200 Memories Central

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Welcome back to our celebration of 200 moments, memories, coaches and student-athletes from the history of Lycoming College athletics. In this ninth series of moments, we take a look at a wrestling dynasty, the first football championship in school history and the replacing of the Hilltop Gymnasium.

With no more ado, here are moments 81-90 in our series of 200:

81. Deb Holmes, 1976-09 - For 34 seasons, Deb Holmes was the heart and soul of the Lycoming College women’s tennis team. Along the way, she accumulated a school-record 137 wins, supervised the team to 10 straight winning seasons from 1993-2002 and led the team to four regular-season conference titles (1981, 1997, 1998, 2000). The Warriors made eight appearances in the MAC playoffs during her tenure and two made the conference’s title match.  She also coached 1999 MAC Individual Champion Cricket Temple. Her impact was larger than on the tennis courts, though, as she also served as the head of the physical education department and was the school’s first women’s basketball coach. During her seven seasons on the hardcourt from 1978-85, Holmes helped the team to its first winning season (10-9) in 1981-82. As part of her master’s thesis, she also wrote a history of the men’s athletic programs at Lycoming College.

82. Jeff Billman, 1977 – A 6-6 forward from Tamacqua, Pa., Jeff Billman improved throughout his time with the Warriors, developing from a player that averaged just 1.7 points and 2.1 rebounds as a freshman into a three-year starter who became one of the team’s top scorers and rebounders. As a sophomore, he helped lead the Warriors to the Middle Atlantic Conference Northern Division Semifinals and as a junior, he scored more than 300 points and averaged 7.8 rebounds per game. As a senior, Billman averaged 12.7 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, helping him earn Honorable Mention Academic All-American honors. Billman was the third athlete in the school’s history to earn the honor and the second men’s basketball player.

83. A three-peat, 1977-79 – While the Lycoming wrestling team had finished as runners-up in the Middle Atlantic Conference three times and only finishing lower than fourth once between 1962 and 1977, the team couldn’t win its second conference title for Budd Whitehill. In 1977, though, the Warriors, led by conference titles from Harry Shaw at 142 pounds, Craig Savitsky at 150, Randy Parsons at 190 and Dick Driver at heavyweight, posted a dominating 92.5 points to take the title by 29 points over second-place Elizabethtown. Three grapplers went on to earn All-American honors in Savitsky, Shaw and Steve Borja. The next season, the Warriors placed eight of their 10 wrestlers in the top three to become the first program in school history to repeat as school champions, posting 131 points to outdistance second-place Gettysburg, which posted 100 points. Driver won his second title and Ed Allen won the title at 190 pounds. The team completed the trifecta in 1979, as John O’Shea (118), Chris Tremel (167), Tim Spruill (177) and Driver (heavyweight) each won titles to lead the team to the title. Tremel and Spruill each went on to become All-Americans. The three titles helped start one of the greatest periods of prosperity in the history of the program, as Whitehill led the Warriors to nine conference titles in 14 years between 1977 and 1990, as the team never finished worse than second during that period.

84. Cindy Kellogg, 1974-77 – The only woman included in the inaugural class of the Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame, Cindy Kellogg was one of the best athletes of the late 1970s. A defender on the field hockey team, Kellogg was a four-year starter and while serving as a captain as a senior, she led the team to a 4-4-1 record. In all, Kellogg helped the field hockey program to two .500 campaigns and three appearances in the league playoffs. A native of Wall, N.J., she was also the 1978 Pocahontas Award winner.

85. MAC Northern Division Champions, 1978 – After the season, head coach Frank Girardi told the campus newspaper, The Spectator, “Anyone wants…to turn [the] program around and bring it to the point where they feel they can play with anybody in the league. Eventually, he wants to win the division championship.” Picked to finish fourth in the preseason, the Warriors shocked the MAC, winning its first four league games, beating Albright, Wilkes, Susquehanna and Delaware Valley before falling to Juniata, setting up a dramatic finish. Hosting Upsala, the Warriors fell behind 10-9 with four minutes left. Getting the ball at their own 15-yard line, the team marched 75 yards, setting up a 27-yard game-winning field goal from Robbie Bleistein with 32 seconds left. The next week, Wilkes, who had fallen to Lycoming 41-8, upset Juniata for its second league loss, helping the Warriors take the first MAC crown in school history. At the end of the season, nine players were named First Team All-MAC, including running back Kevin McVey, who left Lycoming with seven school records, including a then-record 16 career touchdowns to help lead the team to the title.

86. Dominic Johnson, 1978 – From Willingboro, N.J., Dominic Johnson capped his career as a Warrior in fine style, as he posted wins in the discus throw in all eight dual meets for the Warriors and became the first Middle Atlantic Conference champion in a number of years, as he flung the discus 134-9 to beat Chris Faber of Franklin & Marshall by one inch to claim the title. Johnson also served as an offensive lineman for the football team for four years, earning All-MAC First Team accolades as a junior and senior. He went on to serve in the military for 27 years before retiring in 2005 and settling in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

87. Rick Burd, 1978-80 – When Lycoming College picked up a transfer from Lock Haven in 1978, it may have just found the missing link. A dynamic passing quarterback, Burd led the Warriors to their first Middle Atlantic Conference North title, leading the team on a game-winning drive against Upsala to clinch the title. For the next three years, he led the MAC in passing yards. In 1979, he led the team to a second MAC title and its first undefeated MAC run, as the team finished 6-0-1 and he earned MAC Player of the Year honors. As a senior, he became the first quarterback in school history to pass for more than 2,000 yards as he earned First Team All-MAC honors for the third time and his first Honorable Mention Little All-American honors from the Associated Press. Despite playing just three years, Burd left Lycoming with nearly every passing school record and he is still in the top 10 in school history in 25 all-time and single-season rankings. He earned the Tomahawk Award as the Most Outstanding Athlete at the College to cap his career in 1981. Burd was a member of the first class of the Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986 and his number, 11, was retired by the school.  

88. Deborah McCarthy, 1979 -    In 1979, women’s soccer at small college was virtually unheard of – Lycoming College, Susquehanna University and even Penn State didn’t begin their programs until 1994. So when Deborah McCarthy came to Williamsport from Jackson, N.J., after playing club soccer in her hometown, she wanted to continue playing. She stepped onto a men’s soccer team that finished 0-12-1 in 1978 and was coached by first-year coach J. Scott McNeil. McCarthy appeared in several games as a reserve and she was part of a six-win improvement, as the team finished 6-6 overall. At the end of the year, McCarthy switched gears, though, and competed on the field hockey team for her remaining three years at the school. Still, she cemented her place in the school’s annals as the first woman to play soccer at the College.

89. Lamade Gym, 1980-Pres. – More than two decades in the making, a new gymnasium at Lycoming College seemed like a faraway dream, even when construction was begun on the building. When President Frederick E. Blumer took over at Lycoming College in 1976, it was made his priority to replace the claustrophobic Hilltop Gymnasium. The basketball court was physically too small, there was barely any seating. The pool was just as small. It had been a priority of the school to replace the building with a modern gymnasium for years. Originally, the new arena was set to be constructed soon after the completion of College Field (now David Person Field) at the Union Avenue complex. However, more pressing buildings on campus needed to be completed first, such as the Academic Center. Finally, in the late ’70s, the reigns of the project were handed to Blumer and four years later, the new building, complete with a 2,000-seat gymnasium and 400-seat pool was finished. When the building was opened, several former members of the Lycoming community who waited so long to see the new gym were there, including Bishop Frederick Wertz, who was president of the school from 1955-68, and former director of athletics David Busey, who had retired in 1974. The large wooden-floor gymnasium allows for two full volleyball courts and plenty of additional basketball practice space, while the facility comes complete with locker rooms for each team. Named after George R. Lamade, the publisher of former Williamsport-based weekly publication, GRIT, the building has produced many headline-inducing moments since its opening, including serving as the host of seven volleyball conference title teams, 11 wrestling conference title teams, two men's basketball conference title teams and one women's basketball conference title team. The gym also serves as host to the Budd Whitehill National Duals each winter, as the Warrior wrestling program hosts a two-day tournament on four mats amongst 20 of the finest teams in Division III.

90. Phil Stolfi, 1981 – Lycoming wrestling had never endured a season like the one it did in 1980-81. Indeed, in the late ’70s, the predicament that the Warriors got themselves into in the winter of 1981 would have seemed absurd. After taking three straight Middle Atlantic Conference titles from 1977-79, the team suffered through just the third losing season in the 25 years of the program. Of course, finishing 8-9 was deceiving on a Budd Whitehill-coached team. Besides injuries that hurt the team, the Warriors went 6-2 against Division III opponents. Still, headed into the MAC Championships, the Warriors were decided underdogs, especially after conference favorite Delaware Valley handed the Warriors a 31-14 loss in January. The Warriors didn’t back down at the tournament, and with a big lift from undersized junior Phil Stolfi, the team took its fourth title in five years. After posting a 1-9-1 dual meet record, Stolfi reeled off four straight wins, including beating the defending conference champion, Dave Chute of Elizabethtown, en route to one of the most unlikely of the program’s 106 total MAC individual champions. Stolfi, who placed sixth at the conference meet as a sophomore at heavyweight, came back as a senior to post a 20-7 record en route to a third-place finish at 177 pounds at the conference meet.

We hope you enjoyed our ninth look at 200 Memories. Stay tuned on Friday, Dec. 23, as moments 91-100 will be released, with moments capturing the period from 1982-1986, including one of the school’s most dedicated fans, a pair of swimming All-Americans and the first women’s basketball All-American.

As always, if you feel we missed an event or two that can be deemed a memorable moment or a memorable student-athlete, please share them. Tell us why they are special and any information you may have about that moment or person by contacting Sports Information Director Joe Guistina at guistina@lycoming.edu. Special addendums with your feedback will be released following the conclusion of the list in 2012.