Timothy Bernstein

Men’s lax goes 3OT for first Haverford win since ‘04

At the tail end of a season that didn’t turn out the way they wanted it, the Swarthmore men’s lacrosse team can at least say they did something no team in the last seven years has done — beat Haverfor…

Men's lacrosse falls to Dickinson

Despite several standout individual performances, the Swarthmore men’s lacrosse team never got going against Dickinson on Saturday, losing 14-5 in a game that was over early.

Three goals in the firs…

Softball swept by Dickinson, then by Washington

Fresh off the pleasure of facing the conference’s best pitcher in McDaniel’s Caroline Brehm, the Swarthmore softball team was lucky enough on Saturday to face the second-best. The results were similar…

F&M pulls away in 4th quarter to beat women’s lax

Playing eighth-ranked Franklin Marshall on Saturday, the Swarthmore women’s lacrosse team came on the losing end of a road contest whose final score belies its competitive nature.

The second-place D…

Men’s lax drops 2OT heartbreaker to Gettysburg

It was all there for the Garnet, ready for the taking. A win over the Gettysburg Bullets for the first time in twenty-seven seasons. A defeat over a nationally-ranked opponent for the only time in the…

Baseball routs Fords to begin conference play

The Swarthmore baseball team continued to pile up victories, improving to 15-4 with two wins over Keuka College and conference rival Haverford. The 15-4 record gives Swarthmore second place in the Cen…

Women’s, men’s tennis teams roll over opponents

It was an excellent weekend for Garnet tennis, as both the men’s and women’s teams had little difficulty picking up victories in convincing fashion.

The Swarthmore women had one of their most impr…

Men’s lax falls to Ursinus

A late rally almost gave men’s lacrosse another dramatic, come-from-behind victory on Saturday. This time, however, Swarthmore came up short in an 8-6 road loss to Ursinus that opened conference play …

Softball goes 5-3 on trip for best start since ’07

The Swarthmore softball team came to Myrtle Beach hoping to start the season on the right note. They left with their best eight-game start in over a decade. In the 2012 Snowbird Tournament, the team w…

Baseball splits two doubleheaders to begin the season

Two days. Two doubleheaders. A 2-2 record. The Swarthmore baseball season has begun.

In the first weekend of the season, the Garnet played two double-headers, splitting both of them. Although the tea…

Men’s basketball defeats Haverford on Senior Day

Easy? No. Nothing has been easy for men’s basketball this year. The 0-6 start. The head coach’s resignation mid-season. The 14-game losing streak where it seemed like the breaks would never go the Gar…

Conference title the only goal for Garnet baseball

Coming off a strong season that ended just short of the postseason, the Swarthmore men’s baseball team comes into 2012 looking to take the next step.

After a 2010 season in which the Garnet made the…

Men’s basketball follows F&M loss with heartbreaker

In their first game since the Swarthmore men’s basketball team picked up their long-awaited second win, the Garnet’s hopes of beginning a winning streak halted with a 77-59 loss to conference-leading …

Garnet squash falls to Haverford in rivalry match

The Haverford men’s squash team got the best of its Swarthmore rival on Saturday, defeating them by a score of 7-2 from the Gooding Integrated Athletic Center.

In a series of nine singles matches, t…

For swimming, losses can't dim the joy of Senior Day

Pitted against the defending conference champions on Senior Day, the Swarthmore men’s and women’s swim teams both fell to the visiting Gettysburg Bullets on Saturday at the Ware Pool.

The women’s …

The need to find greatness somewhere, somehow

It took less time than normal for this year’s Super Bowl coverage to make me feel like heatstroke was imminent. Looking back, it might have been the article with the headline “Ahmad Bradshaw’s heart i…

Men’s basketball gets hot, then cold against Ursinus

For one brief moment, the Swarthmore men’s basketball team was playing at that level they know they are capable of reaching.

In the ten minutes after the Garnet began the second half on Saturday tra…

Ebose sets shot-put record to highlight Gotham Cup

A new school shot put record at the hands of first-year Osazenoriuwa Ebose highlighted a number of strong performances by the Swarthmore track & field team in Friday night’s Gotham Cup, held at the Ar…

Patriots should clinch a Super Bowl trip vs. Ravens

Ravens on Offense: Is there a well-known quarterback you’d be less likely to recognize on the street than Joe Flacco? He’s like that one kid in high school that other kids would make fun of for half a…

Men’s basketball can’t find answer for D-I Columbia

Swarthmore’s season-opening losing streak continued on Monday night in New York City, as the Garnet fell hard to the Division I Columbia Lions 104-42.

“I was extremely disappointed at the way we pla…

XC runner Phillips first in ten years to go to Championships

Cross country’s Jacob Phillips ‘13 finished a tremendous junior season with a strong performance at the Division III NCAA National Championships. The event, hosted by the University of Wisconsin i…

McDaniel comes back to beat women's basketball

The Swarthmore women’s basketball team has only lost twice on the young season, but both losses have come complete with a knife that waits until the final minutes to stick itself into the team’s back.…

Daring to dream: My 2011 Hanukkah wish list

As holidays go, Hanukkah falls short in several respects. “Let’s all listen to that great Hanukkah-themed song!” says no one. Where it excels, however, is in its ability to sustain the pleasure of gif…

Men’s soccer finishes strong with ECAC championship

A free kick goal off the foot of senior midfielder Micah Rose ’12 in double overtime won the ECAC South Region Championship for the Swarthmore men’s soccer team on Sunday afternoon. The goal was Ros…

After historic regular season, volleyball falls in ECACs

Almost one year to the day since Bethany College ended Swarthmore’s 2010 season, the Garnet volleyball team once again fell to the host Bison in a three-set sweep on Saturday to bring their season to …

Fencers old and new stand out at individual event

At an event this weekend at Temple University, coach Marshal Davis got the chance to see what the individual members of the Swarthmore fencing team could do against a range of competition. Davis was n…

Club soccer beats TCNJ, falls to Stevens Institute

Swarthmore Men’s Club Soccer split a doubleheader this Saturday, hosted at Haverford College. The team opened the day with a decisive 6-2 defeat of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), but was forced t…

Underneath it all, racial politics dominate lockout

Since the NBA officially locked out its players on July 1st, the question people seem to be asking more than any other has been, “How could this be a race issue?” It’s always asked the same way: rhet…

Underneath it all, racial poltics dominate lockout

Since the NBA locked out its players on July 1, the question people seem to be asking more than any other has been, “How could this be a race issue?” It’s always asked the same way: rhetorical and wit…

Men take third, women finish sixth, at championships

Beat Hopkins. Finish third in the conference.

These words have echoed around the Swarthmore men’s cross country team like a mantra. Throughout the year, the team has taken every opportunity to state i…

Men’s soccer misses playoffs

“It was a feeling of failure,” Roberto Contreras ’12 said of the locker room mood on Monday night.

The Swarthmore men’s soccer team, last year’s Centennial Conference champion, ensured that they…

WRONG

Since the NBA locked out its players on July 1, the question people seem to be asking more than any other has been, “How could this be a race issue?” It’s always asked the same way: rhetorical and wit…

Volleyball sweeps, defeats first ranked opponent

At the risk of inadvertently summarizing much of this season, it is hard to imagine things going better for the Swarthmore volleyball team than how they went this Saturday.

Celebrating Homecoming Week…

Cross-country teams stand out in weekend meets

Jacob Phillips ’13 and Jen Johnson ’12 led their teams in individual placement on Saturday as the Swarthmore men’s and women’s cross-country squads competed at the Princeton Invitational and Seven Sis…

Field Hockey beats McDaniel for year’s first shutout

Beginning with a loss to Washington College that snapped its three-game winning streak, the Swarthmore field hockey team endured a rough defensive stretch. In that loss, which came on October 5, and l…

In heartbreaking loss, women’s soccer finds positives

The Swarthmore women’s soccer team fell to undefeated Johns Hopkins in gut-wrenching fashion on Saturday evening, allowing the winning goal in the 88th minute on the way to a 3-2 loss. With the loss, …

Field hockey streak hits three with win over JHU

e Swarthmore field hockey team, a condition that was reflected in their record for the early part of the season.

Faced with an inexperienced roster — five juniors and zero seniors — the Garnet has bee…

'Moneyball' and how we got where we are now

For just a minute, forget that you have ever heard the term Moneyball.

Pretend that if you were to hear it right now, the first thing that would come to mind would have something to do with announcing…

Men’s soccer back on winning track with 2-0 week

It had been three seasons since the Swarthmore men’s soccer team lost consecutive matches, so following road defeats to Stevens and Dickinson two weeks ago, the team gathered to reflect and recommit.…

Men’s tennis shines at ITA Regional Tournament

At the University of Mary Washington this weekend, the Swarthmore men’s tennis team participated in the ITA regional tournament with a great deal of success.

In the singles draw, four members of the…

Golf falters, finishes ninth, at F&M Invitational

In the third tournament of the young golf season, the Franklin & Marshall Invitational at Bent Creek Country Club, Swarthmore’s promising season hit a speed bump. The Garnet shot a collective score of…

Field hockey opens conference play with loss

It was a disappointing beginning to Conference play on Saturday, as the Swarthmore field hockey team was blanked by the Franklin & Marshall Diplomats 3-0 in front of a home crowd at Clothier Field.

W…

Langley signs with major-league soccer team

Last week, the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer announced that it had signed midfielder and Swarthmore alum Morgan Langley ’11 from the club’s USL-affiliate, the Harrisburg City Islanders…

Women’s tennis excels in singles and doubles

The Swarthmore women’s tennis team enjoyed a strong start to its fall season this past weekend. The Garnet squared off against two other schools, Haverford and Stevens Institute of Technology for the …

The meanings of the Djokovic “miracle forehand”

By now, you’ve probably seen the forehand return that Novak Djokovic (pronounced “Joke-a-vitch”) hit when he was down two games and two match points in the fifth set of his U.S. Open semifinal match a…

Cross country comes out of gate strong in first meet

The Swarthmore cross country season began on a high note Friday.

Both the men’s and women’s teams produced strong showings at the Bryn Mawr Invitational at

Media’s Rose Tree Park, with members of …

What Adam Dunn's historic struggles remind us

And you may ask yourself: Well … How did I get here?

-The Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

So now they’ve begun invoking the name of Bill Bergen in order to do justice to the kind of year Ada…

Dodger ‘royalty’ inflames McCourt’s shady tenure

“Have just read back-to-back columns trying to stand up for Frank McCourt. That seems to me an excellent final journalism exam.”

—Sports Illustrated columnist Joe Posnanski (@jposnanski) on Twitte…

‘Scream 4’ has lots of laughs but fails to scare

Rating : 2 Stars

Rotten Tomatoes: 58%

For better or worse, Wes Craven’s “Scream” series changed the game when it comes to how we look at horror. By subverting and subscribing to the genre’s formula in…

The rise and fall of Manny-being-Manny Ramirez

My favorite Manny Ramirez story is the one I heard two or three years ago. I can’t remember who told it, and I’m almost glad I can’t. That makes it seem that much more like something out of legend. …

‘Sucker Punch’ lacks humor and empowerment

Rating: 0 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 20%

This is a 16-year-old boy’s wet dream preserved on 35-millimeter stock. A salute to misogyny dressed up as a sage of female empowerment by allowing its abus…

The 2011 Pepcid AC® Swarthmore Sports Fan Quiz

They say that Swarthmore students don’t care about sports. Typically, ‘they’ are Swarthmore students, which strengthens their argument. I, however, remain unconvinced. To find out for sure, I have put…

‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ delivers, even with its clichés

Rating: 2.5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 83%

It’s not the review that writes itself for a movie like this, but the blurbs that tend to, and they generally take one of three forms. The question is, wi…

With loads of statistics, baseball isn't just for jocks

Of all the sports that don’t attract the interest of Swarthmore students, baseball is by far the oddest member of the club. Through its embrace of statistical analysis, the sport not only gives its fa…

'Drive Angry' indulges in action movie cliches

It’s not insignificant that “Drive Angry” has the courage to indulge its base exploitative urges. More cautious — and, consequently, worse — films would try for an unnecessary balance that would pleas…

‘King’s Speech’ poised to take top Oscar honors

Best Supporting Actress

Should Win: Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”

Will Win: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”

With Melissa Leo of “The Fighter” forced to combat both the backlash from her persona…

Fans reinforce athletes’ quests for huge salaries

There’s a beautiful mechanism in place that allows us to decide how we, as a society, feel about things. First, something gets built up too much and so we tear it down. When we’re tired of doing that,…

‘Just Go With It’ shows little promise

Rating: 1 star

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 18 %

Adam Sandler never looks too concerned about anything that happens in the categorically unfunny “Just Go With It,” and why would he? Surely, by now, he’s se…

Grading the Super Bowl: Tim gives it a B-plus

Just don’t call it an “event,” because on Sunday it clearly left the capabilities of that word in the dust. No, this was something more. This was … a moment. Frozen in time to preserve everything we h…

'The Rite' fails to deliver with its promise of horror

Whenever I watch a film like “The Rite,” Mikael Hafstrom’s satanic entry in the “B-grade horror starring A-list actor” canon, I’m compelled to wonder about the exact moment in the process when that ac…

Super Bowl XLV pits GB Packers against Steelers

This week on “Bullet Points”:

• Four teams try so hard, they get so far, but in the end (for two of them), it won’t even matter.

• Will Aaron Rogers’ impressive body of work become even more…

"The Green Hornet" is overstuffed, underdone

“The Green Hornet” answers the question of whether a movie can feel both overstuffed and underdone. Based on a TV series that was based on film serials that were based on a radio show, the movie is fi…

Manny Pacquiao just could be the savior of boxing

This will eventually be a column about the greatest boxer in the world, but first this is a column about

football. Boxing is now the cautionary tale people use when they talk about football’s new emp…

It’s just one of those years: parity reigns in the NFL

When the NFL owners voted this May to decide what stadium would host the 2014 Super Bowl, none of the three candidates got the required 75 percent in the first round. In the second round, all three ag…

Defense the key to championships in the past decade

Before Moneyball, before sabermetrics, before appreciation, before his job with the Red Sox, before Baseball Abstract, before Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, before lending his voice to T…

Always a lose-lose situation

Here’s the beauty of it: I could have written this exact column last fall. I could also write this column next fall. If I’m incredibly busy this time during senior year, I might even dust it off for t…

First in offense, first in defense and last in the AFC West

Before they played the Patriots last Sunday, I hadn’t watched a San Diego Chargers game this entire season, but it wasn’t for lack of interest or awareness. The East Coast Bias that West Coast sports …

Tim’s observations on playoff baseball storylines

When I wrote my two “MLB Predic-tions” columns earlier this year (if you missed them, I got every single thing right), I picked Arizona’s Dan Haren to win the National League Cy Young Award.

My …

All-undrafted defense: the best in football history

Here is the second part of my Pro Bowl roster of undrafted players in football history. Now, let’s take a look at the defense and special teams starters:

Defensive Tackle: John Randle, Pat Williams

All-undrafted offense: the best in football history

I decided to make up an all-time Pro Bowl team out of the best players who went undrafted. Why, what do you do when you’re bored? Here is the offense:

Quarterback: Kurt Warner

Runner-Up: Warren Moon

Tim’s observations after Week 1 of the NFL season

At the end of his weekly column for SI.com, Peter King includes a list entitled “Things I Think I Think.” Now that Week 1 of the 2010 NFL season is history, I’d like to go a little further: what, …

Middle-of-the-road elites

So it’s over once again for Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open, another title run discontinued in its inception. This time, he met defeat in the second round at the hands of Janko Tipsarevic, a Serbian pla…

Men’s soccer team prepares for another title run

This summer on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” viewers have been treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the training camp for the New York Jets, a team that possessed a stringent defense and went deep into the p…

Soccer ladies’ ECAC title win voted “Moment of the Year”

As if they were short on victories.

The Swarthmore women’s soccer team’s ECAC (Eastern College Athletic Conference) South Region championship was voted “Moment of the Year” for Swarthmore athletic…

Taking a crack at settling the clutch-hitting debate

The debate about whether “clutch” players truly exist in baseball is so perfectly indicative of the great divide that exists between the statistically-oriented and those content to judge only by what …

Showing appreciation for the best in the business

My dad always hated loud noises of any kind. He didn’t discriminate. Forks hitting plates too aggressively, thunder overhead, the arrival of subway cars … He liked things at a low volume. This ruled o…

A good, good night for baseball

Going into the bottom of the 18th inning of Saturday’s game between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals, a contest that was not to be decided until the 20th inning, the PA manager at St. Lou…

Week in sports: Tiger’s fade, the Jets’ trade, an MVP vote stayed

Some of my thoughts from the week in sports …



A phony like no other

Sue me, but I wanted to see Tiger win the Masters, I really did. No more judgment can be passed on his transgressions than has a…

For Tiger Woods, coming back is the whole battle

When Tiger Woods tees off at Augusta National this morning, it will have been just four months since he crashed his Escalade 200 feet from his house, and yet it’s almost difficult to remember a time w…

Tim's American League Baseball predictions for 2010

My 2010 baseball predictions continue with the American League:



AL MVP: Mark Teixeira

Runners-Up: Miguel Cabrera, Evan Longoria, Kevin Youkilis

AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander

Runners-Up: Jon Leste…

Conference play slump continues for Garnet women

The Swarthmore women’s lacrosse team continued its struggles against Centennial conference opponents Sunday, falling to host Gettysburg by the score of 17-0. It was Swarthmore’s first shutout in four…

Tim’s National League Baseball Predictions for 2010

Spring has sprung, and with it the sports landscape is beginning to bloom once again. The regular season for the NBA is winding towards the playoffs, March Madness has already filled its Upset Quota, …

A set of ‘Sophie’s Choice’ scenarios in baseball, part 2

Tim’s column this week is the second installation of a set of difficult hypothetical choices to keep one of two star players that baseball clubs might make. Tim provides his opinion as to whom the tea…

Women split weekend games postponed by weather

While the Northeast was hit hard by storms this week, the Swarthmore women’s lacrosse team handled the Thunder just fine.

The visiting Garnet dispatched Trine University 12-7 last Wednesday in South…

A set of 'Sophie's Choice' scenarios in baseball, part 1

A couple of days ago, I was chatting with a few of my friends about the upcoming baseball season when, if for no other reason than to see me turn a shade of green, one of them mentioned a potential do…

The irony of Myron Rolle: talented, upstanding, undrafted

The word “microcosm” comes up a lot in relation to sports. More than you would think, considering it’s usually reserved for philosophical discussions centered around Greeks with one name. In sports, i…

Defeating the sports doldrums: the fake Twitter feed

As soon as the clock hit 00:00 in Miami, bringing Super Bowl XLIV to a close, my personal ISC (Internal Sports Clock — like a biological clock, except not at all) reset itself to begin the countdown t…

Season in perspective: The Year of the Quarterback

If the NFL operated on the Chinese Zodiac calendar, then 2009 would surely have fallen under Year of the Quarter-back.

It seems like a funny thing to say when a team like the New York Jets came within…

Tears no longer a far cry away from pro male athletes

With apologies to Tom Hanks’s lovable alcoholic in “A League of Their Own,” it’s starting to appear as if there is crying in baseball. And football. And tennis. And just about everywhere else.

Colts and Saints crowned divisional champs

Sunday dawned clear and crisp in the Bayou as the citizens of Who Dat Nation prepared themselves for a Viking onslaught. Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, Peyton Manning readied his Colts for another go-rou…

NFL divisional match-ups

New Orleans Saints 45, Arizona Cardinals 14

Could the game’s first play — a 70-yard touchdown run by Cardinals back Tim Hightower — have been more appropriate to what everyone expected from this game?…

Dips come back, drown Garnet

Despite some standout individual performances, the story on Saturday was the same for both the men’s and the women’s swim teams. Going up against a tough Franklin & Marshall squad in their own pool pr…

Volleyball makes ECACs

The Swarthmore volleyball team’s historic conference campaign came to an end Saturday, as the Garnet fell to No. 25 Haverford in four sets in the Centennial Conference semifinals.

Haverford (28-3, 1…

McMinn, Rose lead runners at muddy conferences

The men’s and women’s cross country teams spent the afternoon of Halloween on Saturday at the 2009 Centennial Conference Championships at Gettysburg College.

Adding to a stellar debut year, John M…

Volleyball clinches return to conference tournament

The Swarthmore volleyball team’s season-high five-game winning streak came to an end Saturday with a straight-sets road loss at Gettysburg.

It was the first loss for Swarthmore since Oct. 8, with a …

Volleyball digs deep for record-setting victories

Non-Centennial Conference teams, be alert: Swarthmore is red-hot and doesn’t plan on overlooking you.

On Saturday, the Swarthmore volleyball team found some time in between conference matches to swe…

Undefeated volleyball pounds favored McDaniel

Three conference games. Three victories.

Facing a tough intra-conference challenger, the visiting Garnet pulled through for the third time this season, overcoming a tough first set and defeating McDan…

Soccer silenced by penalty kick

“The first loss had to come at some point,” the Swarthmore men’s soccer team must have been thinking, “but did it have to come like this?”

After a scoreless afternoon, long stretches of rain…

Women dismiss Red Devils in conference opener

No longer undefeated? No problem.

Coming off their first loss of the season, the #20 Garnet women’s soccer team rebounded with a 1-0 win against 25th-ranked Dickinson College (6-1, 0-1 CC) on Saturday…

Indivisible volleyball dominates Garnet Classic

This is the rule of thumb in sports: If a tournament is named after you, you should probably do your best to win it. Tiger Woods has long been a firm believer in this rule. Now the Swarthmore volleyba…

Field hockey recharges, looks to return to form

Coming off a season in which their final record of 5-13 was greatly aided by the fact that they had only two players to use as substitutes, members of the Swarthmore field hockey team could be excused…