Springfield, Ohio – The last time the Wittenberg Tiger women’s cross country team finished in the top half of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) standings, the current team members weren’t even in high school yet. That was 2001, when the Tigers jumped on the shoulders of two-time individual conference champion Abi Gerstle to a fifth-place finish, their previous best in 20 years as a member of the NCAC.
 
In the pool, the Tiger men’s swimming and diving team had enjoyed brief visits to the top half of the conference, including their most recent fourth-place exploit in 2007-08, but Wittenberg had struggled to find staying power near the top of the standings in one of the most competitive swimming conferences in NCAA Division III. Last season’s success surprised many across the NCAC and Head Coach Natalie Koukis earned much-deserved Coach of the Year recognition. Some of the swimmers on this year’s squad can still remember days when aspirations of a top-three finish would be considered over-ambitious.
 
How quickly things can change. The Tiger women’s cross country team surged up the standings in 2008 in a conference previously dominated by distance running powers like Allegheny (Pa.) College and Kenyon College, as well as the resurgent programs at Oberlin College and Ohio Wesleyan University. Wittenberg’s secret? Try five freshmen leading the way for Head Coach Craig Penney’s squad, as the Tigers recently took their best finish in school history, fourth, at the NCAC Championships.
 
As for the Tiger men’s swimming and diving program, confidence grew with early season dual meet victories over Wooster and Wabash, the latter being the first dual win ever over the Little Giants. Then breakout seasons and personal best performances became contagious, with school records falling at an unprecedented rate at the conference championship meet earlier this month. By meet’s end, this collection of spry juniors and sophomores who compose the bulk of the scoring had boosted the program to its best-ever third-place NCAC finish.
 
This comes at a slight contrast to the women harriers, where a trio of freshmen took the helm for the Tigers, including standouts Mary Pfeifer, Darcy Dubuc, and Anna Henry, all class of 2012 from Dublin, Ohio, Grand Haven, Mich. and Chagrin Falls, Ohio, respectively. Pfeifer earned NCAC Newcomer of the Year recognition with a fifth-place conference finish, narrowly edging Henry for the honor. Both landed first-team All-NCAC honors, while Dubuc claimed ninth overall and a second-team nod.
 
The aforementioned successes did not come in a vacuum, however, as Wittenberg made a steady ascension through the 2008 campaign. Dubuc took sixth in the mid-season All-Ohio meet, and, including all the scholarship athletes in Divisions I, II and NAIA, finished 47th in a field of nearly 300 runners. That finish earned her recognition as the top NCAA Division III freshman women’s cross country runner in Ohio, and placed her name with some good company – her overall finish was third-best in school history, behind only Gerstle’s 40th- and 43rd-place finishes in 2001 and 2002, respectively. In addition, Dubuc claimed the individual meet title at the Wittenberg Invitational in September.
 
At the All-Ohio Championships and again in the NCAC Championships, the Tigers had the youngest team in the field as the only team to send more than three freshmen into the gauntlet - Wittenberg had five - and only one of two teams to see their scoring group entirely composed of underclassmen. For a Tiger team in search of its first national qualifier since 2002, Dubuc joined Pfeifer with sensational regional races, both coming tantalizingly close to qualifying for the NCAA national meet while earning all-region honors.
 
The men’s swimming and diving team has seen a pair of juniors make a mercurial rise from their days as underclassmen, led by Neil Anderson, class of 2010 from Lakewood, Ohio. The distance freestyle specialist showed his early promise during his previous seasons, only to continue his climb into the ranks of the nationally elite with a superb 2008-09 campaign. Along with Taylor Smith, class of 2010 from Mansfield, Ohio, who is the only current Tiger to have competed in an NCAA Division III national meet, Anderson headlines a lengthening list of Tigers making an impact in the pool. In a total of 23 races in dual meets in which he entered individually, Anderson touched the wall first a staggering 15 times.
 
Matt Higbee, Zach Stewart and Chris Culkin, all class of 2011 from Columbus, Ohio, Vincennes, Ind., and Novi, Mich., respectively, enjoyed breakout years as well, riding the wave of momentum established by the dual successes and optimism created by rigorous offseason training. Stewart broke Anderson’s school record in the 200-yard freestyle en route to one of the Tigers’ best showings of the NCAC Championship, while the aforementioned quintet, joined by Bobby Ritzi, class of 2010 from Beavercreek, Ohio, and Matt Parker, class of 2012 from Delaware, Ohio, rounded out Wittenberg’s program-best seven All-NCAC performers in the meet.
 
Running away with third place in the conference meet became a product of recruiting meeting enthusiasm, and with virtually everyone returning, expectations will be sky-high with the Tigers in an unfamiliar position – sitting the in the catbird seat heading into next winter.
 
But it’s first things first for coaches Craig Penney and Natalie Koukis and their suddenly deep Tiger teams. For programs that hadn’t seen an all-conference performer in cross country since Becky Barnes made the third team in 2003 and an individual in swimming and diving since Cody Nicely placed third in the 3-meter dive in 2005, talk of anything beyond the here-and-now seems a bit overzealous. Still, the “now” is what has changed the entire face of both programs.
 
The men’s swimming and diving team capped off an already memorable season with three relays and individuals meeting or exceeding NCAA Division III provisional qualifying standards during the 2009 NCAC Championships. On the diving board, the Tigers have added depth, with much credit due to NCAC Men’s Diving Coach of the Year Jim Smith.
 
Less than three years after Penney jumped onto the scene in 2006 to take over the cross country and track and field programs, the tide has turned – in a big way. Wittenberg’s women’s cross country team nearly doubled in size with the arrival of an astounding 12 fresh faces at the outset of the 2008 season. Meanwhile, Koukis, in her fifth year, added eight to a roster that exceeds 25 student-athletes while competing for top recruits against two of the top five teams nationally, Denison University and Kenyon College, within her own state.
 
By themselves, the accomplishments of the women’s cross country team and the men’s swimming and diving teams symbolize a successful year for Wittenberg athletics, but other programs have set historic bests in ‘08-09. The men’s cross country took its best finish in almost a decade by placing seventh at the 2008 conference meet, while the men’s soccer team matched its best finish in conference in that same time span while reaching the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time since 1996. In addition, the Tiger women’s swimming and diving team set an astounding 11 school records in a memorable conference weekend that ended with a fifth-place finish.
 
The future, as they say, is bright.

Written and recorded by: Ben Bradley
Video by: Ross Ballinger
Photos by: Alex Spatzier (Cross Country) and Erin Pence (Swimming)

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Related Links: Swimming and Diving Cross Country