Erica Miller and Meghan McCooey, women's tennis
Here's to the rookies.
While many freshmen expect to spend much of their rookie season on the bench, babyfaces Meghan McCooey and Erica Miller fill different roles on the women's tennis team. Both are starting singles players, with Miller at No. 6 and McCooey at No. 2 behind senior tri-captain Jen Luten.
The potential jitters for a starting freshman playing on the varsity tennis ladder have not been a problem for either McCooey or Miller. Friday's match against Babson saw McCooey drop Beaver first-year Lorena Beccera 6-0, 6-4, while Miller trounced freshman Liz Sheerin 6-0, 6-2, en route to a 9-0 sweep for the squad.
Wednesday's play against Smith College netted similar results for McCooey and Miller. McCooey topped junior Pioneer Seiko Fujii 6-0, 7-5 and Miller played near-perfect tennis and hammered Smith junior Talia Williams 6-0, 6-1. Both wins added to the team's 8-1 victory over the Pioneers. As of this weekend, both freshmen had won 24 games, and McCooey had lost only nine, while Miller had dropped just three. As the women's tennis team looks to return to national dominance after a tough spring season, it will certainly help having two wide-eyed and hard-swinging freshmen on the court.
Randy Newsom (LA '04), Kingston Indians
In a slightly unconventional pick (we're scraping the barrel a bit - it wasn't exactly the best weekend ever in Tufts sports), this week's male Athlete of the Week nod goes to an ex-Jumbo.
Randy Newsom, a 2004 Tufts graduate, was named the MVP of the Carolina League Championship last week. Pitching for the Class A Kinston Indians, Newsom earned the win in the Indians' 11-inning victory over the Frederick Keys on Sep. 11, completing a three-game sweep in Frederick, Md.
Newsom, a sidearm hurler in the Kinston bullpen, shut down the Keys in all three games. He was the hero of the final game, after silencing the Keys' bases-loaded threat in the 10th inning. By striking out top prospect and cleanup hitter Nolan Reimold with one out, Newsom earned the biggest out of the game, and he followed that up by getting the Keys' Mario Delgado to ground out to second and end the inning.
At Tufts, Newsom was a co-captain of the 2004 baseball team that went 24-14, and finished a solid 9-3 in the NESCAC East. Newsom was the workhorse of the team's pitching staff that season, easily leading the team with 61 innings pitched. He went 6-1 for the Jumbos, with an ERA of 3.10. He began his career in professional baseball with the Boston Red Sox' organization, pitching for the Class A Wilmington Blue Rocks, before being traded to the Indians in mid-2006.
