Stories

By Ryan Day and Will Sandberg | gargoyle@flagler.edu

The Flagler women’s soccer team may be in transition to Div. II, but Coach Teddy Meyer hopes the offensive explosion the Saints had in the 2007 season is permanent.

In 2006 the Saints scored 15 goals all season in 17 matches, less than one goal per game. Flagler forward Annika Hogberg has already scored 17 goals by herself, breaking the college’s single-season record for goals.

“Her [Hogberg’s] impact this year has been a bright spot,” Meyer said. “Last year we had struggled scoring goals.”

Through 18 games so far, the Saints have scored 42 goals, being shut out only twice all year. Compare that to last year when the 2006 Saints scored 15 goals all season and were shut out nine times.

And it’s not just Hogberg and her 17 goals that have been putting the Saints on the scoreboard. Seven players on the team have at least two goals. Freshman midfielder Caleigh Hodgkins and sophomore midfielder Meredith Marshall have scored their first ever collegiate goals this year. Midfielder Tiffany Urquhart, the Saints leading scorer of 2006, has had the pressure taken off in 2007 and is tied for second on the team in assists with midfielder Pam Quimby with four.

Typically when a team improves on one side of the ball, the other side suffers. In 2006, the Saints gave up 51 goals in 17 games, an average of three goals a game. In 2007, goalkeeper Hope McArthur leads a defense that has recorded eight shutouts and given up only 29 goals in 18 games, a 1.63 GAA. She’s faced 152 shots on goal and saved 123 of them, making for a .809 save percentage.

The improvement between last year and this year can be found in their attention to detail and the minor components of the game:

By Ryan Day | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Flagler women’s basketball head coach Sherri Abbey-Nowatzki promises two things: an exciting brand of basketball and a competitive group of girls every time the Saints take the court.

“Anyone that comes out to watch us is going to watch a more talented and much faster team,” Nowatzki said. “That much I can tell you.”

By Ryan Day | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Flagler forward Boris Kalff isn’t giving any excuses on what he calls a disappointing season for a Flagler men’s soccer program that has only collected two wins in the first 15 games of the season.

“We as a team did not play up to our quality,” said Kalff, one of nine players from Europe. “I am very disappointed. We’re all very disappointed. I can’t think of one man on this squad that isn’t.”

By Lindsey williams | gargoyle@flagler.edu

All of Flagler’s 2,000 plus student body might not have attended the game Thursday night, but it sure felt like it as 200 cheering fans roared for their men’s basketball team against the Florida Gators in Gainesville’s O’Connell Center.

Swallowed by a sea of blue and orange, Flagler fans were scattered throughout the arena, proudly wearing spirited attire. Shirt or no shirt, body paint or no body paint, they came to support.

Clearly, this game was unlike any other game.