Spanos earn honors after big baseball season The 2019 baseball season saw the Lakers travel to their second straight College World Series and fnish as one of the last four teams standing in Division II. After the season, the Mercyhurst coaching staf brought home multiple awards and honors. Head coach Joe Spano was named American Baseball Coaches Association Atlantic Region Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season after leading the Lakers to a 36-win season, a 19-9 record in PSAC play, and that World Series appearance – the third for the team in the last fve years. He would go on to be named the 2019 Erie Times-News Sportsman of the Year for his dedication to Mercyhurst baseball and the community. In his career Spano has racked up 649 wins and all 10 of Mercyhurst’s winningest seasons. Associate head coach Charlie Spano was also honored by the ABCA as the Division II Assistant Coach of the Year, an award that honors coaching expertise, recruiting, loyalty to the program and respect for the game. Charlie fnished his 18th season with the Lakers. During his tenure, Mercyhurst has had 23 infelders earn all-conference honors. In his time as recruiting coordinator, 14 Lakers have gone on to be drafted by Major League Baseball clubs and eight are still active at various levels of professional baseball.
Renovations continue to transform campus athletic facilities
The growth of Mercyhurst Athletics has been apparent in a very physical way over the past year, with the Mercyhurst Ice Center, Saxon Stadium, and the baseball/soccer felds all undergoing transformative renovations. Saxon Stadium, which was named for John and Patty Saxon during Homecoming 2019, has an all-new playing surface that was expanded to allow men’s and women’s soccer to play at Saxon under the newly installed LED lights. Men’s soccer hosted their PSAC quarterfnal matchup on the Saxon turf. Also during Homecoming, the Saxon Stadium press box was named for P. Barry McAndrew, the long-time voice of Mercyhurst Athletics and the public address announcer for Laker football and basketball. Marc McAndrew ’88 made a major contribution to the Laker for Life Campaign in honor of his father, who was a member of the Mercyhurst English faculty for 41 years prior to his retirement and was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014. Mercyhurst and Mercyhurst Preparatory School also broke ground last fall on a shared facility that will provide an on-campus home for the university’s softball team as well as Mercyhurst Prep boys’ and girls’ soccer teams. The softball/ soccer complex will be located in the space between Mercyhurst University’s two turf felds
and the Sisters of Mercy Motherhouse, and will also provide an additional practice and competition site for the university’s soccer, feld hockey and lacrosse teams. The impetus for the project came largely from Betsy Hirt Vorsheck, a 1973 Mercyhurst Prep graduate and a 1977 graduate of Mercyhurst University, and her husband, William. Together, the Vorshecks gifted $4 million to the university’s frst-ever designated capital campaign for athletics: Laker for Life: The Campaign for Mercyhurst Athletics . Mercyhurst has named its new and upgraded facilities The William J. Vorsheck Jr. Athletic Complex. Also upgraded thanks to the Laker for Life campaign were the Mercyhurst Ice Center, which got new boards and glass, new chillers to provide a higher quality playing surface, and improvements to its spectator areas; and the baseball/soccer feld, which has a new turf playing surface, a pair of new scoreboards, and new grandstand seating behind home plate at the baseball feld. Four new locker rooms were also built behind the Ice Center. Laker for Life: The Campaign for Mercyhurst Athletics continues to accept donations, with further projects dependent on its success. For information, visit the campaign website at mercyhurst.edu/LakerforLife .
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