To The
Edge
Intramural Calendar
DEADLINES
April 6 - Badminton Singles
(Men’s and Women's;
Badminton Doubles
(Men's . Women's, and Coed)
April 13 - Swimming Individual
(Men's and Women's)
Swimming Team
(Men's, Women's, and Coed)
Meet on April 2 1
Behrerd Sporting
March 31
Women’s Softball at Pitt-
Greensburg 1:00 p.m.
Men’s Tennis vs. Pitt-
Greensburg at 1:00 p.m.
Men’s and Women's Track and
Field at Geneva - Invitational
9:00 a.m.
Men’s Baseball at Ainsworth
against Penn State Altoona 1:00
p.m.
April 1
Men’s Baseball at Ainsworth
against La Roche 1:00 p.m.
April 3
Men’s Tennis at Alfred 3:30
April 4
Men’s tennis at Edinboro
3:30 p.m.
Men’s Baseball at Freedonia
1:00 p.m.
April 5
Women’s Softball at Allegh
eny 3:00 p.m.
Men’s Baseball at Hilbert
2:00 p.m.
April 6
Women’s Water Polo at
Southern Championships at
Grove City
Men’s Tennis vs.
Waynesburg 3:00 p.m
Mandy Bodnor throws strikes
for Behrend’s softball team
by Jeanine Noce
assistant sports editor
Mandy Bodnor is a senior on the
Penn State Behrend women's
softball team. She plays the
positions of pitcher and third base
and hopes to help the team win the
AMCC (Allegheny Mountain
Collegiate Conference)
championships that were
previously won in 1999. She and
the other 16 members are
continually practicing and are
working extremely hard to achieve
their goal.
Bodnor has been playing softball
since age 5. She lettered during all
four years of playing for Shaler
High School’s team and during her
freshman year of high school, she
Softball team finally gets taste of outdoor experience
by Mike Bello
staff writer
After what seemed like an eternity
of indoor practices, the softball team
was finally able to step out onto the
field and compete when it went up
against John Carroll University on
March 22. The bad weather however,
struck again and the Lions’ next three
games after John Carroll were can
celled.
Quite possibly more cancellations
are on the way as melting snow
mixed in with the strong chance of
rain for the weekend. This could
quite possibly produce muddy, rain
soaked field conditions and force
Behrend’s next three games to be
postponed as well.
Behrend had been preparing for
games against Penn State Altoona on
March 24, against Pitt-Bradford on
Monday and then on Wednesday at
home versus Fredonia. All three had
to be called off because of the new
snow that fell over that weekend, but
the cancellations were only the start
of the team’s problems. The Lions
were scheduled to play Thursday at
Buffalo State. They are also
schedualed to play on Saturday and
then against Pitt-Greensburg and then
on Sunday which is a make-up
matchup versus Penn State Altoona.
All of these games will be on the road.
Nothing will be set in stone, most
likely, until a day before the game.
Both teams want to hold off as long
as possible to see if playing conditions
will be fair enough to allow the teams
Sport
started varsity. She has also played
while attending school here at
Behrend for four years. Her
experience and dedication have
helped the lady Lions stay on a
winning track.
Bodnor and the other team members
began conditioning and practicing on
February 1 for the spring season.
Currently, the softball practices are
held daily from 4:00 p.m. until 6:00
p.m. During the weekend, the practice
times vary, however, they are also two
hours in length. Bodnor believes that
at first it was difficult to balance
playing softball and attending school.
“After a short period of time I got
into a routine that I could handle,” she
said.
Bodnor loves being a part of the
team. She stated that the team has
The softball team takes a break from practice in order to confer with assistant coach Stacy Pondo
to compete and end the musical chairs
game the weather is playing with
Behrend’s season schedule. The Li
ons’ April schedule has been expand
ing due to postponements, with three
games already added to the original
one.
The Lions did get in a doubleheader
become extremely close this year and
that is a key thing for a winning
attitude. She believes that with the
confidence that they give each other,
they can maintain a winning edge
when playing their opponents.
Her head coach Cindy Jacobelli
and her assistant coaches Tonya
Deals and Stacy Pondo are also
extremely helpful to her and to the
entire team.
During the 1999 season, the Penn
State softball team won the AMCC
championships. This was most
definitely Bodnor’s favorite
experience. In the championship,
they defeated Laßoche College to
gain the title of AMCC champions.
Bodnor also enjoyed traveling to
Florida over spring break. The entire
team and coaching staff went to
against John Carroll, which gave the
team a chance to evaluate where it
stood. In the first game, Mar.dy
Bodnor gave up only two runs on four
hits in 7 innings on the mound, but
the offense continued to struggle in a
2-1 loss. Cheryl Peterson drove in
Nichole Spindler for the team’s only
PHOTO BY JEFF MILLER
Cocoa Beach in Florida from March
3-11. They played games from
March 5 until the 9. The team
learned a great deal and competed
against several other college teams.
So far this year, the team’s record
is 3-7. They are definitely trying to
work harder each game to improve.
Bodnor is majoring in history and
minoring in political science. She
hopes to obtain a position in
education related to history. Bodnor
also played softball during the 2000
fall season. The team began
conditioning for the season shortly
after Labor Day. The team's next
game is tomorrow against Pitt-
Greensburg. This is an AMCC
game and will be held at Pitt-
Greensburg at 1:00 p.m.
run. The Lions could only manage
six hits in the game, including two by
Spindler and Emily Allen, after get
ting only two hits and scoring three
runs in their last Florida game versus
Case Western.
In game two, Behrend’s offense
performed just as badly, again scor-
FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2001
Baseball team faces
tough competition
by Kate Levdansky Petrikis
Penn State Behrend’s baseball team
participated in the Ohio Wesleyan
University tournament from March
22-25. The team played several tough
games and had an overall record of
2-4.
Behrend played two games against
Bethany and split. Behrend won the
first game 6-5 after battling back from
a 5-0 deficit. Behrend pitcher Ryan
Seyler pitched a good game and led
the team in this come-from-behind
“The win showed great character
given that all of our guys kept
fighting,” said coach Paul Benim
In -game two against Bethany,
Kevin Dubyak, also pitched a good
game but the Bethany Bison beat
Behrend 3-0.
On Friday, Behrend beat Rochester
Institute of Technology, 15-7.
However, the Lions lost to the 11th
ranked team in the country, Ohio
Wesleyan, 21-7.
Saturday, the Lions lost two tough
games to Ohio Northern. Behrend was
winning 1-0 in the bottom of the
seventh with two outs, but ended up
losing the game 2-1 because of
defensive mistakes. Brian Pifer was
“awesome on the mound,” said coach
Benim. Pifer went 1-1 this past
weekend wi th 10 strike outs and only
three walks in almost eight innings
of play.
Pifer thought he pitched
competitively, however, “There is
room for improvement,” he said. The
Lions also lost 10-9 to Ohio Northern.
Pifer said, “They could have gone
either way. All we can do from those
losses is learn from them and get
prepared for the next time we are in a
close game.”
The team begins its home games,
which will be held at Ainsworth Field,
on Saturday, versus Penn State
Altoona. They will then play La
Roche at Ainsworth, also, on Sunday.
The baseball team’s upcoming
schedule is going to be tough. The
team plays a lot of quality teams
throughout the month of April, and is
getting to the heart of the season’s
schedule. However, this is a team that
keeps improving every time it steps
onto the field.
Pifer said that the Behrend Lions
are strong because they’re “Very close
as a team” and added that “this helps
us when we get in tough situations on
the field because we are always
behind each other 100% no matter
what the outcome is.”
ing only one run in an 11-1 loss. Af-
ter having scored at least eight runs
in five of their first six games, the Li
ons have only managed a total of eight
runs in their last four games. Bodnor
smacked a double to score Amy
Hunter for their lone run. Stephanie
Covert took the loss by giving up 10
earned runs in five innings of work
and giving up 17 hits to John Carroll,
including two home runs. Behrend
(3-7) as a team could manage only 3
hits and are now batting .167 over
their last three games, a sharp con
trast considering they started the sea
son at a .362 clip.
Behrend will play host on Wednes
day and Thursday to Baldwin-Wallace
and Thiel respectively. B-W brings a
5-5 record into the game, but has yet
to play a game up north since its
Flbrida spring break trip. B-W’s
record is a little misleading, though,
because four of their five losses were
by three runs or less. B-W is batting
.273 on the season but behind their
two big stars, Evie Evans and Liz
Fries have a team ERA of 1.24.
Behrend was originally scheduled
to play Thiel on March 19, but had to
push the game back to Thursday, April
5. Starting times for the doublehead
ers against Thiel and B-W are sched
uled for 3:00 p.m., that is if the Lions
do not have to postpone their games
once again. If so, then the softball
team will be forced to continue prac
ticing indoors at the ARC, a place it
has grown all too accustomed to, at
least for a team that in theory is sup
posed to play an outside sport.
;y weini
id m i
staff writer