Lions Athletics Archives - Spirit Magazine

Fall 2016

In Memoriam

By University Brand Marketing & Communications September 2016

Griffin Clark, 21, a sophomore criminal justice major and member of the men’s golf team, passed away on July 4. He was involved in a car accident near his home in Chesterfield County, VA. Griffin helped lead the golf team to its recent NCAA Division II National Championship, in Denver, CO, playing in the final match-play pairing against Chico State (CA) and winning by three strokes.
“Griffin was an outstanding young man. We were so blessed to have him be part of our Saint Leo family,” Saint Leo men’s head golf coach Chris Greenwood said. “I have so many good moments with Griffin, but the one I will always remember is standing in the 18th fairway together the final day in Denver.”

Frederick “Fred” William Colby Sr. ’84, registrar emeritus, passed away on July 7. A decorated veteran of the U.S. Navy, he served from 1952 to 1979, including tours of duty in Singapore and Tokyo, as a Naval intelligence specialist. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Saint Leo College and was a member of the Saint Leo staff for 24 years, retiring as registrar.

Dr. Diane Johnson passed away on May 10. She was an assistant director of the Center for Online Learning from 2005 to 2014. After retiring from that administrative role, she continued to teach as an online adjunct professor. She is remembered for being supportive of Saint Leo’s students and guiding them through their educational development.

On May 20, Dr. Kurt Van Wilt passed away at his home. A humble and devoted English professor, he dedicated his life to the education of Saint Leo University’s students, to their spiritual and intellectual growth and development. A respected poet, he was the master of the sonnet, a form that appeals to the kind of artisan who enjoys the rigor of structure, the triumphs achieved through simplicity. An expert in comparative mysticism and Native American literature, he authored three critically praised books for Millichap Books. He was also a co-founder of The Sandhill Review literary arts magazine, The Lightning Key Review electronic journal, and The Green Rabbit chapbook series.

William “Bill” Sharp ’48
May 27, 2016

Robert E. Shoyrer ’49
April 5, 2010

Glenda W. Rusin ’52
February 7, 2015

Mary (Corrigan) Grant ’54
April 11, 2016

Richard Cobb ’60
March 4, 2016

Henry Pike ’61
July 7, 2016

Mary Ellen McGrath ’62
April 13, 2016

Peter E. Feuge ’69
November 22, 2015

Eugene Fischer ’72
February 12, 2016

Beth (Dempsey) Moore ’74
May 27, 2016

E. “William” Vanderbilt ’75
March 23, 2016

Richard A. Carter ’77
December 17, 2015

Jesse J. Dean ’77
November 17, 2015

Stanley P. Juds ’77
October 16, 2015

Patricia (Kennedy) Lemmerman ’77
January 7, 2016

Audrey S. Henries ’79
December 16, 2015

Marie Gagne ’82
July 23, 2012

Timothy “Tim” Murphy ’82
January 29, 2016

William A. Denton ’83
December 13, 2015

Kyle A. Miller ’83
January 1, 2009

Frederick “Fred” Colby ’84
July 7, 2016

Wayne Dupree ’86
April 36, 2016

Claude H. Bader ’93
August 2, 2014

Russell “Russ” Swart ’96
May 13, 2016

Jonathan E. Weaver ’01
April 16, 2015

William T. Campbell ’04
March 31, 2013

Fall 2016

Those Amazing Days in Denver

By Saint Leo Athletics September 2016

Reporting by Bradley Bee

In May, the Lions Athletics program accomplished a remarkable feat as the men’s and women’s tennis teams and the men’s and women’s golf teams all earned trips to the NCAA Division II National Championship Festival in Denver, CO. Representation by four teams was the most by any Division II school—and what a run they had.

Women’s Tennis— National Semifinalists

Pauline Helgesson after clinching the second match against Southwest Baptist University

May 18

The No.2 Saint Leo women’s tennis team took care of business as it defeated No. 24 University of Indianapolis, 5-1, after three quick wins in singles play.

May 19

The women’s tennis team was headed to the NCAA Semifinals after a 5-1 victory over No. 18 Southwest Baptist University.

May 20
A matchup of the top two teams in the nation proved to be as riveting in person as it was on paper in the NCAA Semifinals as the No. 2 Saint Leo women’s tennis team fell to undefeated No. 1 BYU-Hawaii, 5-3, in a battle of the best.

Men’s Tennis—National Runners-Up

Doubles partners Alex Theiler (serving) and Alberto Barroso-Campos (front) competing against Armstrong State

May 18
The No. 1-ranked Saint Leo men’s tennis team took down No. 15 Cameron University (OK),

May 19
The men’s tennis team swept No. 12 Northwest Missouri State, 5-0, in its first-ever NCAA Quarterfinals match.

May 20
The team headed to its first NCAA National Championship match after taking down No. 2 Armstrong State (GA), 5-2, in the National Semifinal match.

May 21
The dream season came to an end when the No. 1 Saint Leo men’s tennis team fell to No. 3 Hawaii Pacific, 5-3, in the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship match.

Women’s Golf—Fourth-Place Finishers

May 18
The Saint Leo women’s golf team finished the first round 10th out of 12 teams with a 305 (+17), 15 strokes out of the lead.

May 19
The women’s golf team fired a 294 in the second round, climbing to fifth on the team leaderboard at the tournament’s halfway point.

May 20

Saint Leo slipped to seventh on the team leaderboard with a three-day score of 896 (+32)—25 strokes off the pace set by leader Rollins College (FL).

May 21
Saint Leo women’s golf climbed three spots in Saturday’s final round to finish tied for fourth at the 2016 NCAA Division II Women’s Golf National Championship.

Men’s Golf—National Champions

Individual champ Hugo Bernard chipping out of a bunker

May 17
With cold and rainy conditions in the first round, the Saint Leo men’s golf team shot a 278 (-10) to head into the second round in first place.

May 18
Saint Leo men’s golf carded a 15-under 273 in the second round to extend its team lead to 11 strokes.

May 19
The men’s golf team was atop both the individual and team leaderboards at the completion of stroke play. Freshman Hugo Bernard shot an even-par 72 and finished stroke play at -13 (203) to win the NCAA Division II individual championship.

May 20
No. 2-ranked Saint Leo defeated Wilmington (DE) in the medal/match quarterfinals in the morning, before knocking off Lynn (FL) in the afternoon semifinals on the match play tiebreaker. After 90 holes of golf, the top two teams in the nation advanced out of the semifinals and headed to the national championship.

May 21
The Lions men’s golf team pulled it off and made history. The Lions used a 3-2 score in match play to take down Chico State (CA) and claim Saint Leo University’s first ever team national championship.

June 6
Head Men’s Golf Coach Chris Greenwood was named the 2016 Dave Williams Division II National Coach of the Year.

Bradley Bee is a director of Athletics Communications and traveled with the teams to Denver.

Fall 2016

Lions in the Pride

By Saint Leo Athletics September 2016

Katie Adamson
Volleyball • Senior
Nelson, New Zealand
The middle blocker was a force at the net in the 2015 season, leading the team in both total blocks, at 103, and blocks per set, averaging 0.87. She tallied a career-high eight blocks in three different matches last season. Offensively, Adamson put away a total of 159 kills in 2015, tallying a career-best 11 against Eckerd College (FL). As one of three seniors, Adamson will help the young Lions squad build off a 21-11 season and an NCAA Second Round appearance.

Hannah Beard
Women’s Soccer • Class of 2010
Grassendale, Liverpool, England
Hannah Beard is a former Lions women’s soccer player. Originally from England, she is playing professionally with the Western Sydney Wanderers in the Australian W-League. She was one of the best players in program history to date, winning several individual honors and helping the team reach the NCAA tournament in each of her four years at Saint Leo, and the program’s first Sunshine State Conference Tournament Championship.

Tyreece Brice
Men’s Basketball • Junior
Rock Hill, SC
Tyreece Brice made an instant impact on the court for the Lions in the 2015-16 season as the sixth man. Brice averaged the second most points on the team, 15.5 per game, and finished the season as a 2015-16 Sunshine State Conference All-Newcomer team selection. He played in 31 games with 14 starts and tallied 481 points in 977 minutes for the Lions. Along with his 15.5 points per game, Brice averaged 4.2 rebounds per game and 3.6 assists per game. Brice scored a career-high 31 points against Alabama-Huntsville in the first round of the NCAA South Regional tournament. Brice helped lead the Lions to a 19-12 record and a fourth-place finish in the SSC with a 10-6 mark.

Sommer Pollard
Softball • Junior
Clearwater, FL
Sommer Pollard was the everyday starter behind the dish for the No. 1 pitching staff in all of Division II, owning a 0.93 earned run average. Pollard played in all 47 games, with a .991 fielding percentage with only three errors on the season. She recorded 300 putouts behind the plate, with 19 assists. A Second Team All-Sunshine State Conference selection, Pollard finished the season with a .366 batting average (41 hits in 112 at-bats) while scoring 24 runs and driving in 17. She recorded one triple during her sophomore campaign against Colorado Christian, where she went 2-for-2 from the plate. Pollard recorded 15 stolen bases over the course of the season.

Brandon Rivera
Men’s Soccer • Senior
Orlando, FL
The local product out of Lake Nona High School in south Orlando has come a long way since his freshman season when he saw action in just two matches. In fact, in his junior campaign, Rivera saw action in all 18 games for the SSC regular season champion, including making 13 starts. He scored a career-best four goals on the season, adding a career-high four assists, including his first career assist that came against Lees-McRae (NC) in a 4-1 victory where the midfielder saw three passes find the foot of the goal scorer. Rivera’s breakout game came in the SSC Tournament Semifinals, where he tallied two goals in the Lions 2-1 win over the 2014 reigning NCAA National Champion Lynn (FL), earning himself a spot on the SSC Tournament team.

Maftuna Tuhtasinova
Women’s Swimming • Sophomore
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
A native of Uzbekistan, Maftuna Tuhtasinova competed in the final four regular season events and the Sunshine State Conference Championship for women’s swimming and made an immediate impact on the team. The freshman was a finalist in three events at the SSC meet, including a third-place finish in the 200 Backstroke with an NCAA “B” cut mark and Saint Leo record time of 2:02.01. Her 100 backstroke time also qualified as an NCAA “B” cut time, and Maftuna was a part of 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay teams that set new Saint Leo records.

Zach Whitaker
Baseball • Senior
Land O’Lakes, FL
Zach Whitaker was Saint Leo’s top pitcher in 2016, recording a 4.38 earned run average over 72.0 innings pitched, with a 6-1 record and one save. He finished among the top 10 in the Sunshine State Conference in ERA, and held opponents to a .277 batting average. Whitaker fanned 62 batters over the course of the 2016 season, tied for most on the team.

Jim Cerbie ’79 got his 400th win as head baseball coach for The Providence Day School in Charlotte, NC, on April 5, 2016. During his 29-year baseball coaching career at Providence Day, he has seen 28 of his players sign to play college baseball at some of the most prestigious programs and schools in the country.

James Jacobsen ’70 is the golf coach at Bergen Catholic High School (NJ), where he won his 1,000th match on April 22, 2016. This gave him an overall 34-year coaching record of 1023-33-1. He was named Coach of the Year by the Star Ledger, The Record, and The Bergen County Coaches Association.

Fall 2016

News from the Locker Room

By Saint Leo Athletics September 2016

The 2015-2016 year was a remarkable one for Lions Athletics, with multiple conference and tournament championships, as well as the Sunshine State Conference Mayors’ Cup (above right) for the men’s program.

Men’s Program Captures SSC Mayors’ Cup
For the third time in four years, Saint Leo University captured the Sunshine State Conference Men’s Mayors’ Cup, representing overall supremacy among SSC institutions in men’s conference competition.

The Lions finished second in the race for the Women’s Mayors’ Cup for the second year in a row.

Points in the Mayors’ Cup race are earned based on order of finish in the final Sunshine State Conference standings in league sports. The Men’s Mayors’ Cup competition awards points in soccer, cross country, basketball, swimming, golf, tennis, lacrosse, and baseball, while the Women’s Mayors’ Cup is decided by competition in the sports of volleyball, soccer, cross country, basketball, swimming, golf, tennis, softball, and rowing.

Saint Leo walked away with the Men’s Mayors’ Cup with 46 points, besting its nearest rival in the standings, Florida Southern, by 10 points. In the Women’s Mayors’ Cup final standings, Nova Southeastern came out on top with 53.5 points; Saint Leo was close behind with 48 points.

Spring 2016 SCC Championships

Saint Leo captured four Sunshine State Conference spring championships with regular season crowns in softball (above), men’s tennis, and women’s tennis, and men’s tennis also claiming the SSC tournament championship.

These were the first SSC championships for the tennis teams. It was the second title in program history for the softball program, with the first earned in 2013. The 2016 senior class has now been a part of the two SSC championship teams at Saint Leo, its freshman year in 2013 and its final season in the Green and Gold.

Lions Take Second in Learfield Directors’ Cup

Saint Leo University finished the 2015-2016 academic year ranked second among 307 NCAA Division II institutions for the Learfield Directors’ Cup, presented by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).

The Lions finished the year with 723 points, trailing only Grand Valley State (MI), which earned 1,070 points and won its second-straight Division II Learfield Directors’ Cup and 11th overall.

Saint Leo’s second-place finish eclipses the previous high of eighth, set in 2015.

“This is an incredible moment for Saint Leo Athletics. The class that entered Saint Leo in August 2012 arrived when we had broken the top 100 in the Directors’ Cup standings for just the second time in program history. That class graduated this past April as part of the second-best overall athletics program in all of Division II. Those student-athletes believed in our goals and mission, as did our coaches and staff and university administration, and together they made this achievement possible,” said Francis X. Reidy, Saint Leo’s director of athletics.

Troy Sieber Chosen by the Houston Astros

Saint Leo junior first baseman Troy Sieber was selected by the Houston Astros on the third day of the 2016 Major League Baseball Draft. He was taken in the 24th Round, and was the 727th pick of the draft.

“We’re very proud of Troy and all the hard work he has put in to make this happen. We wish him all the best and we will miss him,” said Sean O’Connor, Saint Leo’s head baseball coach. Sieber is the fifth Saint Leo player drafted under O’Connor, who recently completed his fourth season as the Lions head coach.

An ABCA/Rawlings Second Team All-American and finalist for the 2016 Tino Martinez Award as Division II Player of the Year, Sieber batted .457 this season, leading the Sunshine State Conference and ranking fourth in all of Division II.

Anthony Crocitto Named Head Women’s Basketball Coach

A veteran Division II head coach with experience at all three levels of NCAA women’s basketball, Anthony Crocitto has been named Saint Leo University’s new head women’s basketball coach.

”We were looking for a coach with a proven record of success in Division II women’s basketball, and out of an incredibly deep pool of applicants we found an ideal fit in Anthony Crocitto,” said Francis X. Reidy, Saint Leo’s director of athletics. “I believe that Coach Crocitto’s passion for the game, coupled with his experience at identifying, recruiting, and developing talent at this level, will quickly lead to greater success for Saint Leo women’s basketball.”

Crocitto comes to Saint Leo from the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), where he has served as the Bears’ head women’s basketball coach for the past seven seasons. Under Crocitto’s guidance, NYIT has logged three 20-win campaigns over the last four seasons, rejuvenating a program that was 4-23 in the year prior to his arrival at the Old Westbury, NY, campus.