Erica Serpico and Adam Estoclet Named Dartmouth Athletes of the Week

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.

A pair of career days set diver Erica Serpico (Moorestown, N.J.) and skater Adam Estoclet (Orono, Minn.) apart from the crowd, earning them Dartmouth Athlete of the Week honors. Serpico broke a 12-year old Karl Michael Pool record in the one-meter dive while Estoclet was busy scoring four goals, including his first career hat trick, against Brown and Yale at Thompson Arena.

Dartmouth Female Athlete of the Week:
Erica Serpico (Moorestown, N.J.), Women's Diving, Sophomore
Dartmouth sophomore diver Erica Serpico (Moorestown, N.J.) had a tremendous weekend, winning all four of the events in which she competed in two dual meets. Serpico handily won the one and three-meter events both at Vermont on Saturday and against Boston University at home on Sunday. At Vermont, Serpico led a charge in which Dartmouth swept first through third places in both events. Teammate Katie O'Brien also took second in both events against the Terriers. The icing on the cake for Serpico came in the form of a Karl Michael Pool record with a score of 296.69 in the one-meter dive.

You had a successful weekend, winning all four of your events. How physically demanding is competing in both events on back-to-back days?
It is difficult having two meets in one weekend because a swim meet can last up to five or six hours when both men and women are competing. This makes diving more of a mental challenge because there is a lot of waiting around. When the diving starts up again in the middle of the swim meet, I have to stay focused in order to do my dives consistently and contribute points to the swim team.

To what do you attribute your success this season?
This season I think that I am jumping higher than last season, and I also am getting more comfortable with my dives. My coach helps me do my dives on the dryboard (where there is a spinning belt, a twisting belt, and a pulley system so that he can have me land safely on mats), and I think doing this two or three times a week has made a big difference as well.

Against BU, you broke a 12-year old pool record in the one-meter. What did that feel like? Are the Dartmouth and pool records something that motivate you?
I was happy to finally have broken a record this season. The records definitely motivate me because the scores are very attainable with the dives that I do and how I perform them in practice. I have had a few meets where I have been a few points away from the records so I just have to keep having solid meets.

What is the mindset of the team after training during break and returning for the bulk of the dual meet schedule?
I think that this weekend went very well for the dive team in that we placed very well on 3 meter and went 1, 2 on 1 meter. We definitely want to help out the swim team by doing our best in the next couple of meets, but the meets coming up will be tough, particularly this weekend against Yale and Penn.

Dartmouth Male Athlete of the Week:
Adam Estoclet (Orono, Minn.), Men's Ice Hockey, Forward, Junior
Junior forward Adam Estoclet (Orono, Minn.) earned his first ECAC Hockey Player of the Week honors of the season after picking up four goals against Brown and Yale. Thanks to his first career hat-trick, Estoclet was one of six players to record a goal in a 9-4 victory over Brown on Friday. He scored the first two goals of the game to help give the Big Green a four-goal lead before the Bears scored for the first time. With Dartmouth's first power play goal of the game late in the third period, Estoclet recorded the Big Green's first hat trick since 2006. The next night against Yale, down 3-0, Estoclet took a pass from his linemate and blasted the puck into the back of the net as he sparked a mini-rally for the Big Green.

Currently he is second on the team in scoring with 14 points. Estoclet is 15th in the ECAC in scoring, 10th in goal scoring and eighth in power play points.

How exciting was it to get your first hat trick.
It was pretty exciting, especially since we haven't had one here at Dartmouth in quite awhile. I had a few in high school but obviously it means a lot more here.

How nice was it to be back in the lineup and get back to scoring?
When I came back from an injury we lost both games and there wasn't a lot of scoring going on. But we had a good meeting before the Brown game and we were excited going into the games. It really got my confidence going.

How important was the 9-4 win for the team?
It was huge. We knew we needed to get something going. Even though we lost to Yale, it was still a positive weekend and hopefully we'll take that momentum with us for the rest of the season. We're always trying to say that we need to at least have fun. The good thing is we know it's within us, we just have to find it. As long as we're playing well at the end of the season, that's all that matters.

You play UNH at Verizon this weekend, how exciting is it for you guys to play down there?
It's a blast to play down there. It gives us a chance to play in a big rink. It's a big game for us and it's always exciting to play in front of a lot of people.

You've been one of our most consistent scorers the last two years. Do you expect a lot of yourself because of that?
It's frustrating when we win a game, 9-4 but the next night we don't score until the third period. I played 35 minutes against Yale before I scored. You try not to think about pressure, we've got four lines that can score but we need more consistency and that's something we're going to continue to work on.

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