A Blog From a Former Division-III Pine Rider

In order to measure a program’s success, an immediate reaction would be to look at the number of championships it has or to count the different individual accolades a program holds due to certain players and coaches.  If you revisit the archives of both the Messiah Men’s and Women’s soccer programs’ success, you find that - since the year 2000 - there has been a combined 30 MAC Championships and 16 National Championship titles amongst the programs. None of us can deny the fact that both programs are now some of the most heralded Division-III soccer programs in the nation, but this success does not just appear out of thin air.  Thus, when Coach McCarty and Coach Frey were asked how their programs have consistently been so dominant over the years, a common theme surfaced in the idea of the type of culture that was prevalent when both coaches took over several years ago. MWS In order to understand the soccer programs’ consistency over the past couple decades, it is important to...

Every new season undoubtedly brings a new feel for a team, as chemistry is different and players come and go. The freshman have to be acclimated to the collegiate level and - depending on the number of seniors graduating - there are holes that need to be filled. The signs of a great program point to the perseverance and persistence the players and coaches have to continue to be great, year in and year out. The Messiah College Field Hockey team has been one of the most consistent programs at this school over recent years due to the fact that the team has won the MAC Commonwealth conference every year for the past 11 seasons. Having been four years removed from a Division-III National Championship, the Field Hockey program had lost only three games since the 2016 season before heading into this year. So, when the Falcons were seen losing four of their first seven games of the season, it was certainly uncommon and uncanny.  Surely, any one of us could have wondered why the Falcon...

INTERVIEW W/ FORMER PLAYER RYAN KIRK (2020) There have been several sports programs that have been shut down in the past at Messiah College. Most recently, Messiah dropped the golf program as a varsity sport on campus. The Falcons’ Golf program was discontinued in 2018 after 30 years of competing in the MAC Conference. Messiah’s first official NCAA varsity match was played on Apr. 5, 1988 against both Albright and Franklin & Marshall, while the last weekend of the program took place on April 28th 2017 at the MAC Championship in Hershey.  Former golfer and current Senior here on campus Ryan Kirk was able to reflect back on his first... and last two years of Messiah’s golf program and how it has impacted his life since the program has been discontinued. Rather than harp on the fact that the golf program is no longer, it is only right that we revisit the most memorable moments in recent history for the golf program and more specifically, the last two years in the account of ...