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 12th series of moments, we take a look at the last individual national champion in the Budd Whitehill era, the starts of the careers of two of the longest tenured coaches in school history and the emergence of the men’s soccer program as a force in the Freedom Conference.

With no more ado, here are moments 111-120 in our series of 200:

111. Kim Wood, 1987-90 – From Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, Pa., Kim Wood transferred into Lycoming College as a sophomore and continued to transform the Warrior women’s basketball team into one of the toughest to beat in the Middle Atlantic Region over the next three years. A three-time First Team All-MAC selection, Wood immediately helped lead the Warriors to the first NCAA Tournament in school history in 1987-88, averaging 11.8 points per game and adding 114 assists and 74 steals. As a junior, she was even better, averaging 15.7 points per game and setting school records with 175 assists and 83 steals. During her senior year, the point guard capped her career in fine style, earning all-region honors and the league’s MVP honors while leading the Warriors to the MAC Championship game. She averaged a career-best 17.5 points per game and capped her career by crossing 1,000 career points. More than 20 years after her graduation, Wood still holds no less than nine school records, including career 3-point field goal percentage (.393), assists (425) and steals (239). She was inducted into the College’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1997.

112. Troy Gardner, 1990 – After not finishing higher than fourth at the Middle Atlantic Conference Championships during his first three years with the Warriors, the 167-pound Troy Gardner made one of the greatest leaps in the wrestling program’s history as a senior. Gardner placed fifth at the conference championships his first two years and then followed that by taking fourth at 158 pounds as a junior with a 23-6 record. As a senior, though, he was spectacular, as he moved up to 167 pounds and quickly solidified the spot in the lineup, losing just once during the regular season before winning the MAC title. At the NCAA Championships, he was even better, rolling into the finals and outlasting Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s Tom Weix, 7-7, 3-2, to help lead the Warriors to a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Division III Championships, the first time since 1977 that the team posted a top 10 finish. Gardner, who finished with an 83-24 career record, was inducted into the College’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000.

113. Sonny Kirkpatrick, 1992-99 – When Sonny Kirkpatrick came to Lycoming College as a biology major in 1987, he came as a goaltender on the men’s soccer team, where he earned three letters. It was his work behind the scenes, as he helped form a club volleyball team and helped women’s volleyball become a varsity sport in 1988. It was just the sixth women’s sport at the College. Coaching had to suffice for the all-state honoree from Mt. Wolf, Pa., as men’s volleyball never took root at the school and just a year after his graduation in 1991, he took over the women’s volleyball program. The former defensive specialist had a humbling first year, finishing 0-16 and winning just two sets all year, but he immediately went about rebooting the squad. While expanding the team’s schedule and beginning to land outstanding recruits like 1996 Freedom League Player of the Year Jill Sheeley and two-time player of the year Tracey Hracho, the team got exponentially better, winning nine matches in 1993, 13 in 1994 and 22 in 1995 while winning the first of four straight Freedom League titles. Overall, Kirkpatrick compiled a 144-103 (.583) record, two NCAA Division III Tournaments and he coached 23 all-conference selections. Kirkpatrick left Lycoming after the 1999 season to take the head coaching position at Division II Francis Marion University, where he served for six years and won a Peach Belt title. He moved on to Division I Troy University, where he has built the Trojans into a squad that finished with a winning record for the first time since 2003 in 2011. In all, Kirkpatrick has won more than 200 matches in 19 years.

114. Christen Ditzler, 1993-present - One of the most well-respected coaches and athletic administrators in the Middle Atlantic region, Franklin & Marshall College graduate Christen Ditzler has left her mark across the growth of women’s athletics at the school for 20 years. Along the way, the women’s basketball program has reeled in more than 200 wins and posted six appearances in the conference playoffs. Ditzler has coached 14 all-conference selections and one conference player of the year on the hardwood along with two Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame members. She has also earned two conference coach of the year awards. Ditzler led her 1996-97 team to a 17-10 record, earning a berth in the NCAA tournament and a runner-up finish in the Freedom League. For her efforts, Ditzler was named both the Freedom League and Columbus Multimedia’s Middle Atlantic Region Coach of the Year. Ditzler also had a profound impact on the growth of Lycoming’s softball program, serving as head coach from 1993-2008, where she won a program-record 235 wins. She helped the team reach 10 conference playoffs in 16 years, coaching 40 all-conference selections, two conference rookies of the year and one conference pitcher of the year. She earned the Freedom Conference's Coach of the Year award twice.

115. Roger Crebs, 1993-present - For 23 of the Lycoming College wrestling program’s 56 years, Roger Crebs has meant one thing to the program - success. A three-time MAC champion from 1984-86, Crebs was handpicked by the legendary Budd Whitehill when he ended a run of 37 years as head coach in 1993. It may have been one of the best decisions of Whitehill’s career. From his first season, when he was recognized as the NCAA Division III Rookie Coach of the Year to the 2010-11 season, when the Warriors wrapped up their 25th straight winning season, Crebs has kept his program in the center of the Division III national spotlight. Along the way, Crebs has picked up 308 dual meet wins, coached 43 conference champions, 19 All-Americans and four national champions. He has also coached all five of the school’s 100-match winners. In 2010, Crebs joined Whitehill as the first coaches in NCAA Division III history to win 300 dual meets at the same school. The pair are one of only two in the history of collegiate wrestling to have reached the mark, joining Minnesota's Wally Johnson and J Robinson. Crebs maintains a high level of excellence with his Warrior teams, compiling winning percentages of less than .600 just four times in his first 18 years as coach. The Warriors have recorded six 20-win seasons in the program’s history, most recently in 2002-03, all under Crebs’ direction. Crebs’ 1996-97 squad recorded the program’s only undefeated season going 22-0. That year, the Warriors won the MAC and East Regional championships, the Budd Whitehill Division III National Duals title, and took seventh at the NCAA Division III National Championships, where three Warriors earned All-American honors. Crebs was named the NCAA Division III Coach of the Year in 1997. During Crebs’ reign, the Warriors have won five conference titles (1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001) and three East Regional crowns. Crebs has never forgotten the great legacy of Whitehill, and he has hosted the Budd Whitehill National Duals since taking over as coach in 1993, bringing in 20 of the top D-III teams in the nation each year to compete in one of the toughest tournaments in the country. The Warriors have won the event twice under Crebs.

116. Pat Doody, 1991-94 – In Lycoming College’s first 34 years of men’s soccer, the Warriors had just two winning seasons. A versatile player from Webster, N.Y., Pat Doody was a key part of Rob Eaton’s first recruiting class and the pair helped change the fortunes of the soccer program. As a freshman, the Warriors cut their goals allowed by 33 percent and posted a 10-6-2 record, setting a school-record for wins while he scored two goals and added five assists. The team blew that away in 1992, winning 14 games and Doody posted a career-high 17 points. After another 10-win season when Doody was a junior, he earned his first All-MAC First Team honors. He was also a master distributor of the ball, and in his fourth game as a senior, he assisted on his school-record 19^th goal on a give to Mike Bonner in a 5-0 win over Juniata. The win set the tone for Doody’s senior year, as he led the team to a school-record 16 wins and the school’s first Freedom League title. While playing as a central back, he still posted a goal and four assists and helped limit opponents to less than a goal a game, earning Freedom League Player of the Year honors. The honors kept rolling in for the back, as he went on to earn CoSIDA Academic All-American honors as a marketing management/economics major and Third Team NSCAA All-Americans, becoming the first soccer player in school history to earn either honor. He was inducted into the Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000.

117. Booters go back-to-back, 1994-95 – By his fifth year as head coach of the men’s soccer team, Rob Eaton had breathed new life into a program that had finished .500 just four times before he guided the 1991 team to 10 wins. Three years later, the England native had formed a strong nucleus that had won 34 games in the previous three years. After a 1-2 start in 1994, the Warriors ripped off seven straight wins to tie a school record, setting a tone for the season. As the Freedom League schedule began, the Warriors began to roll, and after a treacherous stretch of three road wins at FDU-Madison, Upsala and King’s in four days, it set up a showdown in Williamsport with Drew for the league title. After both teams scored in the first half, Matt Pivirotto found Zach Rubinich for the game-winning goal and Stan Kadelski added a penalty kick goal to ensure the 3-1 win and give the Warriors the first regular-season league title in school history with a 6-1 record. In 1995, even with the loss of All-American Pat Doody and goalkeeper David Kidd, the Warriors continued to roll through Freedom League games winning their first four before falling to Drew, 1-0. Still, entering the last game of the season, the team could still claim the league title and a goal by Mike Bonner in the second minute started a 2-0 win over Scranton, as Stephen Cramer assisted on both goals in the win, as they took the title on points to break the three-way tie with Scranton and Drew. In all during the two-year run, the Warriors went 27-12 (.692) and reached the MAC finals in 1994. Eric Szentesy, Pivirotto and Cramer each earned All-Freedom League honors in each year, as the team posted 10 all-league selections. Both Doody and Pivirotto, who is now the head men’s soccer coach at Scranton, earned induction into the Athletics Hall of Fame. Eaton left Lycoming in 1995 to become the coach at Methodist College before coaching the men’s team at Lock Haven for five years. He is currently the head coach of the women’s soccer team at Clarion University.

118. Kim Glodek, 1993-94 – There were plenty of amazing things about the Warriors’ doubleheader sweep at Upsala on March 26, 1994. To begin with, the Warriors hadn’t even been outside when they made the trip to East Orange, N.J. In the first game of the doubleheader, the team got off to the best start in school history, posting a 28-0 win. The star of that first game was Kim Glodek, a senior catcher from Philadelphia who was a pioneer that made national news for joining a youth baseball league instead of playing softball, who posted six hits in the win, continuing a streak started when she had a hit in her final at-bat of the 1993 season. In the second game, the Warriors were even better, as they set an NCAA Division III record for scoring margin that stood for 15 years, as they posted a 46-0 win. Along the way, the team posted 35 RBI, a Division III record that lasted 13 years. Glodek continued to hit, posting six more hits to run her streak to 13 consecutive hits. She also scored seven runs to tie the Division III mark, which stood for 15 years before it was surpassed in 2009. The consecutive hits streak set a Division III record that stood 18 years before it was finally passed in 2011. The record-smashing success from the doubleheader set a tone for the season, as the Warriors won the MAC Championship with a 15-5 record and Glodek earned All-Freedom League honors after posting then school records with a .435 batting average, 30 hits, 27 runs, 20 RBI and three homers. The sociology and political science went on to work with EducationWorks, a non-profit service organization operating primarily in Philadelphia public schools.

119. Freedom dominance, 1994-98 – With a 3-0 win over Wilkes in the last Freedom League match in 1994, the Lycoming volleyball team began the greatest dynasty in the history of women’s athletics at the school. The team didn’t lose another conference match for five years, when Scranton notched a 3-1 win in the opening Freedom Conference match of 1999. In between, the team won 23 matches and ran the league’s table four times, dropping just nine sets en route to four straight titles. The streak began just two years after an 0-16 season, the first under head coach Sonny Kirkpatrick. Just three years later, with the help of all-conference selections, Michelle Forney, Janine Slotter, Danielle Albright and Jill Sheeley, the team won all five of its matches to take the first league title in the program’s history. In 1996, behind league MVP Sheeley, the team repeated and in 1997, it was even more dominant, dropping just one set while three players, Tracey Hracho, Amanda Hollenbacher and Sheeley, earned first-team all-league honors and Hracho earned the first of two MVP honors. In 1998, the team dropped just two sets while winning six conference matches and Kirkpatrick earned his second straight coach of the year honors. During the four-year run, the team went on to reach the MAC semifinals four times, including an appearance in the finals in 1997. The team also made the NCAA Division III Tournament, reaching the second round in 1997-98. In all, the dynasty set up a period in which the volleyball squad made the postseason in 11 of 12 years and reached four NCAA Tournaments.

120. Kurt Schneck, 1994 – From the time he stepped on the Warrior mats for the first time, when he stuck his opponent from King’s in just 1:39 to the last time he walked off the mat at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Kurt Schneck left a legacy unmatched. As a freshman, he dropped just two matches, both against Division I opponents, in the regular season and followed that by picking up the first of an unprecedented four MAC titles at 126 pounds. The Pine Grove, Pa., native terrorized nearly all of his MAC competitors, posting five pins and four technical falls during the tournaments in his career. He entered the national spotlight as a sophomore, earning All-American honors with an eighth-place finish at the Division III Championships. Even a broken hand that kept him from the lineup in 1992 and forced him to redshirt didn’t slow him down, as he won a MAC title and two matches at nationals before falling short of All-American status as a junior. As a senior, though, Schneck wouldn’t be denied – and wrestling with the memory of his old coach, Budd Whitehill, who passed away months before Schneck’s appearance at nationals in 1993 – he won the national title with a 12-6 win over Dan Gabrielson of Central. In all, Schneck posted a 96-18-1 career record, earned two All-American honors and earned the MAC’s Wrestler of the Year award in 1994. The English major was inducted into the Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001.

We hope you enjoyed our 12th look at 200 Memories. Stay tuned on Friday, Feb. 3, as moments 121-130 will be released, with moments capturing the period from 1995-1997, including the only track and field All-American in the history of the College, a hot-hitting volleyball player and the start of an annual Division III wrestling tradition.

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.