ACC LADES LYCOMING COLLEGE It was an unusual year for the Lycoming department of athletics. COVID-19 marked nearly every aspect of the season for its 17 programs. The Middle Atlantic Conference announced in July that no athletic competition would be held until at least Jan. 1, 2021. Throughout the fall semester, director of athletics Mike Clark, head athletic trainer Andrea Lucas, and head strength and conditioning coach Joe Alexander were able to adjust to changing conditions to ensure that the College’s 345 student-athletes were given opportunities to train and lift. As the spring semester came closer, the MAC developed expectations for testing protocols and allowed athletics to resume across the conference’s 18 institutions. Between February and May, the Warriors competed in 99 athletic events in a span of just 75 days. No program was able to play an ordinary complete schedule, and five programs – men’s and women’s cross country, volleyball, women’s soccer, and wrestling – were not able to compete at all. The athletic department did look to the future, announcing the reinstatement of field hockey and baseball as varsity sports for the 2022-23 academic year. In April, the department announced the hiring of Allyson Kenyon, a Harrisburg, Pa., native with 15 years of head coaching experience, to lead the field hockey team. In June, Rick Oliveri, a Buffalo, N.Y., native with 12 years of experience as a Division I assistant coach, was chosen as the first full-time baseball head coach in school history. There were highlights from competition as well. The men’s basketball team won the MAC Freedom Championship, its second straight conference championship in a row, men’s soccer finished 3-1 in exhibition play, and softball finished fifth in the MAC Freedom, its best finish in a decade. Erica Lutz ’21 was named all-region and the MAC Senior Scholar Athlete for the women’s basketball team. Eleven athletes earned all-conference honors during the abbreviated year, and our men’s swimming team saw three school-records fall at the hands of Carter Branigan ’24. Forty-two percent of the student-athletics earned MAC Academic Honor Roll accolades for achieving higher than a 3.2 GPA over the course of the 2020-21 academic year. Men’s soccer, men’s basketball, and softball all set program records for the number of honorees as well. 2020-21 ATHLETICS IN REVIEW Lycoming College has built its reputation as a toptier liberal arts and sciences college to provide one of the most valuable degrees one can earn, launching its graduates into lives of meaning and careers of distinction through its ongoing commitment to offering an unparalleled 21st-century education that challenges its students to think deeply and act boldly. Named one of the best Tier 1 National Liberal Arts & Sciences Institutions by 2022 U.S. News & World Report, landing in the No. 124 position, and ranked No. 32 in social mobility Praised as a “Best College” for a fifth consecutive year in The Princeton Review Best 387 Colleges — one of just 14 percent of America’s 2,700 four-year colleges profiled Continued to be ranked among the best liberal arts colleges in the country by Washington Monthly, taking the No. 77 spot in 2021 Liberal Arts Colleges Ranking, with a No. 30 ranking in social mobility Acknowledged by the Wall Street Journal - Times Higher Education 2021 U.S. College Rankings for financial strength and positive learning environment Ranked as a “Best Value” institution, and recognized for “Overall Diversity” as well as “Gender Diversity” nationwide in 2021 by CollegeFactual.com Recognized as a Member School by the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium Awarded a B+ with a financial GPA of 3.33 by Forbes’ College Financial Grades 2021, placing Lycoming in the top 10 percent of all colleges and universities in the U.S. and 75th of all national liberal arts institutions Accepted as a member of The Annapolis Group, a higher education consortium that convenes institutional leaders from the nation’s very best liberal arts colleges 8 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2021 PRESIDENT’S REPORT/FALL MAGAZINE
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