Bucknell University Athletics
Annie Richards Wins Senior Athletic Award
6/22/2001 8:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
June 22, 2001
LEWISBURG, PA --- Bucknell senior Annie Richards (Point Pleasant, N.J./Lawrenceville), a four-year letterwinner as a goalie on the Bison women's lacrosse team, received a special award at the University's annual Senior Athletic Awards Banquet, sponsored by the Bison Club and held at the University in early May.
Richards won the Bison Club Award, presented to senior athletes "who best exemplify the winning spirit of the University's athletic program." Richards shared the award with Mark Juelis of the men's lacrosse team.
In addition to Richards and Juelis, several other student-athletes were honored at the banquet, including the winners of the Christy Mathewson Award, given to the most outstanding athletes in the senior class. All-American football and baseball standout Kevin Eiben won the men's Mathewson Award, while women's swimming standout Molly Lowe won the women's Mathewson Award.
One of the team captains of the 2001 squad, Richards played in six games between the pipes for the Orange and Blue posting a 1-2 record with a .513 save percentage. She made 40 saves in 2001 and finished her career with 412 stops in the cage.
Richards burst onto the scene as a freshman and played steadily in the net for her first two seasons (started 31 straight games), battling through injuries along the way. As a sophomore she concluded the season ranked sixth nationally in save percentage and 16th in goals-against-average. She compiled a .580 save percentage and an 8.71 goals against average during her first two seasons, before suffering an elbow injury that sidelined her during a game against Stanford in her junior campaign. Richards played in just three games that season. She finished her career seeing spot duty behind standout Nicole Kallis, but never lost her competitive edge or desire to be the best she could be.
Richards also had success as an elementary education major in the classroom, earning Dean's List and Patriot League Academic Honor Roll citations during her career. She took part in the Semester at Sea program during the fall of 1999, and is also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.
Bucknell is a highly-selective, privately endowed liberal arts institution with an enrollment of approximately 3,650 undergraduate students. Bucknell competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the Patriot League, along with Army, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, and Navy. Army and Navy do not compete in the league in football. Fordham and Towson are associate members of the league in football and Georgetown will join as a football-only member in 2001. American University will also become an all-sport member in 2001-2002.
In two of the past nine years, Bucknell ranked FIRST in the nation in the graduation rate of its student-athletes, and in the ten years the NCAA survey has been conducted it has never been lower than seventh. In addition, Bucknell ranks third in Division I in the total number of GTE Academic All-America selections, with 100 national Academic All-Americans since 1970.
