WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – A three-time All-American and the 2000 Middle Atlantic Conference Player of the Year as a longstick midfielder, Mark Barnes is now just the second men's lacrosse player in conference history to earn induction into the MAC Hall of Fame, the conference office officially announced on Wednesday, March 26.
 
"For me, I was telling family and friends, this is probably the most prestigious honor of my lacrosse life," Barnes said. "It's an elevation of what you did for the team, yourself, your school. Being recognized by the conference that you played in is just a fantastic honor. I thought getting into my high school and college hall of fames was probably going to be the tip of the iceberg. Being the second lacrosse player to be recognized, that's pretty cool. It makes all the hard work 20 years ago well worth it."
 
Barnes joins FDU-Florham's Brian O'Keefe (2017), who starred as an attackman and goalie for the Devils before playing four years with the New York Saints in the National Lacrosse League, as men's lacrosse inductees to the MAC Hall of Fame.
 
"Brian (O'Keefe) was a great player and a great pro," former Lycoming College head coach Gene Peluso, who coached Barnes during all four years of his career, said. "It makes me proud, but not surprised, that Mark is one of two lacrosse players in the MAC Hall of Fame. The stuff he did was impressive and when you look back on it, it's even more impressive. When I coached him, it was within my first five years as a head coach. I've been coaching 26 years and I haven't seen anyone else like him. I know this is a term people throw around, but he was a generational-type player."
 
From Corning East High School, Barnes helped the Trojans to three appearances in the state finals and helped East win three Section IV titles, while also wrestling at the school.
 
Barnes joined a Lycoming men's lacrosse program in its second year as a varsity program under Peluso, who is now firmly entrenched amongst the top 25 winningest coaches in Division III history and the head coach at Stevens Institute of Technology.
 
The team in 1998 featured just one senior, 11 sophomores and 11 freshmen, but doubled their win total from three in 1997 to six. Barnes left an immediate impact, winning 52 percent of his faceoffs and grabbing 123 groundballs. The longstick midfielder also had 11 goals and 12 assists to earn his first of four First Team All-MAC honors.
 
"I recruited him out of high school and he was a wrestler and lacrosse player," Peluso said. "He brought that wrestling tough-guy attitude to the face-off 'x' and his defense. He was one of the first guys to faceoff with a long pole. A lot of times you did that to be defensive because you're not winning matchups. We did it because Mark was a threat offensively. We had game plans around winning the faceoff with the long pole and getting into transition offense. A lot of our goals throughout the years were the result of Mark facing off, getting possession and getting us into early offense."
 
In his second year with the program in 1999, and just the third year of the program's existence, Barnes was named a team captain and he led the team on a magical ride, finishing second in the league and making the school's first appearance in the MAC Championship game.
 
Barnes won 58 percent of 300 faceoffs, grabbed 156 groundballs and topped that off with 16 goals and three assists, earning his first of three straight Honorable Mention USILA All-American honors.
 
"Being in a specialized position, you had to be multi-faceted," Barnes said. "I wanted to be the best defenseman I could be and the best defenseman on the field and we had a pretty good defensive unit. Todd Riescher was a very good defensemen. Then as a midfielder, I had to be active in transition. I had to be able to carry the ball up field and getting into positions that were advantageous to put points on the board. I also had to get possession. I was a wrestler all my life and I had a different skillset to be able to face off. There was a lot to do, but I loved doing it all. I worked hard to do it all."
 
As the new millennium dawned, Barnes was even better for the Warriors, who were now a full-blown force in the MAC during his junior year. The longstick midfielder won 61 percent of his faceoffs, grabbed a career-best 168 groundballs and he added 12 goals and seven assists. He was also named the MAC Player of the Year, despite the Warriors finishing in a tie for second in the conference that left the Warriors out of the conference title game.
 
"Defensively and in groundball play, he did such a great job," Peluso said. "I wish we kept caused turnovers back then as a stat. He would've been off the charts there as well. Opposing coaches would always talk about No. 27 for us. Even our biggest rivals back then knew who he was and respected him. Mark was such a dynamic impact player for us from day one."
 
He also set the school record for groundballs in a game that year, posting 24 against Montclair State on March 29, 2000.
 
As a senior, Barnes found himself in a cast for most of the early part of the season after a broken wrist, but he still played and started all 16 games for the team, which won a school-record 12 games and earned a share of first place in the nine-team MAC.
 
He won 48 percent of his faceoffs, but still picked up 162 groundballs. He also scored eight goals and grabbed 16 groundballs.
 
"He was a team leader," Peluso said. "There were times in practice where guys were in awe of what he did and that might be the nicest compliment I can give him."
 
Twenty years after his last game, Barnes still holds the school record with 609 groundballs in a career, 144 more than Mike Doherty (2007-10), who was a national groundball champion. His 55 percent faceoff-win percentage is fourth in program history and his 733 faceoff wins is still the program record. At the time that he graduated, his 47 career goals were eighth in school history and his 38 assists were fifth.
 
"His teammates loved him," Peluso said. "They knew who the alpha dog was. We had some guys on offense who could score, but there was no doubt who our leader was. How he went, we went."
 
The Warriors were 38-22 (.633) during Barnes' four years in the program and finished in the top two slots in the league his last three years.
 
"I would put that bunch of guys up against anybody now," Barnes said. "We relied on being scrappy and being mentally into the games. We had grind it out. All of us were that way. From the top down, (Coach) Peluso got us in great condition, set us up to win and drove the scrappiness. He realized what we were and let us play that way. I still have some of my best friends from those teams still today. We worked hard to do what we did. I'll never forget the four years playing with that bunch of guys."
 
Inducted into the Corning-Painted Post High School (2005) and Lycoming Athletics (2007) Halls of Fame, Barnes is now a customer service representative with U-Line in Allentown, Pa., and he also worked as a department manager at Wegmans for seven years. He served as a coach in the boys' lacrosse program at Moravian Academy for seven years and he also was the varsity coach at Southern Lehigh for three years. He and wife, Amber, have three children – Jacob, Justin and Kallie.
 
"Mark's reputation, during my time as an assistant here, and in my years as an assistant to Coach Peluso at RIT certainly preceded him," Lycoming head men's lacrosse coach Brendan Gorman said. "To look at some of the things that he was able to do – getting more than 600 groundballs in a career – winning more than 50 percent of his faceoffs with a longstick, those are things normal players just can't do. To be just the second player in the history of MAC lacrosse to earn induction into the MAC Hall of Fame is a testament to the remarkable player that he was during his time as a Warrior. He is incredibly deserving of this accomplishment."