On Nov. 12, three new inductees were added to the Longwood University Athletics Hall of Fame at a luncheon in Blackwell Hall. The day's first inductee was Darryl Case, '84, a member of the men's soccer team. He was the first, and to date only, four-time All-American in Longwood soccer history. Over four years at Longwood, he scored 15 goals and seven assists while playing defense. Case backstopped the Lancers to a 50-15-12 record and Virginia state championships in 1982 and 1984.
He described the induction as a "great honor, but not possible without my great team." He also thanked former head coach Rich Posipanko, for taking over a team with a 0-14 record and turning it into a winning program. At the end of his acceptance speech, Case said that it proved that things can be earned through "hard work, dedication and teamwork."
After Case was Claire Reyes Williams, '01 of field hockey. She was twice an All-American at Longwood, scoring two goals and four assists, while earning six defensive saves and leading Longwood to the 2000 Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Tournament title. She was described at the start of her part of the ceremony as a "wall in the back that nothing got by."
She was also the 2001 Virginia NCAA Woman of the Year, and one of 10 finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year that year. She described her induction as "surprising," saying that "field hockey has been a common thread in my life." She also commented on the additions to the campus since her graduation, saying, "It's amazing what you all have here." She dedicated the award to her 2000 team, saying that it was "not possible without them."
The third inductee was the 1991 baseball team. The team made the Division II College World Series in Montgomery, Ala. They achieved a school record of 41-8 and secured school-best winning streaks of 16 and 11 games, while coming within one win of the championship game. Eric Hutzler, who spoke for the team said that "pitch by pitch, inning by inning, and game by game, we grew stronger … with each win, we had more and more belief [that we were better than the polls indicated]."
"Coach [Buddy] Bolding brought us from a decent team to an All-American team," Hutzler said.
After the ceremony, Bolding said that the group was overlooked by the polls all season, and making the College World Series "became a realization that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts," and that they "showed a lot of courage in the face of adversity day after day."
