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10 Questions With Brian Kuritzky

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One week after senior Brian Kuritzky led the men’s soccer team to the Nike/Kentucky invitational championship and the team’s best start (3-1) in recent memory with four goals and two assists, Sun Assistant Sports Editor Lance Williams kicked some balls around with the white hot forward. Kuritzky, so hot right now.

1. I covered soccer last fall and it was rather depressing, you guys were 4-8-3 and couldn’t score a goal for your lives. But now the team is 3-1 to start the season, what has been the secret to your success?
There’s no secret, we’ve just been around each other more on and off the field. Whereas last year we weren’t gelling as a group, I know it’s a cliché, but we really are coming together …
[Laughing] Easy buddy.

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10 Questions with Field Hockey's Alyssa DePaola

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1. I’ve done quite a bit of research on you, so this should be interesting. How did you get into playing field hockey?
I actually started in sixth grade because my gym teacher was the coach and she asked me to try out for the team. That was basically it.No one in my family had ever really played sports, but she asked me and I was like, alright, I’ll try it. And so it began.
And you lived happily ever after. But it’s a pretty savage sport …
It is.
I would go so far as to say it’s the most violent women’s sport since roller derby, if I may say that. Did that play any role in why you play the game?
No, but I’ve got to say, I enjoy it.
You enjoy it?
I do. I mean, you get a little physical, why not?

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The Crystal Ball Predicts All Eight MLB Playoff Teams

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I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that we are about to enter the most exciting time of the year for sports fans. College football is off and running (with two-time Div 1-AA champion Appalachian State dethroning No. 5 Michigan in the Big House), the NFL season (thank the good lord) is finally upon us and Major League Baseball has reached its stretch run. Life is good. Although I love football as much as the next guy, I would be doing myself a disservice if I devoted my first true column to anything other than the game that I am borderline obsessed with: baseball. With just under a month left in the regular season, I couldn’t resist giving my predictions for the eight lucky teams who will make it to the Promised Land.
AL East

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2007 Football Player Preview: Ryan Blessing

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One of the cornerstones of the Red’s stingy defense last season was the emergence of junior linebacker Ryan Blessing. During his first two years with the football team, the 5’11” Oneida, N.Y. native played sparingly as a reserve linebacker and special teams starter, accumulating only nine total tackles over 15 games. Yet over the course of the 2006 season, Blessing finally earned a starting job in the linebacking core and immediately made his presence known around the Ivy League, earning honorable mention All-Ivy accolades. The junior made a team-high 70 tackles — 34 of which were unassisted — to go along with five sacks, six tackles for loss and two pass breakups while starting all 10 games for Cornell. His five sacks also ranked him 52nd nationally in the NCAA.

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Battle: Wrestling Provides Squirmy Fun

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This column appears in the 2007 edition of The Sun’s annual Freshman Issue. In the Battle series, Sports editors chose their favorite Cornell sports to watch, and defended their selections (with valor). I’ve seen many a sport in my 21 years on this earth, and have covered everything from field hockey to baseball during my tenure with The Cornell Daily Sun, but there is without a doubt one sporting event which has distinguished itself as the most exciting and watchable event on this campus — wrestling. I know what you’re thinking, what is this crackhead talking about? Isn’t Cornell known for its men’s hockey and lacrosse teams?

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2007 Football Player Preview: Safety Tim Bax

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The Red’s defense was a key part of the team’s success last season, finishing fourth in the Ivy League in yards allowed (328 yards/game) and keeping the squad in many games when the inconsistent offense struggled to score points. Entering the 2007 season, the defensive unit is primed to have an even better season by returning 10 starters, led by junior safety Tim Bax. Despite being just a sophomore, Bax earned an All-Ivy honorable mention last season and asserted himself as one of the league’s top defenders. Starting all 10 games for the Red, Bax racked up 57 tackles, two interceptions, five pass breakups, a forced fumble and a team-best 7.5 tackles for loss. As a freshman in 2005, Bax also earned two Ivy League Rookie of the Week selections and led all Ancient Eight rookies with 40 tackles, including 2.5 for a loss.

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The Top 10 Freshman Athletes

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Ryan Wittman – Men’s Basketball
The son of Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Randy Wittman made his father proud in his first season with the Red, leading the resurgent basketball team to a heated, down-to the-wire race for the Ivy League title with rivals Penn and Yale.


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Baseball Defeated Thrice by Princeton

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If nothing else, the baseball team showed its resiliency in the last series of the 2007 season this weekend. With the Gehrig division title and a postseason birth already out of reach after last Tuesday’s split with Penn, the baseball team ended its season by dropping three of four hard-fought contests against Princeton. The lone win for the Red (15-23, 8-12 Ivy) in the tail end of Sunday’s doubleheader was a meaningful one, however, as Cornell battled back from a three-run deficit to win a 5-4 thriller in the bottom of the 12th inning, eliminating the Tigers (15-23, 11-9) from contention for the division title in the process.


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Ten Questions with Nick Brunner

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Soon after beating down Paul Testa with his own squash racquet, Sun Assistant Sports Editor Lance Williams began his 10 Questions career by volleying with senior tri-captain Nick Brunner of the men’s tennis team.


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Baseball Battles Penn for Gehrig Division Supremacy

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The baseball team is at a crossroads. After dropping three straight contests last weekend to Columbia — accumulating its seventh consecutive Ivy League loss in the process —before salvaging its season with a win in Game 4 of the series, the Red dropped to the cellar of the Gehrig division. Now Cornell (13-19, 6-8 Ivy League) must sweep a doubleheader today with rival Penn (19-16, 11-7), who currently sits three games ahead of the squad in the conference standings, to have a chance at its second division title in three years.