Harvard’s Farris good as gold
Key part of U.S. win in freestyle
One local athlete to keep an eye on with the 2020 Olympics on the horizon is Harvard rising senior swimmer Dean Farris. The Atlanta native recently helped the United States capture gold in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle event at the World University Games in Naples, Italy.
Farris, swimming the second leg, teamed with Zach Apple, Robert Howard and
Tate Jackson to win the top spot on the podium with a time of 3:11.03, turning back runner-up Brazil (3:15.27). The Americans posted a time of 3:12:55 in the preliminaries, which was a mere two seconds behind the current world record by Russia of 3:10.88 set in 2013.
Farris’ relay split of 47.08 compares favorably with
Michael Phelps‘ relay efforts from the last three Olympic Games. Phelps had times of 47.51 (2008, Beijing), 47.15 (2012, London) and 47.12 (2016, Rio de Janeiro). Farris claimed NCAA titles this year in the 100 backstroke and 100 freestyle events.
Meanwhile, Harvard sophomore Elizabeth Tartakovsky finished second in the sabre event at the USA Fencing National Championships recently in Columbus, Ohio. The talented Tartakovsky, whose sister, Gabrielle, also fences at Harvard, is a two-time Music Fest Talents festival grand prize winner for piano.
Heavyweight finalists
Have to tip your hat to members of Northeastern’s heavyweight crew, which rowed its way into the Grand Final of the Temple Challenge Cup at the Royal Henley Regatta in England over the July 4 weekend. It marked just the fifth time in program history that NU’s crew had reached a Henley final.
NU, which registered a scintillating one-third of a length win over Newcastle ‘A’ boat in the semifinals, couldn’t sustain the same effort in the final against the vaunted Oxford Brookes crew, which took home a three quarters of a length victory. Oxford previously powered its way past Newcastle ‘C’, University of London ‘A’, Boston University, and Nereus (Netherlands) before NU.
“There’s very few people who get to wake up on Sunday morning at Henley and be in a final. It’s something that these guys will never forget,” NU coach John
Pojednic said. “I know the guys in the moment are disappointed, but I think upon some further reflection they’ll have some perspective on what the value of this trip was and be in a really good place as a group as they head into next season.”
BU Hall calls
Boston University announced its 2019 Hall of Fame Class and it includes
Abigail Clark (swimming), Pat Duthrie (wrestling), Jeanne
Friedman (rowing), Kevin Murphy (track), Victor Paguia (diving) and Gary Plummer (basketball). …
BU lacrosse coach Ryan
Polley inked a multi-year contract extension, while
Mike Silipo has been elevated to associate head coach. … Tufts recently hired Jill Pace as new head coach of women’s basketball. Pace had been serving as assistant coach at Pomona-Pitzer since 2016. She is a former Jumbos assistant under Carla
Berube, who left Tufts last month to become head coach at Princeton. …
Highly successful Stonehill College track and field coach
Karen Boen has decided to cut back on her duties beginning with the 2019-20 academic year but will remain as head coach of men’s and women’s cross country. Boen, who has guided Stonehill to an impressive 37 Northeast-10 team championships, has been selected coach of the year by the NE-10 and the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association a whopping 64 times while producing numerous All-America athletes. …
UConn and Bridge water Raynham alum Mike Delgado has been promoted to head coach of the Skyhawks men’s and women’s track and field squads.
Aces at line
The final stats for the 2018-19 season have been certified and Bentley’s men’s basketball team led all NCAA divisions in free throw percentage with a lofty .817, shattering the old school mark of .787. Falcons All-America guard Ryan
Richmond set the pace with a .891 percentage on 171-of-192 makes. Other keys from the charity stripe included sophomore guard Jordan
Mello-Klein of Sharon/Thayer Academy, who was 33-of36 (.917), and freshman guard Mason Webb, who converted 23-of-25. ….
Former Boston College pitcher Justin Dunn represented the Seattle Mariners organization at the 2019 MLB All-Star Futures Game last Sunday at Cleveland’s Progressive Field. … Former Harvard right-hander Sean
Poppen was called up to the majors by the Minnesota Twins and faced the Red Sox on June 19. Poppen threw four innings in his debut, allowed three runs and had a 1-2-3 ninth inning. Poppen was drafted in the 19th round by the Twins in 2016. …
BC named Amy Kvihaug as head softball coach. Kvilhaug previously led the successful program at St. John’s University. The Eagles also added Eric Thurston as assistant swimming and diving coach. …
UMass basketball coach
Matt McCall announced Tony Bergeron and Tyson Wheeler as new assistants while promoting Lucious Jordan to assistant coach after serving two seasons as director of basketball operations. … Harvard named Gerry Byrne as new men’s lacrosse coach. Byrne previously was assistant coach at Notre Dame for 16 seasons.