Dream Come True

A New Hampshire high school sports blog has a Q&A with Dartmouth-bound running back Cody Patch of Lebanon, NH. Patch told the site:

I had always wanted to play for Dartmouth because I love playing for the home team. It is a great academic school and it will be nice to play close to home. Dartmouth also has a program that has seen great improvements in the past few years and is returning a lot of upperclassmen who started. I felt like they are putting together a solid program and wanted to be a part of it. Other schools that I applied to and were interested in me were University of Penn (Came to visit my home), Sacred Heart (official visit and offered a scholarship), UNH (preferred walk-on), Bates (offered a spot), Colby (offered a spot), Cornell, and Lehigh. Several other schools were interested but I did not apply there.

Our local paper also had a story today about Patch, who grew up on a Lebanon farm. The story ends with this quote from Patch:

"I'm just extremely excited. When I got the call, I was absolutely thrilled. I never dreamed this – that would be a dream come true."

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A word of warning on recruiting lists. National Signing Day is Tuesday and don't be surprised if some of the players listed for Ivy League schools – here and elsewhere – end up accepting other offers during the last-minute scramble. It seems to happen every year. The early decision admits are locked in, but not so the others, and a web search shows there's at least one commit to an Ivy school who is reconsidering his options.

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Former Dartmouth head coach John Lyons' bio is now up on the UNH site.

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Congratulations to Dartmouth men's basketball coach Paul Cormier for grabbing the first Ivy League win of his second tour of duty with the Big Green last night with a 64-57 decision over Cornell. Dartmouth led by as many as 28 points (48-20) in the second half before the Big Red came charging back. The win stopped a 10-game streak against Cornell.

Although the record isn't what anyone wants, but with 11 games left the Big Green (5-12) has already matched last year's win total (5-23), and at 1-2 in the Ivy League it has as many conference victories as a year ago (1-13). Dartmouth has two road wins this winter after going winless on the road last winter.

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And finally, The Certain Hanover High Grad carved another eight seconds off her PR in the mile at the Boston University Terrier Invitational yesterday. She's now sliced 16 seconds off the time she ran at the Dartmouth Relays earlier this month. It has been a long, difficult battle back from the physical challenge she faced a year ago, but it appears she's turning a corner. It's fun to see her hard work paying off.