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If winning is contagious, then the Curry College Athletics Department was home to an epidemic this past year. The Colonels’ 12 varsity sports programs (not including Women’s Cross-Country) were a combined 161-113-1 during 2003-2004. Curry’s student-athletes were victorious in nearly 59% of their contests, posted a 30% increase in total wins as compared with 2002-2003, and turned in what was easily the best department performance during Steve Nelson’s six-year tenure as athletic director.
Three squads - Football (11), Women’s Lacrosse (14) and Softball (36) - established school records for wins in a season, while Men’s Basketball (15) tied the school mark in that category. Coach Weckworth’s softball squad collected the most wins by any athletic team in school history, shattering the old mark of 27 by Weckworth’s 1997 team. In addition, the Men’s Ice Hockey Team surpassed the 20-win plateau for the first time since the glory years of the 1980s.
The “Curry Twelve” enjoyed the same success against their CCC, NEFC and ECAC Northeast opponents, combining for a 92-63 (.594) overall record in conference games last year. In fact, Coach Nelson’s gridiron squad (7-0) and Coach Davies’ icemen (16-0) went undefeated during their conference schedules and as a result, the Colonels captured a Boyd Division title in the NEFC, and the regular-season crown in the ECAC Northeast. Not to be outdone, first-year Head Coach Malcolm Wynn led Men’s Basketball to a 12-4 record in conference play and top honors in the CCC South Division.
 The Curry Softball Team ran off a school-record 7 wins to open the 2004 season, and finished at 36-8 - the most victories by any athletic team in school history. |
This “winning fever” was in no way limited to regular season play. After the fall season, when the Colonels celebrated their first NEFC Football Championship since 1971, made their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III Tournament, and finished as the second-ranked team in New England, the “infection” spread to a pair of sports during both the winter and spring campaigns.
Hockey - despite being edged out in the ECAC Northeast Championship Game - became the second squad to represent Curry in an NCAA Division III Tournament. In truth, as a member of Division III Hockey’s “Elite Eight,” the Colonels had a realistic shot at winning a National Championship. Short of that ultimate goal, Curry accomplished the next best thing - impressing the entire collegiate hockey community nationwide with its tenacious competitiveness during a thrilling 5-4 first-round overtime defeat at Plattsburgh State. Still, the Colonels closed out the 2003-2004 season as the #7 team in the nation.
Men’s Basketball - after a tremendous late-season push earned them a #1 seed in the CCC Tournament - saw their momentum slowed by an upstart squad from the University of New England, falling 75-74 in overtime in the conference quarterfinals. Nevertheless, Coach Wynn’s team received an invitation to play in the ECAC Division III New England Tournament, and appeared to set the stage for what would follow during March, April and May.
The Colonels’ women’s sports programs saved their best for last, and Spring Break trips to Florida in early March provided a clear indication of what was to come. In Fort Myers, Curry’s Softball Team ran off a school-record seven wins to open their 2004 campaign. Even more impressively, the Colonels posted five shutout victories during the streak, thanks in large part to a pair of rookie pitching stars - Allyson Bruder and Kim Sturgis. Then the wins just kept on piling up. Coach Weckworth’s squad marched past the previous season record of 27 wins after the second game of a doubleheader sweep at Newbury College then reached the 30-win plateau in the first of two victories against CCC rival Gordon College. Although the drive for a conference title was halted after a gut-wrenching, 1-0, extra-inning loss at Endicott in the finals, Softball followed the lead of Men’s Basketball and was selected to play in the ECAC Division III New England Tournament. Having ranked among the elite programs in the region for much of the spring, the Purple & White wound up as the 10th-best team in the final NEISCA poll.
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