A slow start to the baseball season highlights key areas of improvement for the Marauders men baseball team

The season is underway for Marauders men’s baseball, with the maroon and grey team having played both the University of Guelph Gryphons and the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks in a two-game series. 

The team has failed to win a single game in these four games; however, the scores in these matches have mostly been close. 

In the first game against the Gryphons on Sept. 9, the Marauders only lost by one run, with a final result of 4-5. The following match saw the Marauders lose by larger margins with a score of 0-8.  

A more recent matchup against Laurier on Sept. 10 saw the Marauders lose by a single run again by a score of 1-2. The subsequent match-up against the Golden Hawks finished with another loss of 6-10.  

With these scores, it appears as though the issue lies in the Marauders defensive game, with their ability to limit runs and opposing offenses being vital in games to come. 

With these scores, it appears as though the issue lies in the Marauders defensive game, with their ability to limit runs and opposing offenses being vital in games to come.

In terms of their focus for defensive improvements, better pitching may be the answer. For instance, in their second match-up against Guelph, the Marauders allowed 14 hits compared to only two hits allowed by the Gryphons.  

Their lack of good defensive play especially shows against teams like Guelph, who boast great players on the defensive end. This was shown in both games, as the Gryphons kept the Marauders to only ten hits for the entire series. 

On the offensive end, the Marauders seem to be in decent shape, shown by closer scores to Laurier with plenty of runs to the Marauders. Shortstop Anthony Polowick was a key contributor to this end, hitting a double and scoring in the lone run in the team’s match-up against Laurier. 

On the offensive end, the Marauders seem to be in decent shape, shown by closer scores to Laurier with plenty of runs to the Marauders.

If the Marauders can clean up defensively, they will likely be more competitive in games to come. If not, their current record is likely to hold. 

In last week’s referendum, full-time undergraduate students voted to uphold the current agreement between Hamilton Street Railway and the McMaster Students Union, which gives students bus passes for 12 months with expanded service on the 51-University bus line.

Out of five options, 43 per cent of students that voted chose the 12 month expanded bus pass as their top choice on the ranked ballot.

Students also had the option to decide between a 12 month pass without expanded service, an eight month pass with or without expanded service and no bus pass at all.

Prior to 2014, the MSU provided a subsidized HSR bus pass that lasted from September to April. In a 2014 referendum, students voted overwhelmingly in support of a year-round bus pass with expanded 51-University service.

The MSU renews their contract with the HSR every three years. Students voted to uphold the agreement in 2017, and did the same this year.

To establish the agreement for the base fee of the bus pass, the MSU engaged in a negotiation process with the HSR alongside the university, Redeemer college and Mohawk college.

In September 2019, students paid $225.55 for their bus passes. Next year, under the renewed agreement, they will cost $223.92, climbing to $229.62 in 2022. In comparison, an unsubsidized monthly HSR bus pass costs $110 per month, or $1,320 for a full year.

According to a 2017 briefing from the McMaster Graduate Student Association, the city of Hamilton has a vested interest in offering a reduced bus fare. A subsidized bus pass encourages students to explore the city, which can in turn lead to greater population retention.

The HSR stands to benefit from this deal as well. Approximately 12 per cent of the revenue collected by the HSR comes from the McMaster U-pass.

McMaster is one of many post-secondary institutions across southwestern Ontario to provide some sort of subsidized bus pass for undergraduate students. Within Hamilton, Mohawk college and Redeemer college also offer subsidized bus passes for students. Students at Queen’s University, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Guelph also decide via referenda to provide compulsory passes for undergraduate students. The costs vary depending on the university, ranging from $90 to $240.

Now that the McMaster bus pass has been voted on via referendum, students cannot opt out of the fee. This is because, when HSR knows how many students will pay the fee, they can project service levels and secure revenue. In turn, they agree to provide a bus pass at a substantially reduced cost.

After the student choice initiative was announced in January 2019, there was some concern that the bus passes would be designated as non-essential, which would have prevented the MSU from making an agreement with the HSR for subsidized bus passes.

In February of last year, Merrilee Fullerton, then the minister of training, colleges and universities, announced that the bus passes would remain mandatory.

The agreement with the HSR will be renegotiated in 2023.

 

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Photo by Kyle West

Both the men's volleyball team and women's basketball team took the weekend by storm with two victories each, while the men's basketball and women's volleyball teams won one out of their two games. Here are the stars of the weekend.

Sarah Gates

The second-year is no stranger to the Pita Pit Athlete of the Week award, most recently winning the weekend honour on Nov. 15, 2018, when she scored a career-high of 24 points. This weekend, she poured in 19 points for the Marauders in both of the team’s wins. Gates who was called to the 2018 Ontario University Athletics All-Rookie team, shot 50 per cent from the field and 40 per cent from the three, as well as collecting four rebounds in the win over Wilfrid Laurier University. Against the University of Guelph, she hit three of eight shots from three, and gave the team four steals and four rebounds.

 

Right side @MattColeP from @MACMVB and @macwbball guard Sarah Gates are the @PitaPitCanada Athletes of the Week. @mcmasteru #GoMacGo

READ ⬇️https://t.co/u7nAO5cvSh

— McMaster Marauders (@McMasterSports) January 14, 2019

 

Matt Passalent

After sitting out due to injury, Passalent hit the court for the first time of the regular season and did not miss a beat, being recognized as the Pita Pit Athlete of the Week for his efforts. Facing two U Sports top-10 opponents this weekend, the Marauders took home two victories and Passalent was a big part of both. The fourth-year had 10 kills, two aces and a block assist for 12.5 points Saturday against University of Windsor, and 15 kills and 18.5 points against Western University, which bumped them up to #4 in the national rankings.

 

There are 4️⃣ @mcmasteru teams ranked in this week's @usportsca Top 10s, with @MACMVB and men's wrestling both moving up two spots!

♂️🏐⬆️4️⃣
♀️🏀↔️4️⃣
🤼‍♂️⬆️6️⃣
🤼‍♀️↔️9️⃣#GoMacGo pic.twitter.com/qqPgOWV8jK

— McMaster Marauders (@McMasterSports) January 15, 2019

 

David McCulloch

In the Marauders’ second victory of the New Year, coming against the Guelph Gryphons, McCulloch contributed 23 points shooting 64 per cent from the field. The 97-80 road win seemed like just the fire the Marauders needed to bring it home and win again. Unfortunately, the Laurier Golden Hawks had other plans. Despite the fifth-year guard being the second highest leading scorer of the game with 15 points, the Golden Hawks came for revenge and defeated the Marauders 87-73 at home.

 

Jessie Narin

Narin led the Marauders offensively in both games against Windsor and Western this weekend. With 17 kills and 23 points, including five aces and a solo block, she helped Mac defeat Western on Saturday night in the fifth set. Narin, a right side, also led offensively the night before in the loss to Windsor, with 14 kills, three aces and a block assist for a team- and match-high 17.5 points.

This weekend McMaster basketball will face the Lakehead University Timberwolves in back-to-back home games this weekend, with the women playing at 6:00 p.m. and the men at 8:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Both volleyball teams will then take over Burridge on Sunday, as the women and men host the Brock University Badgers this Sunday at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. respectively.

 

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J.J. Bardoel

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Silhouette Intern

Compass Information Centre has recently announced that bus route Northlink 8 Guelph–Hamilton, frequently used by students, will cease to operate on Friday, Dec. 20, 2013.

Aboutown had been running the route in affiliation with Compass since August 2010, however due to the influx of fuel and insurance costs and decreasing presence for inter-city operations, the route was forced to be pulled. “We receive no subsidization from any government source for inter-city and mass transits,” said Jeff Sich, Northlink Coordinator.

Any signage regarding the route has quickly been removed at Compass in the hopes that students will help inform the community. “The timing is not good for the students, because they are all on exams obviously,” said Debbie Good, Compass Manager. “We just want to make sure that students are not expecting that service to be there.”

Along with the Guelph-Hamilton route, all other inter-city routes through Aboutown will also cease on the same day. Students still looking for transportation in the area will still be able to use GO Transit and Greyhounds, which both run at comparable prices to the Aboutown route.

“We have received a couple of emails regarding the cancellation that was announced on Friday, Dec. 13, 2013,” said Sich. “We anticipate more in the New Year. All are disappointed with the announcement.”

Full refunds for customers who purchased tickets for future use will be available at Compass until Jan. 17, 2014.

Devra Charney

The Silhouette

From Jan. 26-27, delegates from McMaster University’s Arts & Science and Integrated Science programs participated in the fourth annual Combining Two Cultures Conference, or C2C.

Established by Mac ArtSci students in 2010, C2C brings together interdisciplinary students from universities around Canada to discuss and develop interdisciplinary education through collaboration. While it originally focused primarily on interdisciplinary post-secondary education, it has grown to encompass the value of interdisciplinary studies in all aspects of problem solving in today’s world.

Leanna Katz, a recent ArtSci graduate, was part of the original steering committee that established the C2C conference. She recollected the initial enthusiasm for starting the conference and her astonishment that an interdisciplinary student-centred conference didn’t already exist.

“I loved so many aspects of the conference: the food was cooked from scratch by volunteers using ingredients from local farms, the working groups were developed and run by students from interdisciplinary programs across the country… All this gave the first C2C conference a distinctly McMaster ArtSci feel.”

Although Katz was part of the team who initiated C2C at Mac, she was also glad to see the conference through to its new hosts at the University of Waterloo.

“In the three years I was involved in planning C2C I was happy to see the conference move to another host university (the University of Waterloo, hosted by the Knowledge Integration Program) so that other interdisciplinary programs could take ownership of the conference for a period of time and give C2C their own flavour.”

This year, participants came from as far as McGill and University of British Columbia, as well as McMaster, Guelph and Windsor.

ArtSci and iSci students both engage in inquiry and problem-based learning that emphasizes cross-disciplinary exploration and coursework. Students at the conference spent their time thinking critically about why they chose to extend their focus across more than one area of study as well as the importance of interdisciplinary thinking in society.

Keynote speaker Payam Shalchian and panelists Tom Galloway, Vanessa Humphries, Jessica McEachren and Kathleen Beattie talked about their career paths in both arts and science disciplines, emphasizing that society has a demand for interdisciplinary perspectives. These individuals blurred the lines between seemingly distinct areas and made incredible innovations by combining their passions.

Working in the context of an overall theme of “boundaries,” discussion and problem-based learning facilitated insight into world issues, language, society and education. Discussion groups combined academics with inquiry in order to provide a constructive context for sharing and exploring diverse ideas. Skill sessions, new this year courtesy of Waterloo, provided an opportunity for hands-on learning.

Stephen Clare, a second-year Arts & Science student, felt that the conference presented a valuable opportunity to engage with highly ambitious students from across Canada.

“I attended the Creative Thinking skill session and we learnt practical ways of breaking through ‘mental boundaries”’ you may encounter working in teams or groups. It was very useful and a good way to break up the day.”

A panel for high school students was also added to the conference this year in order to investigate overcoming the difficulties of spanning across the disciplines while exploring the distinct opportunities it can bring to post-secondary education.

The C2C Conference will continue to run next year, being held at the University of Guelph. C2C 2013 provided a chance for students to engage creatively and discuss interdisciplinary studies in-depth in order to understand the benefits of breaking boundaries in both education and in the world.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced on Tuesday that they’d be playing their 2013 home games in Alumni Stadium at the University of Guelph.

No matter how much pride we might feel about the McMaster Marauders’ dominant season, we’ll have to mix it with a little shame. Our school could have, and should have, found a way to keep the CFL in Hamilton next year. Instead, the Tabbies will be sharing a field with this season’s Yates Cup runners-up.

McMaster represented the Tiger-Cats’ only hope of staying in Hamilton next season while they wait for the 2014 opening of their new facility, which will replace Ivor Wynne Stadium. The University made the decision in June that it wouldn’t host any games, forcing the franchise to look elsewhere for a temporary place of residence.

This wasn’t about money. The Tiger-Cats were prepared to take on the financial burden.

This wasn’t really about capacity either. Guelph’s stadium can hold 7,500 people and can be expanded to 12,000 to 15,000 seats. Ron Joyce Stadium at McMaster comes close, with 5,500 seats that can be expanded to 12,000 (some estimates suggested Ron Joyce could go as high as 17,000). But really, what does a little extra seating matter when your fans are in a different city?

TiCats management hopes that they can fill seats with a mix of diehard fans and a new crop of supporters from Guelph. After all, why should Guelph fans be any less deserving of a CFL team?

Sorry, Guelph, but you are less deserving. Since the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats joined forces in 1950, Hamiltonians have offered the team all the support they could ask for.

When the Tiger-Cats approached McMaster about playing home games on campus next season, the University needed to back up talk of community engagement by putting its stadium where its mouth was.

But it turned out that McMaster didn’t mean the whole city when it talked about community. When the University made a sudden decision to end discussions with the team after six months of dialogue and shut down the possibility of holding the 10 or 11 Sunday home games on campus, they were looking out for Westdale. The bubble.

Granted, while they might be Hamilton’s team, the Tiger-Cats aren’t Westdale’s team. Their fans of north-east Hamilton – a part of the city where most of the University’s students rarely tread – are blue collar. Pigskin Pete, the team’s unofficial fan-mascot since 1920, would seem out of place anywhere else. (Pete has been represented by four different men, whose primary duties were to don a jersey, and sometimes a fur coat, and lead the iconic “Oskie-Wee-Wee” chant in the stands.)

But even if the Tiger-Cats aren’t Westdale’s team, McMaster needed to assert that it was Hamilton’s university. It didn’t.

So thank you, U of Guelph, for being Hamilton’s university when McMaster could not.

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