Marisa Lombardo

Alvernia Inducts Hall of Fame Class of 2022

By Marisa Lombardo (Director of Sports Information)

10/7/2022 11:00:00 PM

Reading, Pa. (Oct. 7, 2022) - Alvernia University inducted the Class of 2022 to its Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday evening in a ceremony held at Alvernia’s PLEX..

The Class of 2022, Alvernia’s 14th Hall of Fame class, included Baseball player Brandon DeWald (2005), Field Hockey and Women’s Lacrosse athlete Melissa Senick Evans (2006), Baseball athlete Andrew Kirk (2012), Field Hockey and Women’s Lacrosse athlete Samantha Schoessow Landis (2012), and Men’s Soccer athlete Zach Naylon (2006).

Alvernia also awarded Polly Mathy with the inaugural Friends of Alvernia Athletics Award.

Brandon Dewald ‘05

Baseball

Brandon Dewald was a standout pitcher for Alvernia’s 2005 PAC Championship team that went 42-6 on the season. DeWald was a two-time PAC All-Conference honoree, earning first team honors in 2005 and second team honors in 2004.

Dewald finished his career with 23 wins and four saves over 53 appearances. He is fourth all time in appearances and wins. Dewald threw eight complete games and finished his career with 184 strikeouts.

Dewald now lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, Christian, and their 12-year old son Riley. Brandon has worked in construction sales for the last 16 years and enjoys playing golf and traveling.

Melissa Senick Evans ‘06

Field Hockey and Women’s Lacrosse

Melissa Senick Evans was a standout two-sport athlete for the Golden Wolves. Evans earned all-region honors for field hockey and was a two-time All-PAC honoree. She earned first team All-PAC honors in 2004 and second team All-PAC honors in 2006. She finished her field hockey career with six career goals and nine career assists. Evans was a member of the 2005 PAC Championship that went 11-0 at home and allowed just five goals. That team was inducted into the Alvernia Hall of Fame in 2021.

Evans also played in 24 games over two seasons as a defender for Women’s Lacrosse. She earned All-PAC honorable mention and finished her lacrosse career with 1.92 caused turnovers a game to sit atop the Alvernia record books. She also had 72 career ground balls and 46 caused turnovers.

After graduating from Alvernia, Evans stayed involved as a field hockey assistant coach for Alvernia until 2018. She now resides in Sinking Spring with her husband, Ryan, their daughter and two sons. She currently works for the Governor Mifflin School District as a social worker at the high school

Andrew Kirk ‘12

Baseball

Andrew Kirk was an exceptional pitcher for Alvernia baseball during his career. Kirk was the 2011 MAC Commonwealth Pitcher of the Year and earned All-American honors that same year. In addition to first team All-MAC Commonwealth honors in 2011, Kirk was a second team selection in 2012.

Kirk finished his career with a 2.75 career ERA with 23 wins over 33 starts and 225 innings pitched. Kirk holds the record for single-season starts with 13 and innings pitched in a season with 88 and two thirds. He also holds the single game strikeout record with 16. Kirk was also a member of the 2009 MAC Freedom Championship team and made four NCAA Tournament appearances during his career.

Kirk now works for PECO Energy and is finishing up his apprenticeship to be a senior distribution mechanic. He has a ten-year old step daughter with his wife, Brittany, along with a three-year old son and one-year old daughter.

Samantha Landis Schoessow ‘12

Field Hockey and Women’s Lacrosse

Samantha Landis Schoeesow was a remarkable two-sport athlete for Alvernia. Schoeesow earned All-American honors for field hockey and three-time All-MAC Commonwealth honoree, including first team honors in 2012. Schoeesow played in 84 field hockey games and scored 27 career goals with 24 career assists.

Schoessow is also t-1st all-time with 74 games played in women’s lacrosse. She scored 120 career goals with 65 career assists and is first all-time in ground balls with 224. She also sits atop the Alvernia record book with 303 ground balls and added 99 caused turnovers. Schoessow closed out her Alvernia career as a member of the 2012 Women’s Lacrosse ECAC Championship team.

After graduation, Schoessow briefly held an assistant coaching position at Lycoming in Women’s Lacrosse before moving to Wisconsin to be the graduate assistant for women’s lacrosse at Concordia University Wisconsin. In 2015, she was given the opportunity to start the field hockey program at CUW, where she has been ever since. Up until this season, CUW was the only field hockey program in Wisconsin since the 1980s. Schoessow resides in Wisconsin with her husband, Michael, and two sons.

Zach Naylon ‘06

Men’s Soccer

Naylon was the 2006 PAC Player of the Year, and was a member of Alvernia’s first winning-team in 2006 after Alvernia went 11-6 on the year. In addition to his 2006 Player of the Year honors, Naylon was also a first team All-PAC honoree and NSCAA All-Region honoree that first year.

Naylon finished his career with 11 goals, six assists, and 28 points. He no resides in Wyomissing with his wife, Kelly, and son, Cohen. Naylon coached at Alvernia for five years following his career as a student-athlete. Since graduation, Naylon has worked in sales for a packaging company. He stays involved with soccer today, coaching his son’s youth soccer team.

Polly Mathys - Friends of Alvernia Athletics Award

This year Alvernia introduced the Friends of Alvernia Athletics Awards. This award is given to a non-athlete who, in some manner, has made an extraordinary contribution to the success of the intercollegiate athletic program at Alvernia. This year, Alvernia announced its inaugural honoree, Polly Mathys.

Polly Mathys has been an educator for 44 years, including 34 years served at Alvernia. She was an Assistant Professor of Computer information Systems from 1986-2020 and served as the Academic Support Center Learning Coordinator from 2016 to 2020.

Polly is a staple of Alvernia Athletics, but her connection was accidental. In 1993, Polly was pulled into a basketball game by a colleague and was immediately hooked. She loved to watch the students work hard to excel at something they loved. From then on, she was Alvernia’s biggest fan.

In 2004, Polly was named Alvenria’s NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative. That was a role she held until her retirement in 2020.

As Alvernia’s FAR, she constantly worried about a student-athletes’ commitment to academics. She would always ask a student after their game “Nice Game. How’s your term paper coming along?”

The one attribute of Alvernia’s athletes she admired the most was the ability to be coached during a game and change their behavior/ actions in real-time. Polly shared, “I am drawn to athletics because the student-athletes had attributes I wish I had- persistence, a realistic assessment of their own skills, acceptance of guidance by someone else, and a strong sense of being part of a team.”

Serving as the NCAA FAR was Polly’s favorite part of her tenure at Alvernia. She was, is, and continues to be Alvernia’s student-athlete’s biggest fan. It’s also safe to say she has thousands of student-athlete alumni who are a big fan of hers.

# Golden Wolves #

Read More