Tag: Athletics

For the fourth time in as many seasons, head coach Jim Crutchfield and the Nova Southeastern men’s basketball team has earned a preseason nod as one of the nation’s Top-10 programs, as the Sharks opened at No. 6 in the newly released 2021-22 DII Men’s Basketball Power 10 Rankings by NCAA.com.
Prior to Crutchfield’s arrival back in 2017, the program had never crept inside the Top-25 at any point, yet the national attention has since become routine after the Sharks were pegged No. 8 in the preseason by DII Bulletin in 2018-19 prior to their run to the Elite Eight, No. 2 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) in 2019-20 on their way to another trip to the NCAA Tournament, and then No. 6 again by the NABC prior to their 2020-21 campaign being cancelled.
In their first bit of competitive action since March of 2020, the Sharks showed plenty of potential, pushing the University of Miami in Wednesday’s preseason opener. Despite shooting just 41.1% from the field and 30.8% from beyond the arc, NSU trailed the Hurricanes by only four with 4:30 to play before eventually falling 106-95. The Sharks forced UM into 18 turnovers in the contest and won the battle of the boards by a 48-41 margin, including 18-2 on the offensive glass.
Defending national champion Northwest Missouri State captured the top spot in the rankings. Flagler followed at No. 2, with West Texas A&M slotted at No. 3. Colorado Mesa and Hillsdale rounded out the Top-5.

Posted 10/26/21

Back on the court competitively for the first time since March 8, 2020, Nova Southeastern showed plenty of promise, as the Sharks handed the Miami Hurricanes a legitimate test in a 106-95 defeat in their preseason opener down in Coral Gables on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Head coach Jim Crutchfield‘s club trailed by just four with 4:18 remaining, yet ran out of steam down the stretch against its Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) counterpart.

STATS OF THE NIGHT:

• Newcomer Sekou Syllamade quite the first impression with the Sharks, racking up a team-high 26 points on 12-of-20 from the field, to go along with 14 rebounds, five assists and three steals.
• Demonstrating an improved, all-around game, Eddie Puisisregistered 20 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals in 31 minutes.
• Off the bench, Mike Moore and Dallas Graziani added 13 and 11 points, respectively. Together, the two combined to shoot 6-of-9 from beyond the arc.
• Nick Smithtallied eight points and eight assists without issuing a single turnover.
• Collectively, the Sharks outrebounded the Hurricanes by a 48-41 margin.
• NSU forced Miami into 18 turnovers.

Posted 10/26/21

The Sunshine State Conference announced its 2010-11 to 2019-20 Men’s Swimming All-Decade honors October 19, 2021. Voters named 16 student-athletes from five programs as All-Decade members. All-Decade voting took place among the league’s administrators and swimming coaches.

The SSC All-Decade awards include 11 SSC Swimmer of the Year honorees and all six individual NCAA National Champions from the league from 2010-11 to 2019-20.

Anton Lobanov (2014-17), Franco Lupoli (16-18), and Thiago Sickert (14-17), represented Nova Southeastern on the First-Team, while Oskar Nordstrand (11-13) was named to the Second-Team.

“It’s an honor for NSU Men’s Swimming to have these young men as representative on the All-Decade team. They are first class human beings, who excelled at such high levels here in the pool and classroom,” said Head Coach Ben Hewitt. “You still see their footprint on our program and their efforts continue to set the tone for future generations of Shark swimmers. I was fortunate enough to coach all four; however, I also want to share that each of them worked with Hollie Bonewit-Cron, and I know that she is extremely proud of them and their accomplishments.”

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Posted 10/26/21

As 29 members of the Nova Southeastern baseball team embark this month toward their summer league destinations, a pair of Sharks have earned an unprecedented opportunity as roster selections to play in the inaugural MLB Draft League. Both junior outfielder Adan Fernandez and senior pitcher JP Williams will have the chance to increase their visibility while showcasing their skills with the Trenton Thunder.
Operating very much like the schedule Major League players work in, the MLB Draft League schedule will consist of six games per week after the opening stretch of 14 consecutive dates through June 7. In its entirety, there will be 68 games, 34 home and away, for each club. The championship game is scheduled to be played August 15.
Per the official site of the MLB Draft League: Draft League participants will receive unprecedented visibility to MLB Club scouts through both in-person observation and state-of-the-art scouting technology, and educational programming designed to prepare them for careers as professional athletes.
The NSU pair are members of a group of only 32 players nationwide from NCAA Division II selected for the inaugural season’s rosters in the league. The 2021 MLB draft is Sunday, July 11 and roughly a month behind its normal schedule.

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The past year of adversity and new challenges in society and competition has done little to slow down the Sharks in the classroom. In fact, Nova Southeastern University’s student-athletes have taken those challenges in the complete opposite direction, again setting semester program bests to round out the fourth consecutive year with an annual departmental Grade Point Average record. For the 2021 Winter semester, NSU’s Sharks earned a 3.44 department-wide GPA for the best semester on record, combining with the 3.41 GPA from the Fall to deliver a new program-record 3.42 GPA for the 2020-21 academic year.

Driving the best semester to date for the NSU program, an impressive 80 percent of all student-athletes individually exceeded a 3.00 GPA for the Winter semester, led by 199 Sharks who were above a 3.25 to be named Scholar Student-Athletes. Of that group of academic standouts, 84 were named to the Director’s List with a GPA over 3.80 and 32 produced a perfect 4.0 on the semester. In addition, 91 student-athletes earned their NSU degree this academic year.

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Officials from the Sunshine State Conference announced that NSU redshirt junior Karolina Snita has been named the Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week after helping the No. 3 Sharks to a 2-0 start via wins over Tampa and No. 9 Saint Leo this past week.

An Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-American last season, Snita (Glowgow, Poland) doled out a pair of commanding victories in singles against the Spartans and Lions, including a win over Saint Leo’s 2020 All-American who ranked 19th out of the fall, Marta Vicens Miquel, 6-3, 6-0 at No. 2 singles – also topping UT’s Savannah Williams 6-2, 6-1 last Tuesday in NSU’s 7-0 win over the Spartans.

Snita paired with Diane Follin-Arbelet to top Vicens Miquel and Celina Ermann (6-2) in SLU doubles, followed by her first-to-finish singles victory, aiming the Sharks toward a hard-fought 5-2 triumph over the Lions for NSU’s first ranked win of the season.

“I’m very happy for Karo,” head coach Doug Neagle said. “She works so hard on and off the court, and is definitely deserving of this award. She set the tone against Saint Leo with decisive doubles and singles wins.”

This is Snita’s first weekly award of the year and the second of her career.

The Sharks (2-0) make their debut at home on the courts at the NSU Tennis Center at Rolling Hills, kicking off four consecutive home matches. On Saturday, March 13, the Sharks will host Rollins (0-0) at 2:00 p.m.

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