South Mountaineer Volume 40, Issue 21

              THIS WEEKEND
Patriot League Championships @ Navy
Women #5 Lehigh vs. #4 Bucknell, Fri. 8:00
91.3FM
Men #5 Lehigh vs. #4 Colgate, Sat. 4:30
TV: Channel 69,1470 AM, 91.3 FM
BASKETBALL:   Teams gear up for league tournament
11
WRESTLING:       Grapplers battle #3 Penn State
10
TRACK:
Patriot League Championships
10
South Mountaineer
Volume 11, Issue 21
Lehigh University Athletics Weekly
February 25,1998
Swimming and Divins
Lehigh Wins Patriot League Swimming Championship!!
Mountain Hawks put an end to service academies' domination with great performance
by Jason Jenkins
Sports Communications Office
In one of the most competitive
women's meets in league history,
Lehigh won the Patriot League
Championship, February 14, at Colgate
University.
Lehigh pulled ahead to stay on the
third and final day by scoring 234
points. The Mountain Hawks became
the first team other than Navy to win the
women's title since Army won it in
1991.
The Lehigh men finished second to
Army with 737 points. Army claimed
their seventh consecutive league title
with the victory.
Lehigh head coach Chris Marshall
said the performance was the best he had
ever seen by his women's team.
Lehigh swimmers
celebrate the women
winning the 1998
Patriot League
Championship
"The women were really focused on our
common goal, which was to swim fast as
individuals and control what we could do,
and not worry about the other teams."
Marshall also took home Coach of the
Year honors.
Marshall said pre-meet planning by him
and his coaching staff played a big role in
the victory.
"We did more homework than any other
coaching staff," Marshall said. "We spread
our swimmers out over many events
and were able to juggle some points."
Junior co-captain Tanya Barone set
the tone from the outset, setting a
school record in the 500 freestyle.
Freshman Vanessa Buschmann broke
the record in her heat, only for Barone
to break it again the following day.
Lehigh swimmers peaked at this
event, due to a scheduled training
regimen by Marshall and his staff.
"From a training standpoint this was
the pest," Marshall said. "If every year
was like this year, they would ask me to
write a book."
In all eight school records were
broken at the league championships.
Members of the team will travel to
the ECAC championships in South
Jersey, Thursday through Saturday.
Men's Basketball
Lehigh records best one-year Divison I turnaround in the country
by Glenn Hofmann
Director, Spoils Communications
Lehigh basketball is fun to watch
again and after a season which
featured numerous accomplishments,
optimism is very high around this
very young program. Keep in mind
there arc no seniors in this program
and only two juniors.
Despite the lack of experience,
Lehigh has won ten games— but
consider just how far this team has
come in just one year.
Last year was a season to forget, 1 -
26 and a 306 ranking out of 307
Division I teams. But you knew that
wouldn't last. Sal Mentesana rebuilt
the East Stroudsburg program into one
of the top Division III teams in the
country and as he says last year was a
necessary first step.
"Last year I felt like a caretaker
rather than a coach," Mentesana said.
"We just wanted to get through the
season with as few mental and
physical bruises as possible. This year
we started to put together a
foundation."
This foundation has recorded the
biggest single-season turnaround from
last year in Division I basketball.
This team also has beaten three
scholarships programs on the road for
the first time since the 1989-90 season.
Also, Lehigh broke a 16-gatne Patriot
League road losing streak and the
Freshman guard Tiwaun Hawkins has played
a big role in Lehigh's turnaround
Credit: Ken White
Mountain Hawks nine-game improvement is
tied for the best in the Patriot League history.
Colgate and Navy each had nine game
improvements.
"As a staff we feel it's been a very
successful season," Mentesana explains.
"We got a few monkeys off our back with
some of the road wins. To win ten games is
certainly an accomplishment considering we
won five the previous two seasons
combined. We have become a competitive
team. While we've been inconsistent
because of our youth, I think on a given
night we can be competitive with anyone on
our schedule."
Individually, the story of the season is
the nation's third leading scorer junior Brett
Eppehimer. He's won three games with last
second shots (Vermont, UMBC, and Holy
Cross) and he's surpassed the 30-point mark
seven times.
"I thought his production might tail off,
but he improved dramatically over last
year," Mentesana said. "It is really
remarkable what he has accomplished
considering all of the attention he gets from
our opponents."
Mentesahsa also recruited Lehigh's best
point guard in many years, freshman
Tiwaun Hawkins. Hawkins leads the
Patriot League in assists and is third in
assist-turnover ratio.
"Tiwaun has helped us immeasurably,"
Mentesana explains. "He runs our team
with more confidence than you'd ever
expect from a freshman and he is very good
defensively."
When you look back on the season there
will be many
memorable
moments. The
season started
with three straight
wins including an
upset of Wagner
in the season-
opener. There was
the 81-80 victory
at Vermont in
which Eppehimer hit a game-winning
three-point shot with :04 seconds left.
Also, Eppehimer scored 39 points in
lifting the Mountain Hawks to a win
over a Vermont team that is currently in
second place in the America East
Conference.
Also, Lehigh shocked 10-game
winner UMBC, a team that two days
later won at Bucknell. Eppehimer had
41 points in that game.
The Mountain Hawks recorded one
of the more improbable wins in college
basketball this season against Holy
Cross. Lehigh rallied from an eight
point deficit with :54 seconds
remaining.
"We've accomplished a lot this
season," Mentesana said. "After the
season we'll look back and see how we
improved and look at some of the
things that might have been. We'll set
out a plan to get us to the next level."
A Season of Accomplishments
**Best one-year turnaround in the country
**Best Patriot League turnaround ever
**Three road wins vs. scholarship teams for the first time since
1989-90
**Most road wins since the 1994-95 season
"Season's 3-0 start was best since 1938-39
**Brett Eppehimer-third most single seasson points in school
history
**Best Patriot League finish in seven years.