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Juilliard Staff Softball Team Makes a Comeback By JEREMY PINQUIST
This past summer, the staff of The Juilliard School once again participated in a recreational softball league. After a decade-long hiatus, team captain and production lighting designer Ted Sullivan conceived and orchestrated a return to competitive play for those willing to give a few evenings a week over to practice and games. Over the course of the four-month season, Juilliard finished with a record of five wins and seven losses, just managing to squeak into the playoffs as the fourth-place team in their division—where we lost in spirited play to Deutsche Bank, who went 11-1 on the season.
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| The Juilliard softball team: back row, Caroline Boney, Tim Domack, Amy Boyer, and Noah Winstead; third row, David Gee, Matt Welander, Alex Almonte, Jennifer Wilcox, Natasha Heflin, and Emily Stork; second row, Lester Singh, Jim Cappiletti, Jeremy Pinquist, and Ben Johnson; first row, Mary Barrett, Kate Dale, Ted Sullivan, Jennifer Burlenski, Traci Digesu, and James Gregg. (Photo by Emily Stork) |
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Nonetheless, it was a successful year for the upstart squad, most of whom were at least as concerned with having fun as they were with winning."The season was great," said I.T. tech-support guru and center fielder Lester Singh, "but the best part was getting to play ball and hang out with people from other departments." Singh went 18 for 26 for a walloping .692 average on the season. The slow pitch underhand, coed format in which everyone got to play a part of just about every game seemed well suited to the team's laid-back personality. Bickering about calls and arguing over balls and strikes were kept to a minimum as everyone kept the importance of enjoying himself or herself at the forefront.Team members came from numerous departments, with the Production and Information Technology Departments providing large contingents and a smattering of players from other departments. Standout players included James Gregg out of Drama, hitting .696 on the year, and Amy Boyer of the Registrar's Office, whose dazzling diving catch in the final game of the regular season (a 4-3 nail-biter versus the "Diamond Dogs") catapulted Juilliard into the playoffs. Other notable efforts were provided by steady third baseman Tim Domack (from Production) and iron man David Gee (from I.T.), who was the only player besides Sullivan to play in every game. The team was anchored by the stalwart pitching of Production's Noah Winstead.The season began with a series of stops and starts due to the incredibly rainy June, forcing a number of games to be postponed. This might have contributed to Juilliard's sloppy start, going 2-8 through July. As the season progressed and players began to get into a groove, things began to fall into place. Juilliard put up a fantastic August, going 3-1 to earn a spot in the playoffs, something nearly no one expected at the outset of the season.One of the great stories of the season was the steady and measurable improvement of players who might have been a tad rusty at the beginning. "In my eyes, Kate [Dale] was the most improved—as the season progressed, she started getting more and more hits," said Domack, who himself hit .571 on the year.Throughout the course of the season, games were played in a number of locations around Manhattan, including Riverside Park at 107th Street, Central Park's various fields, downtown's Murray Bertram Park, and, in a first for many of the members of the team, the so-called "Asphalt Green" at 90th Street and York Avenue, an artificial turf surface.Of the artificial turf, I.T. utility man Alex Almonte commented, "The ball doesn't stop. It keeps rolling and rolling." With fully one-quarter of the season's games taking place there, the team had to learn to adapt to the high bounces and extra jump common to turf.Looking back, Ted Sullivan, team captain and base-running dynamo (nine runs scored on the year) agrees with Singh's assessment."The best thing about the softball team was that [people from] all the departments of Juilliard who never would have met got together and played softball, many of whom haven't played in years, and we managed to make it to the playoffs in our first try."Ted and the rest of the returning members of the team are already looking forward to next season. Due to a clamor of interest generated during the course of this past season, he is considering entering two teams from Juilliard into two different leagues—one more competitive and one more recreational. Look for more information at the start of spring. Jeremy Pinquist is network manager in the Information Technology (I.T.) department.
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