Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Boston University on December 13, 2025 , Win , 77, to, 64
Final
Men's Basketball
vs Boston University
77
64
Costa Rica Diary Day Seven
9/21/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dartmouth Men's Basketball
Costa Rica Day 7
Today was the last day of our trip, but we definitely went out with a bang in our white water rafting trip. Although the morning started with a 5:45 AM wake-up call, a 2 hour bus ride through a bumpy and winding canyon, and a quick pit stop so Adam Powers and Coach Deffebaugh could get out and take care of their car-sickness, the end result of our day was well worth it.
It's hard to describe this four hour trip down 17 miles of the Pacuare River, but I'm definitely going to try. Our team and coaches were split into three rafts of five or six people each with one guide. We set out on the river at 10:30 AM and got acquainted with our paddles and boats with some simple Class 1 and 2 rapids. However, regardless the simplicity of these rapids, Jarrett Mathis became our first casualty of the day and toppled out of his raft, as predicted by Marlon Sanders. This would just be the first of many falls Mathis would have, earning him the title of most "swimmers" of the day (or the most times falling out of the raft). He not only lost it in a Class 2 rapid, but he was also run over by the raft and his final spill of the day came after a larger rapid where no one in his boat seemed to notice that he was gone. As my boat floated up behind Jarrett's raft, we looked behind us and all of a sudden we saw Jarrett bobbing up and down in the river, all by himself, not within 40 feet of anyone. We all waved as we passed by, and the security kayaker had to go pull him to safety. 
Further down the river, we eventually faced our first Class 4 rapid, which, for my boat, proved to be a true test of our teamwork, skills and heart. As we came in contact with the canyon wall, our guide shouted for us to pile onto the left side of the boat so that we wouldn't tip. Coach Hurd heeded these commands and headed to my side of the boat, however instead of grabbing the side of the boat, he tackled me into the rapids. He then lost his balance and fell in on top of me. "No brakes (Shay) Berry" reached for Hurd's body as mine was being toppled against the rocks to the side. Leon Pattman and Johnathan Ball calmly sat at the bottom of the boat watching the activity, sparing themselves any pain, while leaving Hurd and I without sufficient help. Alex Barnett struggled to grab me out of the water, but as soon as I was in the boat, he knocked me right back in. At the same time, Coach Berry's "help" was actually holding Hurd under the water, and you could hear Hurd screaming, "Just let me go, Shay, just let me go!" Finally, Hurd and I were able to get back into the raft, Diego (our guide) yelled for us to get down, and he directed us through the rapids. This was just 30 minutes into our four hour trip. It looked like it was going to be a long day but we managed to turn things around and no more incidents like this took place.
After Coach Dunn couldn't handle the first easy rapid, and had to move to the much safer back of the raft, his raft had some trouble of its own. At one point, while traveling through a Class 3 rapids, the boat hit a large rock, and the dominos began to fall. Coach Deffebaugh lost his balance first, and began to fall in. At the same time he tried to grab Michael Giovacchini's life vest in order to save himself, almost resulting in Michael's demise. For some reason Adam lost his balance and followed Coach. Then finally, Brian McMillan lost his struggle to stay in the raft and fell to the river as well. What once used to be a boat of six, quickly turned into a boat of three, with none of the members anywhere to be found. Eventually the other rafts were able to pick up the scattered victims which had drifted much further down stream.
The conclusion of the trip consisted of slowly floating through a 1000 foot-long canyon lined with a half- dozen hundred-foot wate
rfalls. Since most of the trip was too fast-paced to take in all the scenery, this gave us some good time to take in all the beauty around us. We were able to get out of our rafts to float under the falls and enjoy the cool water and serene canyon. We were definitely in the midst of some of God's finest handiwork, which made this the perfect conclusion to a wonderful trip.
We sincerely want to thank Tim Austin and Lee Frederick of Sports Tours Inc. for putting together such a solid trip, and especially Tim for setting up all our meals, activity times, bus times and basically doing all the dirty work so that our trip ran smoothly. This trip helped us come closer as a team, on and off the floor, and we will hopefully benefit much from it greatly during this upcoming season. I feel pretty confident that the experiences we all had together on this trip were once-in-a-lifetime, and we'll have many great memories from this trip for years to come.
And to our freshmen in the Class of 2010 who are in Hanover, we'll be back to campus and Leede Arena soon, with plenty of details about the trip.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's BasketballMen's Basketball vs. Marist Postgame Press Conference 11-9-25
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MBB Post Game Press Conference versus Brown 3.1.25
Sunday, March 02
MBB Post Game Press Conference versus Yale 2.28.25
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MBB Post Game Press Conference vs Cornell 2.15.25
Sunday, February 16
