FALL 2002

Women’s Volleyball: UAlbany placed three players on the America East all-conference team after posting a 16-15 record and earning a spot in the league’s postseason tournament. Alissa Gibbs was named to the first team for the second straight year. Gibbs, a senior outside hitter, finished among the school’s all-time leaders with 1,376 kills and 992 digs. Jill Dombrowski and Eileen Nicole Rodriguez were honorable mention all-conference selections. Rodriguez, a freshman, established an NCAA Division I single-season record with 207 service aces.

Football: Josh Bazan, Alex Argulewicz and Gary Jones were named to The Sports Network Division I-AA Mid-Major All-America squad. Bazan, a senior linebacker who led the team with 124 tackles, and Argulewicz, a 6-foot-1, 295-pound offensive guard, were chosen for the second straight year. Argulewicz was also named the Football Gazette Offensive Lineman of the Year. Jones, a junior tailback, set nine school single-season records, including 1,509 yards rushing and 23 touchdowns. Jones, the Northeast Conference Offensive Player of the Year, was voted to the Associated Press I-AA All-America Team. The Great Danes tied a league record with 14 All-NEC players. Offensive tackles Mike Laroche and Geir Gudmundsen, punter Billy Pike, and quarterback Ryan Roeder were first-team selections, along with Bazan, Argulewicz and Jones. Bob Ford, who has 185 career victories at UAlbany, earned NEC coach of the year honors. The Great Danes finished with an 8-4 record and captured the Northeast Conference and ECAC Division I-AA Classic championships.

Men’s Cross Country: Junior Joe Pienta and sophomore Andy Allstadt earned all-conference honors at the America East Championships. Pienta was second at the IC4A Championships with a 10,000-meter time of 25:52.1. UAlbany took third at IC4As and was 18th at the NCAA Regional.

Women’s Cross Country: Senior Meghan Howell crossed the finish line in 11th place overall to lead Albany to second place at the ECAC Championships. The Great Danes were fifth at the America East Conference Championships and 15th at the NCAA Northeast Regional.

Women’s Soccer: Sara Rickard was voted to the America East all-conference second team by the league’s coaches. She led the team with four goals and two assists. Jen Schroeckenthaler and Erin Stanek were picked in the honorable mention category. Head coach Joanna Tomasino’s contract was not renewed following a 4-14-1 season.

Men’s Soccer: Albany tied for fourth in the America East standings, but lost the tiebreaker with New Hampshire for the final spot in the conference’s postseason tournament. The Great Danes, who were 9-6-2 overall, reached the nine-win mark for the first time since 1998. Bouna Coundol was the America East Goalkeeper of the Year.

Field Hockey: Lisa Burline, a three-year starter, led the team in scoring with six goals and three assists. Burline is fourth among the school’s career scorers with 43 points (19 goals, 5 assists). Tina Bryson and Devon Switzer were on the America East All-Rookie Team.

Women’s Golf: Sophomore Jill Friedman led the Great Danes with an 83.9 stroke average. She won medalist honors at Cortland’s Martin Memorial Tournament in leading UAlbany to the team title. Diane Onofry, another sophomore, averaged 84.0 strokes in seven events. UAlbany finished in a tie for 11th place in the team standings.

If the University at Albany volleyball team hopes to duplicate last season’s remarkable turnaround, it will need to keep recruiting more players like Alissa Gibbs, who overcame adversity to become the first dominant player in the Great Danes’ Division I era. Gibbs, a senior, completed her career last fall as one of the program’s all-time leaders in kills and digs. More importantly, she set the standard by which all other UAlbany volleyball players will be judged. She not only helped her teammates believe they could be winners, but she also played a key role in nurturing the younger players who will continue that winning tradition.

Gibbs was the catalyst for the Great Danes’ surprising 16-15 season. UAlbany had won just four of 24 matches the previous year, but Gibbs, a 5-foot-10 graduate of Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, N.Y., elevated her game and in turn helped the Great Danes elevate theirs.

Senior Alissa Gibbs, top of the page, America East Scholar-Athlete of the year in volleyball, is one of the program's all-time leaders in kills and digs. Coach Kelly Sheffield gives a pointer to freshman standout Eileen Nicole Rodriguez, who set an NCAA record for service aces with 207.

“She was one of the top all-around players in the (America East) conference,” said head coach Kelly Sheffield. “I’d put her in the top two or three. We depended on her an awful lot — not only physically on the court, but also because of her leadership. She’s a big reason why we’re heading in the right direction.

“She doesn’t have any weaknesses,” said Sheffield of the only senior on last season’s roster. “In the game of volleyball, it’s so easy to attack people’s weaknesses. For example, if you’re a strong hitter, but you don’t move your feet, you can attack that person’s weakness. But Alissa doesn’t have any weaknesses on the court.”

Gibbs, who carried a 3.56 G.P.A. in computer science into the spring semester, didn’t even consider her diabetes as a weakness. It was just another challenge. “I was diagnosed a few years ago, but I never thought it was a big deal,” said the Presidential Scholar and America East Scholar Athlete of the Year in volleyball. “I didn’t really associate having diabetes with anything to do with affecting my volleyball. I knew exercise could affect it, but I never considered not playing volleyball.

“My first coach was a diabetic,” said Gibbs, who was named to the first team on the America East Conference all-star team. “He told me never to use it as an excuse.”
The young Great Danes team matured quickly behind Gibbs’s leadership. Eileen Nicole Rodriguez, a freshman outside hitter from Puerto Rico, established an NCAA record for service aces (207) en route to setting 12 team records overall. Sophomore setter Jill Dombrowski shattered the team record for assists (1,283).

UAlbany also has plenty of other weapons returning next season, like freshman Alexis Bowens, who missed much of last season with tendonitis. “A healthy Alexis Bowens will be one of the impact players in the league. She is one of the hardest hitters in the conference,” said Sheffield. “Kristin Norton could surprise some people. She’s the toughest competitor on the team, and she is our energizer. She’ll take over for Alissa next season. We also have Sue Spierre and Ashlee Reed, our most versatile player, coming back.
“We had a very young team last season,” Sheffield pointed out. “We had set high goals for the team, and the girls weren’t satisfied. Our goal next year is to win the conference and to go to the NCAA Tournament.”

UAlbany Athletic Director Lee McElroy was pleased with the volleyball team’s success. He said he wasn’t surprised, and that he expected other UAlbany programs to follow suit, especially when private funding for scholarships begins to match those at other state campuses like Binghamton and Stony Brook.

“During a recent trip to the NCAA convention, a college administrator asked me why UAlbany was having so much success so early with several of our programs. I told him it was because coaches like Kelly Sheffield were bringing in student-athletes who excelled both on the court and in the classroom. The more we invest in our student-athletes, with money for scholarships, for example, the more improvement we can expect,” said McElroy.

“When the alumni see all the good things that are happening here, I’m sure they will be more interested in providing the funding we need to continue all the improvements. The good thing is that our practices and our values are in concert. We are not building our programs with short cuts. All of our student-athletes are good citizens, as well as good athletes. That’s why the volleyball team had such an outstanding season.”

Bob Weiner, B.A.’82, is a sports reporter for The Daily Gazette
in Schenectady, N.Y.