Spring is the time for weather change, studying outside, and breaking school records at Marist College. This sports season is gearing up to be one for the record books on the Marist campus. The number of records that could potentially be broken in a variety of sports by collegiate athletes of all ages makes Marist College one of the most exciting MAAC programs to keep an eye on in lacrosse, softball, and track this year.
The women’s lacrosse team fields a powerhouse of points in Senior, Sam Mehalick. In a close defeat to Colgate this past Saturday, February 8, Mehalick tallied yet another hat-trick. This being her tenth straight game on record this season, with one dating back to the 2019 season as well. The hat-trick brought Samantha up to the fourth rank on the Marist women’s lacrosse All-Time Points record with 196 points. She has her eyes on the positions ahead of her held by 2001 graduate Pamela Brown (201), 2008 graduate Lindsey Diener (244) , and 2016 graduate and All-Time Point leader, Allison Gionta (250). While Sam is on pace to claim the top spot in school history, her mentality is stagnant and focused.
“The most important thing is focusing on the team,” Mehalick said. “At the end of the day, a MAAC championship will always be the number one priority. For me, I don’t think the pressure is on because of how close I am to the record, but rather because I’m a captain in my final season here at Marist.”
While Samantha is chasing down her record, a young Red Fox has already etched his name in school history. Redshirt Freshman, Glenmour Leonard-Osbourne, has claimed a school record for himself extremely early in his career. In his first race as a Red Fox, he conquered the program record in the 60-meter dash and matched the fastest time in the MAAC this season at a blazing 6.88 seconds. Leonard-Osbourne took the David Hemery Valentine Invitational by storm, putting up IC4A qualifying times in both the 60-meter dash and the 200-meter dash, posting a 22.22 second race time which left him 00.01 seconds shy of the school record in the event.
The softball diamond is where one can find yet another top contender to break a school record this spring season. Senior, Ali Milam, is the Marist Red Foxes “slugger” on the softball team. Milam finds herself 11 home runs shy of the current career home run record of 33. The top spot is currently held by 2001 graduate, Amanda Koldjeski. Milam comes into this season with hopes to hit the ground running after her red hot nine home run season last year, but breaking records isn’t necessarily something she’s paid much attention to.
“To be honest, I had no idea I was even close to the school home run record,” Milam explained. When I’m playing, I don’t really think about records or stats, I kind of just go up and play. My mindset has been the same from about sophomore year, I just want to go up every at bat or every play and just have fun and give it my all. That’s usually when I end up doing the best that I can do and when I am the best I can be for the team.”
Aside from being a tremendous team player, Ali had other goals in mind for the 2020 season.
“I want to hit the ball over the second fence at our softball field,” Milam joked! “No but actually, winning a MAAC championship would be an amazing end to such a great career here at Marist. We really do have a great team this year, so even just knowing that is kind of a stress reliever. Just knowing that if I don’t do well, someone will be there to pick me up and I can do the same for them. This group has a ton of potential, so I’m just looking forward to the ride!”
The talent swarming the Marist spring sports programs is enough to draw enormous amounts of attention nation-wide. However, it’s the attitudes of these student athletes that will be remembered by the members of the Marist community. It won’t be long before the names of these profound athletes are plastered amongst numerous division one news headlines.
Header photo from Marist Athletics
Edited by Mitch Conrad