The fall sports roundup

Sports shorts

The men’s basketball team played its usual brutal pre-Ivy schedule in November and December, losing to Stanford, number-two-ranked UCLA, and Holy Cross, among others. Victories over Sacred Heart, Fairfield, and Vermont gave the team a 3–6 record going into the winter break. The women’s team had a 2–5 record at the end of the fall term.

Two standout hockeyplayers—Jeff Hamilton ’01, all-time Eli career points leader; and Chris Higgins ’05, the highest draft pick in Yale history (14th in the first round with the Montreal Canadiens)—continue their National Hockey League careers. Hamilton, a center who has played for the Islanders and the Blackhawks, now skates with the Carolina Hurricanes. Higgins plays left wing for the Canadiens. In total, 11 Bulldogs have played in the NHL.

Swimmer Alex Righi ’09 is making progress in his bid to join the 2008 US Olympic team. At the Short Course National Championships in Atlanta in early December, Righi scored all of Yale’s points in the Bulldogs’ fifth-place finish. The competitors included six-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, who beat Righi in the 100-yard freestyle final by slightly more than eight-tenths of a second.

In a competition that bodes well for the upcoming season, five members of the men’s squash squad teamed up on December 9 to capture their division title at the US National Championships. The Bulldogs swept each of their matches at the Brady Squash Center against the Lake Forest (Illinois) Squash Club.