In NESCAC basketball, Sam Peek \u201918 needs no introduction. The senior guard from Wesleyan University dominated the top DIII league in the country this year, and his team\u2019s success certainly followed. Wesleyan hosted the NESCAC tournament, sweeping the field for a conference title in front of 1,300 fans. Just before the tournament, Peek was named the league\u2019s top player.<\/p>\n
After a canceled season due to COVID, Wesleyan returned Peek along with a core of sophomore stars \u2014 now grown into senior form. \u201cI knew I was the leader of the team,\u201d Peek said. \u201cWhich was hard because I had to find the balance of being the man, but also being a team player to let other guys do their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peek had been part of a dynamic group since joining Trinity-Pawling. His senior teammates Nikkei Rutty \u201918 (Monmouth), Beau Smith \u201918 (Babson), and Korey Lee \u201918 (Mercy) have continued to stay in touch throughout their collegiate playing careers.<\/p>\n
Peek\u2019s move from Poughkeepsie public school to Trinity-Pawling was challenging but prepared him to excel in the next chapter as an athlete and student. \u201cThe NEPSAC is super competitive \u2014 coming to T-P was a huge adjustment,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was more physical, guys were more talented.\u201d On the academic side, he explained, \u201cTime management was huge \u2014 with free blocks at T-P, sometimes you got to hang out and sometimes you had to put in more effort to get some work done. It was the first time I had to set my own schedule, so I found the transition [to college] a lot smoother than some kids coming from public school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that his time at Wesleyan has come to an end \u2014 Wesleyan lost to RPI in the NCAA tournament \u2014 Peek is looking ahead to the next steps in his basketball career. Most athletes exit the tournament saying goodbye to their sport, but thanks to COVID, Peek has retained a year of eligibility. Peek took home First Team All-American honors, as announced by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) on March 16. He hopes to get some looks from Division I coaches for his final year of NCAA eligibility \u2014 prominent 6’5″ shooters who transferred D1 after dominating the NESCAC have ended up in the NBA. No matter where he lands, the Trinity-Pawling community will keep cheering on Peek from Pawling \u2014 Roll Pride!<\/p>\n
by Cyrus Rothwell-Ferraris<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In NESCAC basketball, Sam Peek \u201918 needs no introduction. The senior guard from Wesleyan University dominated the top DIII league in the country this year, and his team\u2019s success certainly followed. Wesleyan hosted the NESCAC tournament, sweeping the field for a conference title in front of 1,300 fans. Just before the tournament, Peek was named […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-march-2022"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"ON THE RISE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4501,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions\/4501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}