Friday, March 9, 2007

Campus News

The UMass-Lowell baseball team will be travelling to St. Petersburg, FL this weekend to take on Dominican College. The team enters with a 2-2 record after sweeping Adelphi University in a double-header last Sunday in which Junior Anthony Santos drove in 6 runs on three hits and scored 3 times. The Hawks were swept on Saturday by Adelphi, but evened the score with great play on Sunday.

UMass-Lowell senior Nicole Plante was named the Division II Northeast Region Women's Track Athlete of the Year by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Monday morning. This is the fifth straight Athlete of the Year award that the standout Plante has recieved, and follows her second best time in 5000m. UML head coach Gary Gardner also earned the honor of Northeast Region Women's Coach of the Year for the fourth consecutive time.

Local News

A three car wreck in Tyngsboro sent four people to the hospital on Thursday morning, one of whom was in critical condition. Two students of the Greater Lowell Technical High School were driving away from the school when they narrowly avoided the SUV of a councilor at the school and crashed head on into another car. The SUV rolled off of the road after a swerve, and both other cars were totalled. The students were not believed to be wearing seatbelts, which may have cause their injuries to be greater than need be. There were no other serious injuries as a result of the crash, but traffic was disrupted for about 2 hours.

A bomb threat emptied the Tsongasa Arena of all workers late Thursday morning. Employees had stay out of the building until just before 2 PM, when police determined that there was no bomb in the building. The arena's general manager, Craig Gates, was cited saying' "This is the first time in the eight years that I've been here that it's happened." The threat is still under investigation, but the Arena will be functioning as normal over the weekend.

National News

Zach Arend, an 18 year-old baseball player from Bluffton University, died on Friday morning as result of injuries follwing the crash of the teams charter bus. This death raises the toll to 7 following the crash off of a highway overpass last Friday. The crash happened early in the morning on an urban Atlanta highway, and the cause of the crash is yet to be determined. Memorial services for the driver, his wife, and the four other baseball players were held on Thursday in Ohio, as hundreds gathered to mourn the loss.

Eddie Van Halen, famed axe man of the band Van Halen, checked himself into rehab on this past week for unspecified reasons. Van Halen was quoted saying, "...at the moment I do not feel that I can give you my best." This recent development furthers the already dim possibility of a reunion tour with original lead singer, David Lee Roth, and also makes his appearance at Van Halen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seem doubtful.