Athlete of the Week Archive

Each week, DartmouthSports.com will spotlight two outstanding student-athletes - one male, one female - as Dartmouth's Athletes of the Week. Student-athletes may be chosen based upon their efforts both on and off the field of competition.

Two Big Green senior skaters helped their teams to victory on the ice, earning Sarah Parsons (Dover, Mass.) and Joe Gaudet (Etna, N.H.) Dartmouth Athlete of the Week accolades. Parsons led women's hockey to a sweep of Brown and Yale with a seven point weekend while Gaudet paced the men in their first win of the season against St. Lawrence.

Dartmouth Male Athlete of the Week:
Joe Gaudet (Etna, N.H.), Men's Hockey, Forward, Senior
Senior Joe Gaudet (Etna, N.H.) notched three points in a key league weekend as the senior assistant captain recorded the game winner against St. Lawrence on Saturday to help his team to its first win of the season. The previous night against Clarkson Gaudet and his linemates, Doug Jones and Dustin Walsh accounted for all the scoring as Gaudet had a goal and an assist. His goal in the second period broke a 1-1 tie and gave the Big Green one of its few leads of the season. His game winner the next night was Dartmouth's eighth power play goal of the season and his first. With five points, Gaudet is tied for the team lead. He has three goals and two assists and has played in all seven games.

Your line helped on the weekend against Clarkson and St. Lawrence, how nice has it been to have continually elevated your game and this year be on a line that is doing so well?
It's been good because I feel like the last couple of years I did much better towards the end of the season so it's nice to be comfortable and feel at the top of my game at the beginning of the year. It's nice to be playing with two guys who are really good players and to be kind of a mentor to them.

It's an interesting role being the older guy with two younger guys on your line. I don't feel like a senior but I know they look up to me. I'm happy to use my experience to try and be an asset to the line.

The season didn't start off quite the way I'm sure both you and others expected. How hard was it to not focus on that and just keep focusing on your game, knowing you were going to break through eventually.
We have a really good team, I think one of the best teams we've had in a while. But it starts to wear on you that you haven't won a game yet and it's a lot of pressure. But we know we have a good team and it's not like we weren't playing well. We knew we're good but we just needed to show it.

Do you feel the pressure is off now?
Yeah, now that we've got that first win the pressure it's off a little. It's not quite weighing as much as it was before. We know just need to go out and play our game and know we'll get rewarded for our hard work.

How tough is it to open the season with so many conference games?
It was tough, especially with the two tough road trips right off the bat. It's nice to have those road trips out of the way but we jumped right into it and didn't have much of a breather. It's tough to be playing teams who've played 10 or 12 games already and be able to match them.

Where does the team go from here? What are some immediate goals.
Obviously we've got four games left in the calendar so we want to make those count. We've got some nonconference games before we really get into conference play and in the past if we haven't done well in our out-of-league games they've cost us so we know we need to play hard in those situations.

Dartmouth Female Athlete of the Week:
Sarah Parsons (Dover, Mass.), Women's Hockey, Defense, Senior
Senior co-captain Sarah Parsons (Dover, Mass.) tallied seven points in a weekend sweep over Brown and Yale with four goals and three assists. She was the first Big Green player to be named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week for her efforts. Against Brown, she netted the eventual game-winner in the second period after adding one in the first frame. Parsons followed the two goals with an assist coming on the Big Green's fourth goal of the game, which gave Dartmouth much-needed breathing room late in the final period. She netted her first power-play goal of the season in the second period in the 6-2 win over Yale and also assisted on another score with the extra skater. She recorded her second assist of the night in the last frame and closed the game with an empty net score in the final minutes. Parsons continues to climb up the Dartmouth all-time scoring list as she has 128 points on 51 goals and 77 assists. She just passed Olympian Rachel Rochat '95 for 15th all time and is two points away from Kim McCullough '02 for 14th on the list.

Your team got a weekend sweep at the hands of Brown and Yale. What were some of the keys to success over the weekend?
I thought we played consistently in both games, which helped a ton. We have been struggling with that the past few games and I think it was a huge confidence booster for our team to finally do that. I thought we worked hard, controlled the puck well, and scored when we needed to score.

The team is a month into the season, what are some of the things that have helped you to the 4-3-1 record and what can be improved?
Since we are a fairly young team, I think it has helped just to get some experience as we go along. I think we are getting more and more confident and gradually playing better every game. Our consistency and focus still needs to be improved - meaning we need to get better at playing a full solid 60 minutes of hockey rather than just a few minutes here and a few minutes there.

Jenna tallied her 100th career point over the weekend and last season you reached the milestone. For you, how was the anticipation of that event and what did it feel like to achieve it?
It definitely weighed on me a bit. I was completely unaware that I was even close to it until someone told me, and then for the next few games I couldn't buy a goal. While reaching that milestone was definitely a proud moment for me, it was also a huge weight off my back and I felt like after that, I could just play and not have to worry about anything.

Looking ahead, you have four games in the next month. What does the team and yourself do to stay ready to play?
With break and finals coming up, I think the biggest thing for our team is staying focused and trying to not let all of the other things going on interfere with how we play. We need to continue to develop and compete hard in practice, which I think will be crucial for us over the next few weeks.