ON THE HILL
sports
PHOTO: PAUL BLASCOVICH
A Banner Season
BLOOMSBURG HOSTS 10 CHAMPIONSHIPS IN ONE YEAR
Kevin Wood, director of athletic operations, prepares for this spring’s softball championship.
hosted a variety of postseason matchups on the upper campus, from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) field hockey final four and NCAA football playoffs to Eastern Wrestling League (EWL) championships and lots of softball. This past year, all or part of 10 championships were contested at Bloomsburg. Preparation is key to putting on an event that’s memorable for the student-athletes, says Tom McGuire, director of sports information, but the length of time available for preparation varies from event to event. Sites for sports like tennis, wrestling, track and swimming championships are known a year ahead and Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) playoff game locations generally are set a few months in advance. In other sports, however, hosting is determined by a team’s record in conference play and may allow as few as 48 hours for preparation. That’s when three staffs—athletic opera-
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HE HUSKIES HAVE
tions, athletic training and sports information—get to work. “When we learn that BU will be the host, we print tickets, assign student-workers, get the pre-game music together and make sure officials have a locker room, among a laundry list of items,” says Kevin Wood, director of athletic operations. Athletic trainers coordinate with their counterparts on the visiting team and the sports information staff creates programs, builds Web pages for fans, writes press releases and makes arrangements for coverage by sports reporters from newspapers, TV and radio. Hosting an NCAA playoff is more complicated. The NCAA office requires each school willing to run the game or tournament to complete forms covering details including where teams and officials will stay—not in the same hotel—seating capacity and the restrooms’ proximity to the field. Wood is responsible for submitting those forms by deadline.
B L O O M S B U R G U N I V E R S I T Y O F P E N N S Y LVA N I A
“NCAA manuals cover every aspect of operation at one of their championships,” says McGuire. “They leave nothing to chance, right down to the time for the national anthem. We’ve hosted so many times we know much of what’s in the manual without reading it.” Sometimes, BU juggles multiple championships. That happened last March when the Huskies hosted the PSAC Women’s Basketball championship on Friday and Saturday and the EWL Division I national qualifying tournament on Sunday. And that doesn’t count a women’s basketball quarterfinal game on Tuesday and a home lacrosse game on Wednesday. It’s a lot of work, but there are no complaints. It’s too much fun watching the Huskies win.
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Mauro Honored SOFTBALL PLAYER LACY MAURO
of Jersey Shore was named firstteam All-American by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA). The catcher capped her college Mauro career with a brilliant senior season, leading Bloomsburg in hitting, with a mark of .404, homers (10), RBIs (35) and hits (59). She was tied for the team lead in doubles with 11 and was second in runs scored with 33. Mauro also led the Huskies with 18 multi-hit games and had 10 multi-RBI games. Mauro also was named the 2011 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Central Division Athlete of the Year, the first-team All-PSAC Central two years in a row, first-team All-Atlantic Region by Daktronics and firstteam All-Region by the NFCA.
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