Four Owls were awarded various ‘player of the week’ awards for their performance in the week of April 6. The athletes were officially named on April 13 for their performances in the Little East Conference (LEC).
Women’s outdoor track and field had two athletes named in the LEC weekly awards. First-year Elle MacDonald took home the ‘Rookie of the Week’ award after placing third in the 200-meter at the Tufts Spring Stampede. This time was enough to break MacDonald’s recently set school record. The first-year spoke on how rewarding the award is after a long indoor and outdoor season.
“We have a really long season, so I’ve run from December [until] May. So it’s really hard to balance out burnout, but definitely the recognition helps combat that,” MacDonald said. “As a freshman, balancing that is trying to remember there’s no pressure.”
The first-year said she had a tough indoor season and an underwhelming finish at the LEC Championship. She said that the setbacks from the indoor season have set her up for the current outdoor season.
“It was just overall a really bad meet. I was really in my head, really emotional and I think definitely I’ve learned from that. I’ve had a much stronger outdoor season because of what I learned at indoor,” said MacDonald.
The other women’s outdoor track and field athlete to take home a weekly award was senior Molly Lu McKellar. The senior won the ‘Field Athlete of the Week’ after placing third in the heptathlon as well as participating in several other running events.
Both MacDonald and McKellar went to Newfound Regional High School. MacDonald spoke on the experience of watching McKellar grow over the years and having the senior as an inspiration.
“She was doing block-starts next to me, and she was who I looked up to. She pushed me. She motivated me. She was competing at a higher level than I was at that point,” MacDonald said
MacDonald added to her statement on McKellar’s impact, saying, “Molly is just such a hard-working, driven person. She’s a role model for everyone on the team. She’s just somebody that I look up to and I aspire to work as hard as she does because it’s really awesome,” said MacDonald.
For the baseball team, senior Captain pitcher David Floyd took home the LEC’s ‘Pitcher of the Week’ for both the week of April 6 and the week of April 13. In both weeks, Floyd delivered seven scoreless innings with minimal hits allowed. Head Coach Justin Blood spoke on what makes Floyd such a dynamic pitcher in the LEC.
“He possesses potentially the best fastball-breaking ball combination in our league. I think the last two weeks have shown and obviously, all of his outings, really. [Floyd] has shown that he can be a very prominent pitcher in our league,” said Blood.
Floyd had suffered an injury and was in rehab just before the season began. Floyd spoke about what it means to return and help his team in any way possible.
“I’m just glad to be back, I know I can help this team out and I’m just glad I can help this team out right now,” said Floyd.
Blood said that the rehab process was difficult, but now that Floyd is back to full strength, the conference can see what he can do.
“He was rehabbing and not quite on schedule coming out of the preseason. So we were working him back very slowly. Now that he’s built up, pitch-count-wise, we’re starting to see what he’s capable of,” said Blood.
Now fully back from injury, Floyd spoke about working amongst the team and working as a collective group.
“Coach Blood has built this team where the other people on the staff, the other teammates we got, they fill each other’s weaknesses, which makes us, as a collective unit, just a lot stronger,” said Floyd.
The pitching room has been a connected and developing group throughout the season, according to Blood. The team has invested in some pieces of technology that have helped the pitchers learn and grow.
“One is called Armcare Plus, that device helps us monitor their range of motion and their force production or output.” Blood said, “Coach Davy, who we brought here for this spring, he came from St. Joseph’s in Connecticut. He has invested in Armoured Heat, which is a program that provides a lot of post-throwing activities: mobility, strength [and] arm care kind of covers all the different gamuts,” said Blood.
On the men’s lacrosse team, junior Ty Couglar took home the ‘Defensive Player of the Week’ award. Couglar collected 16 ground balls and caused 10 turnovers throughout the week and has been named for this award several times already. The team plays its last game on Friday, April 24, against Eastern Connecticut University.
Jacob Enscoe can be contacted at
