Day: March 1, 2015

Welcome to the 1,000 Point Club Amanda Congialdi

Posted By under Sports

By: Ana Elmasllari, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, ave5065@psu.edu

During halftime of the women’s basketball game in the gym, Sunday, January 18, Amanda Congialdi was honored with the 1000-point banner. As the newest member of the 1000-point-club, Congialdi is the first athlete since 2007 to be honored with Penn State Brandywine’s banner. She is third in standing of the six Brandywine women honored—with 1,267 total points. Despite missing six games in her junior year, she still managed to score over 1000 points since 2010.

In speaking with Congialdi, she mentioned she broke her ankle and couldn’t play for the rest of the season in 2010. So she focused on her mental preparation along with the obvious physical care and conditioning. During preseason she focused on taking good care of her ankle.

“It was important to overcome the mental hardships,” said Congialdi.

During the season, while bench-sitting, she had to block out any negative thoughts and try to enjoy the game—whether they won lost.

Amanda Congialdi didn’t stop there; she also joined Brandywine’s inaugural softball team as their starting catcher for most of the year. In its first season, the team finished in the final four.

“I was proud to have been a part of such a magical season and Brandywine’s first ever,” she said.  “I enjoyed being part of the history that we are forming at Brandywine.”

When she spoke about her experiences she credited Brandywine’s Athletic Director, Jim Gastner. He was a motivator who didn’t give up on her and always pushed her through the difficult times.

“I don’t care what it takes, if I have to drag you to get you to graduate, I will,” said Congialdi

These are words that stuck with Congialdi.

“My coach, and the passion that I had for basketball, is what helped me stay on top of my work.”

She feels that if a person is not procrastinating and is able to manage time wisely, he or she is able to balance schoolwork and sports.

“There had been times where I didn’t manage my time as well as I could have, but I learned. I set priorities and stuck to them,” said Congialdi.

Amanda Congialdi will be receiving her degree in corporate communications in May, 2015. She already has plans to join the military but hasn’t set her mind on what kind of work she will do there.

“I’ve always wanted to make a difference and do something commendable, and joining the military seems like it fits my needs,” said Congialdi.

We know she will make a difference.

Soccer Honored for Second Consecutive Title

Posted By under Sports

By: Jake Gibbons, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, jmg6174@psu.edu

By now the news of the soccer team’s recently stunning performance has probably spread throughout all of Penn State’s campuses, but on Thursday, Jan 29, the team’s impressive achievement was immortalized in Brandywine’s gym.

For any who don’t yet know, the achievement in question is Brandywine Men’s Soccer securing the coveted PSUAC title by beating out Penn State York 1-0 last October, the victory being the last of fourteen consecutive victories in total that season, making them undefeated. What makes this even more significant is that this is the team’s second consecutive title, and it granted them access to the USCAA National Championships. This is the first time since 1997 since a Brandywine team has been able to pull off such a feat.

To commemorate the occasion, a small ceremony took place during the halftime period of the basketball game against York. After the coach said a few words and expressed his pride in the team, each individual member was called up to the half court line. A banner marking their tremendous feat was then unveiled, commemorating the occasion for years to come.

In addition, player Manny Weldemicael was congratulated for his acceptance into the Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All American Team, a prestigious accolade that requires one to hold both a high GPA and significant status on their athletic team, as voted on by the College Sports Information Directors of America. Manny is not only the first ever Brandywine student to receive this honor, but also the first ever college division athlete from the entire state, male or female.

After the ceremony, Brad Jule, a captain of the soccer team and recent fall graduate, was available for comment.

“The team performed really well this past season, and we were actually undefeated.  We had a lot of returning players to help out as well,” Jule stated.

Brad also feels confident about the team’s future seasons. Though they are losing a couple seniors, the team has a lot of incoming freshman who are ready and willing to perform, and the team is always looking to cull more prospective players from some of Penn State’s other campuses.

All of Brandywine’s future soccer teams and future students will be able to look at the banner and remember the 2014 team’s achievement for years to come. With freshmen rolling in every semester, and returning players from last season, Brandywine just might be able to hold this title next year as well. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Assassins Creed: Unity – A Good framework

Posted By under Entertainment

By: Jake Gibbons, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, jmg6173@psu.edu

I’d like to begin by saying that I’ve never had any serious experience with the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and my knowledge of the series before I began was limited to the ranting and raving of friends and relatives and about five cumulative minutes of total seat time spread out across a the years since the series’ conception. So, after being subjected to an especially long and almost violent rant given by my close friend about the latest title, Unity, I decided now is the time to try the game for myself and see just what eight titles worth of hype is actually like.

Unity is the latest game in the series, and the second one to appear on next-generation consoles (PS4/Xbox One). The story follows Arno Dorian, a son of a nobleman, during the heat of the French Revolution in the late 18th century. After Arno’s father is killed, he learns that his father was part of a secret and ancient order of assassins, which he must join in order to uncover the true force behind the revolution and defeat the Assassins’ rival faction, called the Templars.

The story is littered with history, merging real world events and historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte and King Louis XVI with a fictional sort of sub-storyline. Overall, it’s an interesting theme, but not much else; the narrative is fairly weak and at the end you don’t really care about what happens to Arno one way or the other. The Assassins and the Templars are a long standing theme of the series, and the game is presented as though you are a descendant of the Assassin bloodline in the present and have to use a Templar developed system to access past memories and develop the story. It’s all sort of confusing and, honestly, a bit silly.

As this is a next-gen game the developers of Unity intended to use every ounce of the new consoles’ processing power, and it shows. The game is a gorgeous thing to behold, each district of Paris pulsing with life, all with a distinct feel and culture that oozes from every wall of every home, church, and palace. There are a number of side missions in Unity (which you’ll want to play) which help to define them even more; things like murder mysteries, heists, assassination contracts, or entirely separate subplots. The character customization is strong too, with a slew of weapons, armor, color schemes, abilities, and equipment to suit individual play style, from stealthy tactician to haphazard barnstormer.

Though the game looks amazing, playing it isn’t as rewarding. Before you actually start the game for the first time, there are nearly seven gigabytes of patches and fixes to install, and even with those in place, the gameplay is still shaky at best, with a lot of frame skips, glitches, and general awkwardness, especially with the game’s free running system, which never really gets your character to do exactly what you want. This, coupled with torturous loading screens, makes it feel like a remastered PS3 game instead of a brand new title.

Multiplayer is where Unity really begins to come alive.  Four players can freely roam Paris and complete jobs together, or a player can jump right into another’s solo session and request assistance. Each online mission follows a separate storyline as well for some added depth to the online play. This system is all new for Unity and it serves as an excellent framework for all future titles to be based on.

Sadly, I cannot compare this game seriously to the others in the series, and sadly, I have only a finite amount of space to tell about Unity. After playing it, I feel like raving for hours like my friend did to me before I experienced it.

Since I can’t do that, just think of it like this: everything it does well, it really does well, and everything it does wrong it really does wrong.

If they keep the good and ditch the bad, the next installment will be the stuff of legend.

The Story of America’s Deadliest Sniper

Posted By under Entertainment

By: Dan Ketler, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, dmk5614@psu.edu

Earlier this month the highly anticipated Oscar-nominee film, American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood, premiered nationwide in select theaters. This incredible true story depicts the life and events of the world’s deadliest sniper, Chris Kyle. Kyle was a sharpshooter in the United States Navy SEALs.

The Texas native accounted for 160 confirmed kills from four tours in the Iraqi war. As much as this movie was about Kyle’s astounding military career, it also helped spread awareness about a very serious psychological disorder known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

In American Sniper, Chris Kyle, is portrayed by actor Bradley Cooper—who gives an incredible performance to pay tribute to the war veteran. The movie begins on the rooftops of a building in Iraq. It sends a powerful message to viewers right off the bat. Sniper begins showing a young Chris Kyle preparing to take down his first victims: a woman and a child who were about to blow up a tank with a rocket launcher. Just before he pulls the trigger, the screen switches to flashbacks of Kyle’s childhood: Kyle running around with his younger brother, hunting with his father, and even later as a rodeo-horseback rider. Each event shows how this man was shaped and molded into the most deadly sharpshooter the Navy SEALs have ever seen.

As the movie goes on, Chris Kyle fulfills his duties as a soldier, yet begins to struggle as he returns home to his wife, Taya, played by Sienna Miller. Taya sees what the war is doing to her husband yet she can’t deny him his loyalty to protecting his “brothers” and his country. Through relentless psychological pain, she allows him to go on not one, but four tours to Iraq. When he comes back from war, you can clearly see he has left a piece of himself behind, metaphorically speaking, each time he leaves Iraq. Cooper does a great job showing this because you can really see how his mind is gradually deteriorating.

When Kyle returns home from his final tour, after being awarded many medals and being honorably discharged, he is not the same Chris we met in the beginning of the movie. He sits and keeps to himself, lacking any emotion at all and is stuck in the terror and agony of his duties. All he can focus on is the endless sounds of war. It becomes clearer that what helps calm his terrors is helping those who were involved in war, his military brethren.

This story is brilliantly told, not only by the amazing acting talents of Cooper, who most definitely deserves to win an Oscar for his performance, but also by the powerful messages embedded in each scene by Clint Eastwood. For those of you who don’t really care for films involving war and bloodshed, I still highly recommend seeing this film. As much as it is gruesome and terrifying, I think everyone can come to understand and respect what this film is really about. I guarantee you will not leave the theater disappointed.

One Button Studio Simplifies Production with the Click of a Button

Posted By under Campus News

By: Paula Scott Lions Eye Staff Editor, pms5152@psu.edu

Multimedia production has just been simplified. By inserting a flash drive and clicking one button, the camera, microphone and pre-set lighting turn on, eliminating the tedious studio setup.

Students enrolled in multimedia production courses aren’t the only ones who will find this new studio useful.

“Many courses are now requiring a multimedia aspect to accompany projects,”said Brandywine’s head librarian Susan Ware.

Subjects including sociology, business, psychology, speech and earth sciences may also find this newest extension from Penn State Main quite handy. Originally called the Presentation Practice Room, by project manager Justin Miller of Penn State Information Technology Services, the One Button Studio is a perfect place to practice.

Students can practice presentations, record classroom presentations, and extracurricular club promotions or produce a creative media project without the hassle of setting or clean up. This studio is also great for faculty who wish to create demonstration models, record a lecture, present research papers or to record an introduction for an online class!

Editing can be achieved through the many resources including Garage Band and iMovie that are provided in the Media Commons section located in the back of Vairo.

The One Button Studio’s open house on Jan. 29, gave faculty and students the opportunity to see what the new studio had to offer, while providing a few demos. Features of the room include a blue and green screen that the user can easily toggle from one to the other with a switch. The studio is also equipped with lighting, a microphone, a computer and projector to show PowerPoint presentations on the screen during recording.

Students and faculty can block off hour time slots by visiting the front desk. University libraries funded the equipment and the project was completed over the duration of winter break.

“The Vairo Library staff welcome student feedback and recommendations for added props and staging that might make the One Button Studio even more useful,” said Susan Ware.

Students, come and check out the studio located in room 201A in Vairo!

Brandywine Welcomes King Family to THON’s Annual Chance Auction

Posted By under Campus News

By: Ana Elmasllari, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, ave5065@psu.edu

On Friday, January 16 at 6 p.m., the King family joined friends and family of Brandywine’s THON members for the first time at THON’s Annual Chance Auction in the Tomezsko Building. THON is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world that raises money for kids with cancer.

This year the King Family is Brandywine’s THON family. They have been a part of the Four Diamonds Fund since March 2014. The THON members tried to be calm and not overwhelm them when meeting their THON family for the first time. Mr. and Mrs. King walked in at the event very excited to meet their whole Thon Organization.

The King Family consists of 3 girls and twin boys. One of the boys, 10-year old Trevor, is a cancer survivor. He has been clear for about six months now but he is still going to Hershey Medical Center for checkups once a month. Trevor will be finishing treatment at Hershey Medical Center in the summer of 2015.

Students, faculty and the community wrapped many baskets together to auction off on Friday night. Everyone was excited to play and to win the beautifully crafted baskets. Each basket had its own unique and clever name. One of the baskets was filled with different Legos and the name of the basket was “Building Dreams.” The King family ended up winning a few of them.

Each year THON introduces a different theme and this year’s theme is Empower the Dreamers, which was the inspiration for each baskets name.The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, known as THON, is a yearlong effort to raise funds and awareness for the fight against pediatric cancer. THON has raised over $114 million for the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital since when it first started in 1977.

The year culminates with a 46-hour no-sitting, no-sleeping dance marathon known as THON Weekend. This event is held at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center each year in the month of February. In 2014, THON raised a record-breaking $13.34 million and was able to donate 96% of funds raised directly to Four Diamonds. Visit  THON’s official website, www.Thon.org to learn more about THON and/or donate.

Girls Basketball Rebounds

Posted By under Sports

By: Jake Gibbons, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, jmg6173@psu.edu

Mid-February saw some important events in Brandywine sports, as both the women’s and men’s basketball teams played back-to-back on Sunday, February 8.  The women’s team’s win Tuesday night, February 10, and in the space between it all we were able to honor three of the day’s, and indeed the season’s, most valuable contributors.

Brandywine’s women’s basketball team has been nearly unstoppable as of late, with a 17-7 (12-2 PSUAC) record and some remarkable talent to boot. This past Sunday, the team was able to bounce back after two consecutive losses with a 74-63 victory over Penn State Scranton. This marked an important turnaround for the team, as before the two losses, the team was undefeated, and was one of four teams in the PSUAC with two losses on record.

The momentum from Sunday’s victory carried from there into Tuesday night with another victory against Penn State Schuylkill, this time winning 67-58. This victory secured for the team the No. 1 seed and a chance of becoming the regular season champs, assuming Friday’s, February 13, game between Penn State Beaver and Penn State Greater Allegheny ends in our favor. In addition, Brandywine has also earned a spot in the PSUAC tournament set to happen the week of February 15.

Sunday was also Senior Day for the women’s team, and prior to the 1:00 p.m. game against Scranton the team’s only two seniors, Ebony Ford and Myeisha Matos, were honored with a small ceremony and an assortment of gifts and flowers. Both were key elements in the game that followed, each playing at their peak and Matos making two free throws late in the first half.

The men’s basketball team wasn’t so lucky, having suffered two consecutive losses that week. The first was to Schuylkill, the final score being 71-57, and the second also to Schuylkill two nights later with a heartbreaking final score of 75-74, with Schuylkill eking out a lead with a buzzer beater in the final seconds of the game.

However, the news wasn’t all negative. During halftime of Sunday’s game, another ceremony was held for Vince Screnci, who works on the scoring table at every home game. Screnci began working at Brandywine in the 1990s when he was still enrolled as a student, and as of Sunday has been doing so for twenty years. In recognition, an engraved plaque was hung in the Commons Building.

This past week was a time for celebration, a time for disappointment, and also a time for recognizing the hard work that every member of both teams put in routinely both on and off the court. The PSUAC tournament is fast approaching, and though we appear in pretty good stead at the moment, only time will tell if all of the work put in was worth it.