Bison Softball Through the Decades, Presented by Geisinger

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Softball at Bucknell debuted as a club sport in the spring of 1976, with coach Becky Carr leading a group of students to s 5-1 record against a schedule comprised exclusively of other Pennsylvania schools such as Bloomsburg, Susquehanna, Lock Haven and Franklin & Marshall. The program has certainly come a long way since then.

During the 1978-79 academic year, softball became Bucknell's 23rd varsity intercollegiate sport, and helped out by some standout club team holdovers along with a strong class of eight freshmen, the Bison posted a solid 8-4 record in that inaugural season in the spring of '79. Coaching the team was a young 22-year-old Terrie Grieb, a former star player in her own right at Lock Haven. Grieb was also the head coach of the volleyball team, which had just played its first varsity season in the fall of 1978, and she was also an assistant basketball coach in the winter. While she coached three sports at once in those early days, Grieb, who is now in the Bucknell Athletics Hall of Fame and still works as an administrator in the athletic department, is best known for her work on the diamond. In 21 years as head softball coach, she compiled 306 wins and led the Bison to their first conference championship in 1997.

More recently, Bucknell made an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2010, won a school-record 35 games in 2015, and posted a best-ever 14-3 Patriot League record in 2019. The program recently introduced Sarah Caffrey as its eighth head coach, and the former Penn State assistant will be looking to keep the Bison in the hunt for another Patriot League championship this spring after the 2020 campaign was cut short due ot the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the course of this week, Caffrey will be joined by many of the stars of the past who helped shape the history of the Bison softball program, and be on the lookout for a cameo appearance from Grieb with some of her former players. Special thanks to Geisinger for sponsoring the series.

1970s
We wrap up our fun week looking back at the history of Bison softball with a trip back to the 1970s. As mentioned above, the first varsity season was 1979, and Terrie Grieb's squad did remarkably well that year. The Bison dropped their very first game to Shippensburg by a score of 9-5, but then two days later they split a doubleheader with York before embarking on a five-game winning streak that included a 23-2 win over Juniata. We are joined on today's panel by three members of that inaugural varsity softball team: Patty Inchalik '81, Steph Buck '82 and Betsy Doyle '82. Inchalik captained the 1981 squad and did not make an error in 129 career chances in the field. Buck was a two-year captain who recorded a .500 batting average in 1979. That held up as the school record until Lauren Wible led the nation with a .524 average in 2005. Buck still holds the school record for runs scored in a game with six, and her .401 career batting average is fourth-best in team history. Buck also captained the Bison women's basketball team. Doyle's .444 average in 1980 still ranks as the fifth-best mark in team history. Her five hits and seven RBIs against Juniata that season remain school single-game records.

1980s
Over the course of the 1980s, Bison Softball progressed from ambitious varsity startup into a more organized program. Albeit nowhere near what the modern Becker Field has become, the softball facility did improve as dugouts and permanent fencing were installed at the West Fields. Starting in 1984, the Bison had a conference championship to pursue each year, as the team began play in the East Coast Conference after five seasons as an independent. Terrie Grieb earned ECC Coach of the Year honors in 1984 and 1988. The latter of those teams finished 24-9, which was the best record in team history at the time, doubling the previous single-season wins mark. Grieb's teams of the '80s produced plenty of talented players, many of whom were multi-sport stars. Jill Henry '81, Dan Becker '85, Dianne Czarnecki '87, Stacey Spitko '88, Lynne Walshaw '89 and Sharon Nichols '91 are all members of the Bucknell Athletics Hall of Fame, and they are all considered to be among the finest women ever to compete at Bucknell. Becker and Nichols are two of our guests on today's panel, and they are joined by Meg Gianesello '84, Patty Owens '88 and Denise Lipsett '89. Gianesello captained the 1984 team that went 4-2 in its first season in the ECC. Gianesello, who also played on the Bison basketball team, is credited with hitting Bucknell's very first home run, and she was also the program's first all-conference honoree when she was named to the All-ECC team as an outfielder in 1984. Becker was a terrific pitcher for the Bison. She was an All-ECC choice in 1985 and was also a two-time ECC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and CoSIDA Academic All-American. Her career ERA of 1.68 was a school record at the time and still ranks fourth today. Owens and Lipsett were co-captains of that record-setting 1988 squad. Owens was an All-ECC performer at first base after hitting .341 in 1985. Lipsett was a two-year team captain, and the standout catcher graduated as the career record holder in walks and games started. Nichols threw to Lipsett during the first two years of her brilliant pitching career at Bucknell. No Bison pitcher has topped Nichols' 1991 season, when she posted a microscopic 0.38 ERA with nine shutouts. Her 0.83 career ERA and 31 shutouts remain the school record by wide margins, and her record of 51 career wins was only just surpassed in 2020 by Raeanne Geffert. Nichols tossed four no-hitters and a perfect game in her career and once compiled a streak of 59.2 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run. She earned all-conference honors in both the ECC and Patriot League, and she won the Christy Mathewson Award as the top athlete in her class.

1990s
The 1990s marked a fun and successful decade for the Bison softball program. Terrie Grieb's squad hit the 20-win mark four times in the decade, and the 1993 team's 27-8 record was the best in team history based on winning percentage (.771). One thing the Bison had not been able to accomplish was getting over the hump in the Patriot League Tournament. The league debuted during the 1990-91 academic year, and some terrific Bucknell teams suffered several postseason heartbreakers back in the days when the tournament was played over one weekend at Patriots Park in the Lehigh Valley. That changed in 1997, when the Bison broke through with an epic 4-1, 19-inning win over Colgate in the PL final to claim the first conference title in team history. That was before the Patriot League had an automatic bid to the NCAA Regionals, however, and the Bison had to travel to Ivy League champion Brown in a play-in series. The Bears prevailed 4-2 and 3-0, and Bucknell would have to wait until 2010 to debut in the NCAA Regionals. We have six alumnae on today's call to reflect on the 1990s, including Hall-of-Famers Lisa Fink '93 and Jen Yuengling '93, along with Heidi Dawson '95, Jenn Gombos '97, Jen Jasionowski '97 and Jenny Snyder '99. Fink earned All-East Coast Conference honors as a freshman, and then she was a three-time All-Patriot League pick after the Bison moved into their new league. In 1993, Fink was named the PL Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and she was an NFCA First Team All-Region selection. Her .423 career batting average is third-best in team history, and she still holds the school records for career runs scored (146) and stolen bases (90) by wide margins. Yuengling was a terrific catcher for Grieb's teams of the early '90s. She started 144 out of a possible 145 game in her career and earned all-league honors in both the ECC and PL. Today she still ranks in the top 10 all-time in stolen bases (2nd with 67), runs scored (6th with 111) and hits (10th with 163). Heidi Dawson was one of the top pitchers in the Patriot League, where she formed an outstanding combo with classmate Allison Love. Dawson was the Patriot League Pitcher of the Year in 1993 after posting 13 wins and a 1.55 ERA. Her 39 career wins still rank fifth in Bison annals. She earned three All-PL citations and also earned three varsity letters with the Bucknell volleyball team. Gombos was a three-time all-league choice at second base, including First Team honors as a senior. Her 16 triples rank fourth on Bucknell's career list. Jasionowski was a three-time All-PL outfielder, earning First Team honors in both 1994 and 1996. She was also an NFCA Second Team All-Region selection in 1996. Snyder is one of the top shortstops in team history. As a senior in 1999 she hit .429, which is the eighth-highest average in program history, and she set the Bucknell single-season fielding record with 150 assists. Snyder was a four-time All-Patriot League selection and was the PL Player of the Year in 1999. She held the Bucknell career doubles record for 19 years until it was broken by Meghan Kovac in 2018. Snyder still ranks second in that category (47) as well as fifth in hits (189), seventh in runs (109) and 11th in batting average (.336).

2000s
The decade of the 2000s began with an ending ... the end of an era, that is. Terrie Grieb, the program's first head coach in 1979, stepped down after the 2000 season to focus full-time on her administrative role in the athletic department. Janelle Breneman took over in 2001, and after four years in the dugout handed the reins to Heather Rakosik in 2005. One of Bucknell's most notable achievements came in 2005, when Lauren Wible led all Division I players with a .524 batting average. That broke Bucknell's single-season record of .500 set by Stephanie Buck in the inaugural 1979 season, and it propelled Wible to Patriot League Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors. In fact, Wible was named the overall Patriot League Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year for all sports, making her the only Bison softball player to receive that high honor, and she also earned a spot on the CoSIDA Academic All-America Second Team. Wible '06 is one of four guests on today's panel, joining Angie Stackhouse '04, Ashley Carlson '09 and Lauren Fry '11. Stackhouse was a team captain and a First Team All-Patriot League selection in 2004, when she recorded the seventh-most RBIs in a season in team history (35). Wible is the only three-year team captain in program history. In addition to her PL Player of the Year honor in 2005, she was an NFCA First Team All-Region selection, and she still ranks in the top 10 in team history in career home runs (4th with 17), doubles (5th with 40), RBIs (6th with 96), batting average (8th at .350) and hits (9th with 167). Carlson captained the 2009 squad, earning Academic All-District honors that season. She was a Second Team All-Patriot League selection in 2007, and on Bucknell's career charts she still ranks fifth in stolen bases (47) and eighth in runs scored (98). Fry was also a team captain as a senior, and she was a key member of Bucknell's 2010 Patriot League championship team. Fry was a two-time First Team All-Patriot League selection and made the All-Tournament Team during the title run in 2010. Fry was the PL Rookie of the Year in 2008 and an NFCA Second Team All-Region pick in 2010. She broke Bucknell's single-season walks record with 31 in 2010, and on the career lists she currently ranks fifth in runs (113), sixth in doubles (39) and seventh in hits (177).

2010s
We start the week with reflection on the most recent decade, the 2010s. As mentioned in the introduction, Bucknell kicked off the decade with a Patriot League title, which led to the program's first-ever appearance in the NCAA Regionals. At the 2010 PL Tournament, the third-seeded Bison started with a 4-3 win over Lehigh, courtesy of a go-ahead two-run triple from Jane Messersmith in the top of the seventh inning. They followed with an extra-innings loss to Colgate, which meant the Bison would have to stave off elimination from the losers bracket. Hours after the loss to Colgate, Bucknell knocked out host and top-seeded Army 2-1, setting up a rematch with Colgate for the title. The Bison would have to win twice to claim the title, and they did just that with a 4-3 win on Sherry Finkel's ninth-inning home run, followed by a 6-4 verdict in the final contest. When the 1997 squad won the league title, it had to face Brown in a best-2-of-3 play-in series to get into the NCAA field, and the Bears prevailed. This time, Bucknell received the Patriot League's automatic bid and was sent to Columbus, Ohio, where the Bison dropped two hard-fought contests against California and Ohio State. That magical postseason run under coach Heather Rakosik marked a great start to the decade. After a couple of down years, the Bison posted three straight winning PL records under Bonnie Skrenta from 2013-15, highlighted by a school-record 35 overall wins in 2015. Courtnay Foster was head coach in 2016 and 2017, and then Canadian National Team player Joey Lye took over in 2018. In Lye's two full seasons, Bucknell went 13-5 and 14-3 in league play, and when Lye stepped down to focus on playing in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, Caffrey came on board this past August. Five all-stars from the 2010s join us on today's panel: Cydnee Sanders '15, Kristen Zahn '15, Amanda Fazio '16, Meghan Kovac '18 and Raeanne Geffert '20. Sanders was a three-time All-Patriot League selection and an NFCA Second Team All-Region pick in 2014. Sanders, who hit .482 as a junior, owns Bucknell's season (80) and career (208) hits records. She was also a three-time member of the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll and was the league's Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2014. After earning Second Team All-Patriot League honors in 2013 and 2014, Zahn moved up to the First Team as a senior and was also named the PL Player of the Year. Zahn was an NFCA All-Region Second Team honoree in 2015, when she crushed the school record for runs batted in with 53 (the previous mark was 35). Zahn graduated with a .351 career batting average, seventh-best in team history, and her 104 career RBIs rank fourth all-time. Fazio was a standout pitcher and outfielder for the Bison. She earned a pair of All-Patriot League honors, including a First Team nod as a pitcher in 2016. She won a school-record 19 games in the circle in 2015, and she ranks third in wins (48) and first in saves (6) on Bucknell's career lists. She was also Bucknell's all-time leader in strikeouts (464) until Geffert broke that record last year. In addition to breaking the wins record as a junior, she also broke Hall-of-Famer Lisa Fink's team mark for stolen bases in a season with 26. Fazio's 55 career steals are third-most in team annals. Kovac is one of the premier power hitters in program history, as she left with Bucknell career records for home runs (25), RBIs (148) and doubles (52), and she ranks second in hits (206) and 11th in batting average (.336). She is the only Bison to ever record double-digit home runs in a season (13 in 2018). She was a three-time All-Patriot League selection and was the recipient of the Patriot League Award for Leadership and Character in 2018. Geffert graduated last spring as Bucknell's all-time leader in wins and strikeouts, despite having her senior year halted in March due to the pandemic. She was a three-time All-Patriot League selection and a two-time member of the Academic All-Patriot League Team. In 2019, Geffert pitched a no-hitter against Patriot League rival Lehigh.

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Bison Softball Through the Decades, Presented by Geisinger

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