Sports
Athlete of the Week: Anthony Scarpino ’12
By Kendall Weir '12, Sports Editor
February 23, 2012
What good can come from taking a slapshot to the ear? In the case of Anthony Scarpino ’12, a lot.
Scarpino, who ranked third in scoring in the NESCAC this season, played his freshman ice hockey season for the Hobart College Statesmen before transferring to Hamilton.
“Long story short, things didn't work out there,” he said. Scarpino, from Meadville, PA, spent the latter half of his freshman season out with a concussion before deciding to look for another team. He spent an afternoon visit with former Hamilton Head Coach Norm Bazin, who now coaches the top-10 nationally ranked UMass Lowell team, and “the rest is history.”
Scarpino has had an extremely successful college career and has topped it off with a particularly exceptional senior season. He scored 31 points during the regular season, which put him behind just two players in the NESCAC, one of whom is teammate and linemate Mike DiMare ’14. He also scored a point in 10 straight games, a streak that was snapped in their regular season finale vs. Williams.
“I have great linemates in [DiMare] and Pat Curtis [’15],” said Scarpino. “We have gelled really well as a line and that chemistry makes playing easy at times.”
They could be the best line in the conference, having put up 80 points this season. DiMare, Scarpino and Curtis ranked first, second and third for the Continentals in scoring during the regular season, respectively.
“I have been very fortunate when it comes to consistent play,” he said, and he has been exactly that: Scarpino scored 77 points in 78 games during his time at Hamilton, and his incessantly high level of play has contributed to the team’s success over the years.
Scarpino is also very multi-faceted, as plenty of things keep him busy when he’s off the ice: he stays in shape in the offseason, spends summers on the lake with his family and even had a successful high school tennis career, making it to the district finals his senior year. However, he said “I was never able to leave my hockey attitude off the court, which got me into trouble.” He is surely a hockey player through and through, which goes unsaid if you have ever watched him play.
While Hamilton men’s ice hockey has had somewhat of a disappointing regular season after finishing first in the NESCAC last year, the Continentals are right back in the playoffs.
“Winning the school’s first regular season conference championship in the NESCAC is quite a feat,” Scarpino said, looking back to last year. “So this year the bulls eye was on us from the get go.”
That surely seems to have been the case throughout the regular season, as Hamilton has struggled in conference play this year. Instead of hosting a playoff game as the top seed, they will travel to Amherst to play the top-seeded host Lord
Jeffs on Feb. 25.
“But then again, last year we hosted and lost to [eighth-seeded] Wesleyan,” he said. “Hopefully we can play spoiler this year.”
Scarpino plans to travel to Sweden during spring recess to meet with teams about playing professional hockey overseas.