Conferences: The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference will expand its breadth from Georgia to Colorado with the admission in 2006-07 of current independent Colorado College as its 11th member. The institution in Colorado Springs, Colorado, will be one of two schools joining the conference this fall, along with Austin College in Texas, which earlier announced its plans to move from the American Southwest Conference. “Colorado College’s entry into the SCAC represents a commitment by our current member schools to align with similar academic institutions while maintaining quality intercollegiate athletics programs that support our student-athletes,” said Steve Argo, commissioner of the conference which will now include members in Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana, along with Texas (now home to three member schools) and Colorado. “We are certain that Colorado College’s student-athletes will value their competition in the SCAC and the experiences that are offered throughout the conference,” Argo said. Colorado College will compete in four league sports — cross country, swimming and diving, tennis, and outdoor track and field — during 2006-07, then begin full participation in basketball, football, men’s soccer, softball and volleyball the following year. Its men’s ice hockey and women’s soccer teams compete in Division I. “I am especially pleased for the opportunities this will provide for our student-athletes and I appreciate our affiliation with institutions that share a similar academic philosophy and a tradition of success,” said Julie Soriero, director of athletics at Colorado College. Before the changes in membership, the SCAC was a 10-member league. A current SCAC member, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, is leaving after this spring’s championships to compete in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference.
Milestones: John Sirianni won his 500th career game in baseball when Simpson College swept a doubleheader April 15 against Buena Vista University. He is the 38th Division III coach to achieve the 500-victory milestone, and that victory gives Sirianni a .622 winning percentage in 22 seasons at the school, where he also serves as athletics director ... Stewart Moan collected his 150th victory in men’s lacrosse when State University College at Oneonta defeated State University College at Brockport April 8. Moan has won 49 of those games at Oneonta State, where he is in his fifth season. He also has coached at Lynchburg College and Marymount University (Virginia) ... Jeff Jenkins notched his 400th victory in baseball at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology when the Fightin’ Engineers defeated Concordia University (Illinois) March 25. Jenkins’ teams have won seven regular-season or postseason conference titles and appeared twice in the Division III Baseball Championship during his 17 years at the helm ... Kim Wilson collected her 300th softball win at Rowan University when the Profs beat Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in the first game of an April 4 doubleheader. Wilson, whose overall total of 365 wins (and her .694 winning percentage) includes six seasons at Washington & Jefferson College, has coached the Profs to three league titles and five Division III Softball Championship appearances. Rowan completed the doubleheader sweep to finish the day 23-1 — the best start in school history ... Robin Hamilton became the most victorious coach in any sport at the University of Puget Sound March 14 when she collected her 406th win in softball with the Loggers’ win over Illinois College in the Sun West Tournament in Orange, California. Hamilton, who came to the school in 1984 as sports information director and took the reins of the softball program two years later, has produced winning records in 17 of her 19 seasons and coached two teams to runner-up finishes in National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics competition.
Miscellaneous: Jennifer Martinez of St. Joseph’s College (Long Island) memorably etched her name in NCAA softball records when she tied the Division III single-game strikeouts record April 1 — then topped herself eight days later with a Division III record performance that tied the all-divisions single-game mark. Martinez joined six other pitchers in sharing the Division III mark with her 20-strikeout performance — and a one-hit shutout — against State University of New York at Farmingdale. Then, she one-upped herself with 21 strikeouts — and a no-hitter — against Mount St. Mary College (New York) April 9 to tie two other pitchers (one in Division I and another in Division II) for the all-divisions record for a seven-inning game ... Franklin College sports teams have been known as the Grizzlies for 77 years, but the school has just unveiled its first-ever athletics logo after a series of attempts to achieve just the right look — and it took the persistence of a football student-athlete who came to the Indiana campus from inner-city Miami, Florida, to finally accomplish the task. “There have been some periodic efforts to find a grizzly image that we liked and wanted to use, but they all were unsuccessful attempts,” said Athletics Director Kerry Prather, who joked that Franklin teams have been known as the “Fighting Bell Towers” due to the school’s use of a logo depicting a campus landmark. Senior sociology major Luis Galeano, who took art classes during his freshman year to settle in at Franklin after what he describes as a “really rough first semester,” impressed his instructors with his artistic talents, and one eventually told him about an athletics department request that an art student be asked to create a logo for the Grizzlies. Galeano’s first two attempts were rejected, but a third attempt gained Prather’s quick blessing. “He looked at me and said, ‘That’s the one; that’s the Franklin College Grizzlies,’ ” Galeano said. The school unveiled the logo April 17.
