Mital earns MAC Scholar-Athlete nod

Senior Austin Mital is Lycoming's 13th MAC Scholar Athlete.
(Photo Courtesy of Lycoming Sports Information)

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Adding to a growing list of accolades, senior Austin Mital (Ginter, Pa./Moshannon Valley) has become just the second Lycoming College football player to earn the Middle Atlantic Conference Scholar-Athlete award, the conference office in Annville, Pa., announced on Friday, Jan. 27.


Sheridan is just the 13th student-athlete from Lycoming College to earn the prestigious award and joining T.J. Chiarolanza ’11 as the only football players to earn the award. He is the first Warrior to earn the award since Shannon Sheridan (women's tennis) in 2015.

Mital, a physics major, earned Second Team Academic All-American accolades and picked up Academic All-MAC honors for the second time in his career earlier this week. He was also an Honorable Mention All-MAC offensive lineman, an Academic All-District selection and he was the team's candidate for the National Football Foundation's National Scholar-Athlete Award.

The team's left guard and captain, he started all 10 games as a senior, helping the Warriors average 333.2 yards of total offense per game, including 147.4 rushing yards per game while blocking for the league's leading rusher in senior Blake Bowman (Valley View, Pa./Tri-Valley), also an Academic All-District and Academic All-MAC selection.

He stepped full-time into the starting lineup as a junior after being hindered by injuries as a sophomore. The healthy 6-3, 290-pounder developed into a Second Team All-MAC selection while helping the offense roll up 1,825 rushing yards, the fifth-highest total in school history.

Mital is a three-time member of the MAC Academic Honor Roll and he is also a member of the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for overall academic excellence and he has made the dean’s list all seven semesters at Lycoming College. In the summer of 2016, he completed an internship with Aldridge Electric as a project manager and field engineer.

In the community, he has volunteered along with the Lycoming football team in Favors Forward’s annual spring cleanup and he has also assisted with youth football practices at Moshannon Valley High School. He is also the football team’s Student-Athlete Advisory Council representative.

The Warriors finished the season 3-7 overall and 2-7 in the MAC under ninth-year head coach Mike Clark.