Lycoming College

The second Warrior in school history to win the Most Outstanding Male Athlete Award and the Sol "Woody" Wolf Award, given to the junior athlete that has shown the most improvement in their first three seasons at Lycoming College, in the same season, Darius Dangerfield improved his scoring average nearly 200 percent from his freshman year as well as becoming a First Team All-MAC Commonwealth point guard on the conference's championship team to join Rich Henninger (1973, men's basketball) in the exclusive club.
 
"I want to thank Coach McGarvey," Dangerfield said. "Last season was a very up-and-down season. At the beginning of the season, it was all ups. We were all had a goal and were all ready to achieve it. As the season went on, things got harder and harder and I actually wanted to leave the program. I reached out to Coach McGarvey this summer and he gave me another chance and when he gave me that chance, he had that same faith in me that he had the first time he talked to me when he became head coach."
 
As a freshman, Dangerfield shot 33 percent from the field and averaged 5.5 points while serving as a backup on the Warriors before stepping into the starting lineup as a sophomore, when he averaged 11.8 points per game and nearly doubled his playing time.
 
"It started with his work ethic," McGarvey said. "He was in the gym a lot this year. You would see him in the morning, in the afternoon and on game days. He was vocal in ways that he wasn't his first couple seasons at Lycoming. That naturally happens when you become an upperclassman, but his confidence-level was so high because of the work he put in that he pulled others along with him."
 
As a junior, he was one of two upperclassmen on a team with 11 freshmen, as he helped turn the tide of the program under second-year head coach McGarvey. Dangerfield started the year by scoring at least 10 points in the first six games, leading the Warriors to an overtime win against rival Susquehanna by scoring 19 points and three assists, the first time in a stretch of four games he didn't have at least five assists. He reached 20 points for the first time in the season with 21 points and nine assists against Juniata. After arguably his worst game of the season, a 1-for-9 shooting performance against Messiah, he had one of the best games in program history, posting 31 points, 12 assists, eight 3-pointers and seven rebounds in a steamrolling of Hood.
 
"31 points and 12 assists in a win is one of the best individual performances that we had all season and one of the best in college basketball in my opinion," McGarvey said.
 
He scored at least 10 points in each of the team's last 10 games of the year. As the stakes increased, the Abingdon, Md., native became even more important. He earned the conference's defensive player of the week award after averaging 15.5 points, six assists, six and a half rebounds and two and a half steals the final week of the regular season.
 
"Darius meant everything to our team this year," McGarvey said. "His leadership on and off the court was instrumental in us having a chance to be a championship-level team. The impact he had on the court, as one of the best players on the team, but in the league and in the region, was really pivotal in us winning the championship."
 
In the MAC Commonwealth Championship, he was unstoppable, posting 16 points and nine dimes against Hood, 25 points, six assists and three steals against regular-season champs Widener and 22 points and four assists against Arcadia, leading the Warriors to an improbable worst-to-first championship.
 
By the time he finished the year ninth in the MAC Commonwealth with an average of 14.2 points per game and fourth with 4.7 assists, there was no doubt he had developed into a First Team All-Conference selection and he also earned second-team all-area honors from the City of Basketball Love.
 
Dangerfield is the first Warrior men's basketball player to earn the Most Outstanding Athlete Award since Greg Sye earned the award in 2009 and the 18^th in program history. He is the 13^th to win the Wolf Award and the first since Chris Wallace in 2017.