with a 2-1 loss to Georgia Southern in the quarterfinals of the SoCon tournament.
 
While directing his first team, Nugent kept remarkably busy on the recruiting trail, signing a 16-member recruiting class that will put an unmistakable imprint on the program.
 
"All of these young women will make a tremendous impact on the UNCG community," Nugent said in announcing their signings in February. "I have seen first-hand how competitive they are and believe they are ready to embrace the standards that have made the UNCG women's soccer program competitive over the years."
 
Goalkeeper Kelsey Kearney set the school record for shutouts in a career and was named the outstanding female student-athlete at the university in May. 
 
Volleyball

Record: 15-17 (7-9 SoCon)

Individual Awards 
SoCon Libero of the Year: Kellie Orewiler

The Spartans volleyball team was in the running for a spot in the 2011 Southern Conference Tournament until late in the season, but fell short after a three-match losing streak to end the year. There were several encouraging signs in 2011, suggesting the team will be participating in the event in 2012 in head coach Patrick Nicholas’ fourth season at the helm of the program.
 
Sophomore Kellie Orewiler was named Libero of the Year by the league's coaches after placing second in digs and fourth in aces in the SoCon. The performance backed up her distinction as the only underclassman that was named a team captain prior to the year.
 
As for the future, the Spartans expect to be bolstered by the return of Olivia Humphries, the team's leader in hitting percentage in 2010. Humphries missed 2011 with a torn labrum but is on schedule to return. 
 
She will be joined by, among others, Katherine Santiago, who recently led her team to the Puerto Rican junior national championship, and by Julie Westerbur, a transfer from SMU. 

-UNCG-