Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Warriors announce seven new inductees into the College’s Athletics Hall of Fame


WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – A pair were two of the most ferocious defensive linemen in the football program’s history. Another is the women’s lacrosse program’s all-time leading scorer and the fourth is one of the most prolific offensive players in the history of the softball program. A wrestling national champion, the golfer with the lowest stroke average in school history and the longtime radio voice of Lycoming College athletics round out an impressive 28th induction class into the Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame.


The class includes Cameron Coleman ‘00 (football), Mark Seagreaves ‘01 (football), Megan Wallenhorst ‘08 (women’s lacrosse), Susan (Leuthner) House ‘97 (softball), Matt Miller ‘08 (wrestling), Jim Bechtel ‘06 (golf) and Bill Byham (radio/sports information contributor). All seven will be inducted during Homecoming weekend, beginning with the Hall of Fame banquet at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 25, at the Recreation Center.

If you are interested in attending the Hall of Fame banquet, please call (570) 321-4110, or contact Ester Henninger, athletics secretary, at henny@lycoming.edu. Tickets are $30 each.

Coleman is the 67th person associated with the football program to earn a spot in the athletics hall of fame. From Bethlehem, Pa., Coleman came to Lycoming after his career at Liberty High School was cut short due to a knee injury as a senior. The injury took him off the radar of many Division I and II schools and landed him at Lycoming to nothing but the Warriors’ gain, as he helped the Warriors to four straight Middle Atlantic Conference titles. During his four years on the team, the Warriors never lost a regular-season game and reached the NCAA playoffs four times, including making an appearance in the national title game in 1997. He finished his career as a two-time First Team All-MAC selection and also was a four-year starter. As a senior, he capped his career with a seven-sack season that landed him a spot on the AFCA All-American Team. During the season, he picked up the first two D3Football.com Team of the Week honors in school history and also set a then-school record for tackles for loss with 24. He was also a two-time MAC Defensive Player of the Week. After the season, he participated in the Aztec Bowl in Mexico City. Coleman’s first career honors came in 1998, when he was named a Griese Preseason All-American. A member of the MAC Century Team, Coleman is second in school history with 55 tackles for loss and eighth with 22 career sacks. Coleman is currently a child care worker in Lehigh County.

Seagreaves is the 68th person associated with the football program to earn induction in the athletics hall of fame. A four-year starter, the Allentown, Pa., native played alongside other Athletics Hall of Famers defensive linemen Keith Jenkins ‘99 and Coleman, helping the team to three MAC titles (1997-99) and four Freedom League titles (1997-00). As a freshman, the Central Catholic High School graduate helped the team to the national title game and as a sophomore, the team advanced to the national quarterfinals and during his career, the Warriors notched a 34-2 regular-season record. Seagreaves picked up two First Team All-Freedom League honors, earning the accolades as a freshman and a senior. He was also a second-team pick as a junior. He picked up First Team Don Hansen Football Gazette All-American honors and Second Team Hewlett-Packard All-American honors as a senior, as he tied the school record with 17 sacks and smashed the school-record and led the MAC with 31 tackles for a loss. His six-sack game against Wilkes in 2000 helped him set a school record that still stands and earned him both D3Football.com Team of the Week and MAC Defensive Player of the Week honors. Seagreaves holds the school record with 75 career tackles for loss and is second in school history with 42 career sacks. Seagreaves is now key account representative in service/repair/modernization sales with Thyssen Krupp Elevator in Allentown, Pa.

An attacker with a nose for the goal, Wallenhorst is the third women’s lacrosse player to earn induction into the hall of fame. She made an immediate impact for the Warriors, leading the team with 41 goals as a freshman in 2005, setting the stage for things to come. As a sophomore, the Rochester, N.Y., native earned her first of three straight All-MAC accolades and was named to the IWLCA All-Metro Region second team, as she finished 16th in the NCAA Division III with 70 goals. During the season, she became just the third player in school history to reach 100 career goals, while also helping the Warriors to a school-record 14 wins and its only appearance in the MAC Championship game in school history. As a junior in 2006, she broke the school’s all-time goals mark set by Brenda MacPhail in 2001 and earned her first of two straight WomensLacrosse.com Third Team All-American honors, while helping the team to another 14-win season. As a senior, she finished her career by scoring 56 goals to help her leave the school with a record 276 points and 233 goals, while earning her third straight All-Metro Region honors and her first IWLCA All-American nod, being placed on the third team. Maybe most impressively, she stretched out a streak of 52 straight games with a goal from her sophomore to senior campaign, the fifth-longest stretch in Division III history. Wallenhorst wrapped up her career by joining teammate Kristina Peacock on the South team at the IWLCA North/South All-Star game. She also earned both the College’s Sol “Woody" Wolf Award as a junior and the Female Athlete of the Year award as a senior. After helping the team to a 42-24 record during her career, she is still ranked first in school history in six career categories, including goals per game (3.58), game-winning goals (8) and draw controls (172). Wallenhorst is a senior accountant with The Bonadio Group.

A middle infielder from Loyalsock Township, Leuthner is the seventh person associated with Lycoming College softball to earn a spot in the athletics hall of fame. A four-year starter, the second baseman never hit less than .320 in a season. The cleanup hitter did just that during her career, driving in a 77 runs and scoring 85, both records which stood for 16 years before being broken in 2013. As a junior, she drove in a record 30 runs and hit four home runs while slugging at a hefty .573, the ninth-best mark in school history. She also became the first player in school history to reach 100 career hits, doing so with a single against Delaware Valley during her senior year.  She was a three-time First Team All-Freedom League selection, earning the honors as a freshman, a junior and senior. Leuthner also enjoyed three 10-game hitting streaks in her career, the most in school history, and her .350 career batting average is fourth in school annals. She is also in top 10 in school history in career hits (108, 5th), home runs (5, seventh) and total bases (139, eighth). Leuthner helped the Warriors to three 20-win seasons and four first-place finishes in the Freedom League regular-season standings. As a sophomore, she helped Lycoming win its only MAC championship. In all, Lycoming posted a 69-23 (.750) record during her career. Leuthner is a stay-at-home mom for her two children.

Miller is the 37th person associated with the wrestling program to earn a spot in the athletics hall of fame. He entered his senior year in a battle for the starting slot with Troy Hansen and finished it as a national champion. The Muncy, Pa., native was an underdog all season long after never finishing higher than third at any NCAA-qualifying tournament in his career. Still, the signs were there that he would break through as a junior, posting a 25-8 record, but an injury at the NCAA Regionals dropped him to fifth-place in the weight class. He entered his senior year with a 57-28 career record, making that final season all the more incredible. Miller, who struggled to stay healthy throughout his career, was even injured during a tournament in mid-December after pinning his first two opponents. He came back healthy after the holiday break and made an immediate impact at the Budd Whitehill Duals, pinning his opponent in the second period to give the Warriors an upset over John Carroll in the first round. He continued his hot stretch, winning three matches at the Empire Collegiate Wrestling Conference Championships to join Chris Dahlheimer as the first Warriors to win ECWC Conference individual champions. He followed that by earning the No. 6 seed at the NCAA Championships and won a stretch of three decisions to reach the national title match, where he faced defending national champion T.J. Miller of Wartburg. A first period takedown helped the Montgomery High School graduate take control and after riding T.J. Miller through the second period, he stayed on bottom in the third, but never gave up any points to win the ninth national title in program history, 2-0, helping Lycoming to a 15th-place finish at the tournament. He was named the ECWC Wrestler of the Year after completing the perfect 21-0 season. Miller placed at conference championships three times in his career, taking fourth at the MAC Championships as a freshman and third as a sophomore. He is also seventh in school history with 29 career pins. Since graduating, Miller has been a continual presence in the wrestling program, serving as both an assistant and volunteer assistant coach. He is the store manager at Your Building Center in Bloomsburg, Pa.

The most decorated player in school history, it’s fitting that Bechtel is the first golfer to earn induction into the Athletics Hall of Fame. A CoSIDA Second Team Academic All-District selection as a senior and a 2006 Middle Atlantic Conference Scholar-Athlete, the highest honor given by the conference, the Muncy Valley, Pa., native was vital to the Warriors emergence in the Middle Atlantic Conference.  Bechtel thrived at conference championships, finishing sixth in the 2004 Middle Atlantic Conference tournament and he became the first Warrior in school history to earn two all-conference honors in a career when he tied for second with teammate Jordan Isenberg at the 2005 Freedom Conference tournament. He has the lowest career stroke average (81.0) in school history and his 78.21 average in 2004 is also the lowest. During his career, he posted seven career top-10 finishes, three top-five efforts and he won the Lebanon Valley Spring Invitational in 2005. In the classroom, Bechtel was even more proficient, earning the John G. Hollenback Award, given for the highest academic performance and outstanding service in the business department, the Charles J. Kocian Award as the business major showing the greatest proficiency in statistics, the James E. Wehr Financial Accounting Award for demonstrating a personal expertise in the subject of financial accounting, and the Faculty Prize, given to a senior computing student who participated in student activities and who is in the upper half of the class. Bechtel is a manager at PwC, an accounting firm in Philadelphia.

Byham is one of the most familiar voices ever associated with Lycoming College. If you turned on the radio and heard a Warrior football game between the 1960s and the 2000s, more than likely, the voice you heard belonged to Bill Byham. A Bloomsburg University graduate, Byham developed an interest in the Warriors while working at WWPA radio in South Williamsport. The school installed a phone line in the stadium and in the gym, and Byham began broadcasting football and basketball games and he even tried wrestling, although he admittedly didn’t know much about the sport. After retiring from the South Williamsport Area High School in 1984, he began a third career when he became the school’s sports information director, serving in the role from 1987-92. He publicized some historic moments at the school, including the football team’s run to the Division III title game in 1990. Even after retiring from the sports information office, he continued to work on radio broadcasts for the school. A local media icon, Byham has also worked in the press box at the Little League World Series since 1959. In 2002, during his 44th Little League World Series, the press box section at the Little League Volunteer Stadium was named in his honor. Byham also received the College’s 2012 Dale V. Bower Service Award.

Begun in 1986, the Lycoming College Athletics Hall of Fame annually honors a class of athletic standouts, growing from an initial class of 10 inductees to 188 members after the Class of 2013 is welcomed on Friday, Oct. 25.

To be eligible for the hall of fame, recipients must be Lycoming graduates at least five years removed from the College that have made a lasting impression on his or her respective sport. Coaches or college support staff must be retired from their role in athletics at the College. To nominate worthy individuals for the Hall of Fame, please fill out an online nomination form at: http://athletics.lycoming.edu/sb_output.aspx?form=6&tab=halloffamenomination.