2010-2011 BC Year in Review, Part IV: Other men’s sports

(Part I: Football)
(Part II: Men’s Basketball)
(Part III: Men’s Hockey)

Today is the fourth installment of our five-part series reviewing the year in Boston College sports. In the past three days, we’ve heard about our football team, men’s basketball team, and men’s hockey team. Of course, there are a lot of other BC sports teams, men’s and women’s, that haven’t been touched upon. These final two articles will review the years that those clubs had. In the previous two years, I had put all of the others men’s and women’s teams together in one article, but that’s far too many to smash into a single page.

So now, here’s a look at how our other men’s teams did during the 2010-2011 season:

Baseball

It was the first season for new head coach Mike Gambino, an alum returning to the Heights after spending several years coaching at Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, there was a lot of talent lost between last season and this one, and it showed as BC finished the year with a record of 17-33 (7-22), having lost 17 of their last 21 games, which was good for 10th place in the conference. Things weren’t outstanding out of the conference, either, as BC went 10-11 in 21 games, losing to such teams as Holy Cross, Northeastern, Rhode Island, Dartmouth, and LeMoyne. BC failed to qualify for the ACC Tournament, but they did have two bright spots, which were winning the Baseball Beanpot for the second time in as many years and claiming one win over #1 Virginia.

Men’s cross country

This team raced from September to November, and unfortunately, they didn’t have much to show for it. Men’s XC’s best finish in any competition was sixth, though their best result of the year was finishing seventh in a much larger field of 47 at the New England championships in October.

Men’s fencing

Looking at NCAA Tournament information for fencing is giving me a headache, but we did get one of our players there. He is Peter Souders and he took part in the Northeast regional of the 2011 fencing competition. His participation rounded out what I can only assume was a good season for the men as they won their third-straight New England championship.

Men’s golf

The golf team netted themselves one win in 2010-2011: The ECAC Championship in the first week of October. Aside from that, the team mostly appeared to have just played out the string all year. BC finished dead last in the ACC Tournament, and way, way behind the second-to-last team (52 strokes as a team to be precise – they were 122 strokes behind champion Georgia Tech).

Men’s skiing

It’s hard to find information about individual events in this sport, but all I know is that this team went to the USCSA national championship and finished sixth out of twenty teams. They had five competitors named to the USCSA Academic All-American team.

Men’s soccer

Once again, this Eagles team found themselves in the NCAA Tournament after a fine regular season which saw them end in the Top 25 and with a 9-3-5 record. They lost to North Carolina in the ACC semifinals after having beaten Duke in the quarters. Boston College went on to lose to Brown in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in November.

Men’s swimming

The men’s swimming team did a fair amount of winning in 2010-2011, going 13-9 overall (though for some reason that someone will have to explain to me, they did not play a single competition against an ACC opponent). They did, however, participate in the ACC championships, but finished 10th. Senior John Maloy was awarded an NCAA post-graduate scholarship after the conclusion of the season.

Men’s tennis

The men did not have a good 2011, going 7-18 overall and losing all 11 of their ACC competitions, which obviously dropped them to last place. Not surprisingly, they lost in the first round of the ACC Tournament. After the conclusion of the season, Akash Muppidi was named to the All-ACC team for the second consecutive year.

Men’s track and field

Reading the indoor track and field results on BCEagles.com is like reading a big jumble: it’s a lot of words and numbers, but I have no idea what the hell is going on. I get the distinct impression that while BC athletes may have won individual events, the team as a whole did not. I can also tell you that they did not win the ACC Tournament, either. They did, however, win in their final meet of the season in the 4×800-meter relay at the New England Championship.

Tomorrow will be Part V, the women’s and co-ed BC varsity sports, where we tie a bow on this season and file it away.