While their classmates were relaxing on the Green or hanging out with friends, some seniors athletes spent hours in training.These dedicated athletes have led Dartmouth's teams to success.
Dion Del Monte
Dion Del Monte '95 has been described by his teammates and coaches as an outstanding talent, a natural leader, and above all, a fierce competitor. So it should come as no surprise that Del Monte's competitive fires have not yet burned out.
"I figure I have my whole life to explore my other interests, but only have a limited time that I'll be able to play hockey," he said recently, "so I'm going to make the most of it while I can."
"I'll be playing hockey next year somewhere," Del Monte vowed, "but exactly where I'm not sure yet."
One of the best players to play hockey at Dartmouth in the past 20 years, Del Monte's desire to compete cannot simply be turned off like a switch now that his Dartmouth career is over.
The Mississauga, Ontario, native came to Dartmouth after an outstanding high school career at Loyola Catholic, where he captained the team and led them to a divisional championship his senior year. Also an academic standout, Del Monte was on the honor roll all four years of high school.
But even he may have been surprised with his success at Dartmouth.
Del Monte finished his Dartmouth career with 108 points, which leaves him all alone in 17th place on the all-time Dartmouth scoring list. He became only the 26th player in the 90-year history of Dartmouth hockey to reach the 100-point mark with an assist in a 5-4 loss at St. Lawrence this past February.
Del Monte is also a member of Dartmouth's 50-assist club, a distinction held by only 27 others in the history of Dartmouth hockey.
Even more remarkable than these accomplishments is that Del Monte improved steadily upon his point totals in each of his four years.
All told, the 37 goals and 71 assists he amassed in his remarkable career assure he will not be forgotten any time soon in the annals of Dartmouth ice hockey.
Head Coach Roger Demment once said, "Not only is Dion a co-captain of the team, but he leads through his actions. Every night that Dion goes on the ice, he competes to the fullest."
Always humble, after tallying his 100th point, Del Monte hardly even discussed the milestone. Instead he heaped praise upon his classmates, especially Trevor Dodman '95, Patrick Turcotte '95 and Mike Stacchi '95.
Del Monte said he regretted not having achieved a little more success for all his hard work and the efforts of his teammates.
The team only made the playoffs once in Del Monte's four years at Dartmouth, during his sophomore season. That season, in 1992-93, the squad lost a crushing double-overtime game to Colgate in the first round of the ECAC Tournament.
Lauren Holleran
Lauren Holleran '95, known as "The Bear" to her friends and teammates, leaves Dartmouth as perhaps the best women's lacrosse player ever to grace the Hanover Plain.
In her four years on the lacrosse team, Holleran put up some staggering numbers. She terrorized opposing goalies, scoring 193 goals, and adding 50 assists in her outstanding career.
Playing virtually down the street from her home, the Hanover, N.H. native established herself perennially as one of the best players in the Ivy League, and even in the entire nation.
She has been on the U.S. Lacrosse Team since the end of her sophomore year, including a stint on the Elite Team this past year, and Holleran says she hopes to play for the Elite Team again next year.
Yet despite these amazing credentials, Holleran says her passion for lacrosse may be diminishing.
"I feel like four years is a long time, and I really felt a sense of closure at the end of this season. Winning the Ivies and getting to the Final Four were two big team goals which I had set, and having accomplished them as well as many personal goals, I feel that it is a good way and a good time to go."
The team won the Ivy title and made the NCAA Final Four during Holleran's senior year.
Holleran may continue to play lacrosse, but if so, it will be in a capacity where it does not dominate her life, as it has at Dartmouth.
In the meantime, Holleran said she is still working on her plans for next year. "I would like to be in the Boston area, perhaps in some kind of educational field," she said.
The lacrosse team she leaves behind at Dartmouth will have some big shoes to fill.
Holleran capped off her career during her senior year with her best season ever, tallying 53 goals and 20 assists for 73 points. The 20 assists and 73 points are both new Dartmouth single-season records.
Co-captain of the squad her senior year, Holleran added another feather, the Ivy Player of the Year award, to an already full cap. In her career, Holleran was a three-time First-Team All-Ivy pick, and she won the Ivy Rookie of the Year award after her freshman season in 1992, a season in which she scored 37 goals.
Coach Amy Patton said the selection of Holleran as the Ivy Player of the Year was a no-brainer.
"I think Lauren getting Player of the Year was well deserved," Patton said. "She has had a tremendous four years, each and every year. It's not just her play but her leadership on and off the field. It's definitely a payoff for her."
Also in her senior year, Holleran led the team to the Ivy League title, with an undefeated 7-0 Ivy League mark, and the team made the national semifinals for the first time ever. Unfortunately, the team lost to Princeton in the Final Four.
Josh Bloom
Josh Bloom '95 recently said, "my affiliation with Dartmouth football was definitely the highlight of my Dartmouth experience." If you ask Head Football Coach John Lyons or any of Bloom's teammates, though, they will probably tell you the pleasure was all theirs.
Bloom leaves behind a legacy as both a student and an athlete that is certainly worthy of recognition, and next year, he hopes to take his game to Europe.
"I definitely want to go and we're negotiating right now, but I haven't signed a contract so it's not a done deal yet," Bloom said.
As a three-year varsity starter on the football team at inside linebacker, the Alamosa, Colo., native terrorized opponents' offenses, especially running backs. Ball carriers were said to have cringed in anticipation of a Bloom hit.
In his three-year varsity career, Bloom amassed 98, 126 and 130 tackles, for a career total of 354. He also threw a scare into a number of quarterbacks, logging six career sacks and adding four interceptions to boot.
His senior year, Bloom was co-captain of the squad, and also garnered a number of honors. He was named the Dartmouth 1994 Most Valuable Player, as well as a Class of 1948 Scholar-Athlete. In addition, Bloom was named an Academic All-Ivy member, and for the second year in a row, he was named to the Second-Team All-Ivy.
In both 1992 and 1993, Bloom was Dartmouth's leading tackler. His junior year, he won the Kenneth Young Award as the top upperclass defenseman and was named a GTE District Academic All-American and a member of the All-Ivy second team.
He was the MVP and co-captain of the 1991 freshman football team and in his sophomore year, he was presented with Dartmouth's Doten Award for the outstanding defensive sophomore.
Bloom, a history major, is the prototypical scholar-athlete, compiling a 3.28 grade point average in his time at Dartmouth -- balancing his success on the field with great results in the classroom.
For his efforts, Bloom was recognized last October as one of 15 winners of the Scholar-Athlete award, an $18,000 scholarship for post-graduate study.
The award is given out by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, with 15 college seniors across the nation chosen to receive the honor each year
The 1994 winners were mainly in Division 1-A, from various schools including Pennsylvania State, Florida State and Stanford University, but Bloom was one of only two Division 1-AA players to win the award.
Bloom said his ultimate goal is to attend medical school, possibly beginning in the fall of 1996.
tional experience here at Dartmouth, but my personal maturation as well," Mangawang said.
As a junior, Mangawang was an All-New England selection with a goal and five assists.
Her senior year, she was a co-captain of the soccer team, and put up numbers truly worthy of an All-Star. Her first three seasons, Mangawang had a total of eight goals. Senior year alone, she had nine.
All told, Mangawang ends her soccer career with 17 goals and 10 assists.
Having never picked up a lacrosse stick before, Mangawang joined the lacrosse team her sophomore year as a talented natural athlete, but nonetheless an inexperienced lacrosse player.
When all was said and done, Mangawang was named a Third-Team All-American and a Second-Team All Ivy member after her senior year. Not bad for someone who had only been playing lacrosse for three years.
A defensive mainstay for three years, Mangawang had her best year as a senior, with one goal and 10 assists.
Furthermore, Mangawang helped parlay her individual accomplishments into great team success in both soccer and lacrosse.
The soccer team went undefeated in the Ivy League in 1993, winning the league with a perfect 7-0-0 league mark, before losing to Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament. The team again made the tournament in 1994, but lost to Brown in the first round.
The lacrosse team also was successful during Mangawang's time on the squad. In 1994 the team went 11-4, but by all accounts was robbed of an NCAA Tournament berth they rightly deserved.
And in 1995 the squad won the Ivy League, posting a perfect 7-0 record, and made the Final Four for the first time ever. Unfortunately, the quest for a national title was stopped when the team lost to Princeton in the national semifinals.
Mangawang said she will miss both soccer and lacrosse.
Of her soccer teammates, she said, "The camaraderie I've gotten out of them over the past four years will last longer than anything, longer than any Ivy ring or any of the tangibles. Soccer has forever instilled in me my work ethic and has left me with those friendships."
Rachel Rochat
Growing up in Bernardsville, N.J., Rachel Rochat '95 almost became a figure skater.
"My parents were going to put me on figure skates, but my older brother played hockey and I idolized him," Rochat said. So she ended up on hockey skates, too, and ever since that day many years ago when she was three years old she has kept on skating.
Now her career on the Dartmouth women's ice hockey team is over, after she amassed an impressive 127 points.
Next year, Rochat hopes to play for a semi-professional women's team in Switzerland. The American-Swiss dual citizen said she also plans to try out for the Swiss National team.
"Beyond hockey, I have no other plans," Rochat said. "I just want to have some good experiences and keep learning. I know that I'll end up somewhere good eventually."
If her Dartmouth career was any indication, Rochat should have no problem ending up "somewhere good." She scored only 14 points her freshman year, but exploded during her sophomore year for 17 goals, 34 assists and 51 points. The 34 assists and 51 points were single-season career bests for Rochat.
Also during her sophomore year, 1992-1993, the team won the Ivy League championship and made it to the ECAC semifinals.
Her senior year, Rochat lit the lamp a career-high 22 times and had another 20 assists while serving as the team's captain, and the only senior on the squad. The squad shared the Ivy title with Princeton and lost in the ECAC quarterfinals to the Tigers.
Of the two years, Rochat said her senior year was more satisfying, especially because they "were underdogs" going into the season.
In an age where many hockey players specialize in one particular aspect of the game, such as the powerplay or penalty killing unit, Rochat displayed remarkable balance in her game.
She had nearly identical career goal and assist totals, finding the net 63 times while serving up 64 assists.
Jamie Halligan
As Jamie Halligan '95 looked up to the stands in Leede Arena on his way to the bench during his last home game this past March, it all seemed to sink in.
His family was there, finally getting to see Halligan play college basketball for the first time, during Halligan's final weekend as a Dartmouth varsity basketball player.
The team was completing a home sweep to finish at 10-4 in the Ivy League, its best showing since 1959. And Halligan was closing out his career in style, scoring a combined 37 points in two games in front of the home crowd.
It was perfect.
"My last weekend seemed as though it followed a script," Halligan admitted. "We swept Cornell and Columbia at home, my family was able to see me play for the first time in Leede Arena, and I had two good games to finish out my career."
Now that his Dartmouth career is over, the native of Bainbridge Island, Wash. says he hopes to continue playing basketball.
"I am planning on playing basketball next year overseas," he said. "I'm not sure where yet, but I've had a few offers in Portugal, Holland and Denmark."
As for what he plans to do after his basketball days, Halligan said he is keeping his options open. He said he is considering coaching high school basketball and attending medical school.
Halligan's four years on the basketball court were a model of consistency. He played 26 games a year for all four years for a total of 104 games.
Out of one of the starting forward positions, he averaged 9.5 points per game over his career, including a career-high 13.5 points per game his senior year.
Halligan also was a contributor in virtually all other aspects of the game. Over his career, he chipped in with 402 rebounds and 161 assists.
Furthermore, he shot 82 percent from the free-throw line over his career, 43.4 percent from the field and an excellent 36.5 percent from three-point range.
Halligan said senior year was unquestionably the best of his four years. The squad finished at 13-13 overall and 10-4 in the Ivy League in a second place tie with Brown.
After Halligan's final game, Jacob Capps '96 said, "We all love him. He's a great player and a great person."
Coach Dave Faucher said, "I've been a head coach four years. [Assistant Coaches] Mike Maker and Mike Fulcher have walked every step in those four years. The only other person day in and year-round was Jamie Halligan."
Faucher added that Halligan was "a really fine offensive player, a fine passer and a good shooter, with a quick first step."
Betsy Gilmore
Betsy Gilmore '94 is an excellent basketball player, a force on both ends of the court. She holds both the school record for steals at 321 and also the record for assists.
Gilmore, who has been offered a job by a German professional team, was even named Ivy League Player of the Year her junior year, when she led Dartmouth to an Ivy title.
But Gilmore told The Dartmouth in a previous interview, "It's hard to look at the statistics and determine what kind of player I really am ... The steals are meaningful to me because it means I'm working hard on defense. I contribute to the game defensively, whereas a lot of my teammates are amazing offensive players."
"Betsy is a remarkable player," said Coach Chris Wielgus. "She has such speed and quickness with her hands and feet and is one of those players that is just innately talented."
Teammate Kira Lawrence '96 said "It is so reassuring to play with Betsy, because you know even at crunch time she'll pull through for you. She's one of the most intelligent players I know."
"Intelligence" is a great word to describe Gilmore's success. This asset is necessary to hold the school steal record and assist record at the same time.
Gilmore is a psychology and education major and is looking into teaching after she graduates.
But she also admits she would love to coach at some point. "I love basketball and always have," she said.
The feeling is mutual -- Dartmouth basketball loves Betsy Gilmore and always will.
