Brandywine men’s basketball holding PSUAC banner and trophy after winning the title. Photo Credit; Brandywine athletics.

Connor Crawford, Lion’s Eye Staff Writer, clc6080@psu.edu

Athletics is an area in sports that is constantly changing. Players change and leave, team rankings change, and personnel change. Athletics at Brandywine is no different. Change is a thing that everyone and every team has to deal with; the key thing is to see how these things affect the teams.
Brandywine’s Coordinator of Athletic Programs Jeffrey Scarpone, talked about the new head coach for men’s basketball. “Coach Justin Dunbar-Stevens was hired in July and seems to have everything moving well for the team. He was an assistant coach for a few different schools and knows the D3 league pretty well. Now he finally gets his shot at a head coach job. The basketball team has a lot of returning players, so they are expecting another great season out of the men’s basketball team,” said Scarpone.

They won the conference championship last year so the returning players know what it’s like to win and can help the younger guys out. “We are expecting big things out of men’s basketball again, just like last year.”
The women’s soccer team also has a new coach. Elise Pratt, who played division one soccer, is a recent grad (2017) from University of Delaware. Although it’s only been a short time, Pratt is enjoying working with the returning team. They lost their first game 4-3 against Wesley College—a tough team in the league.

Brandywine women’s soccer is looking to be competitive again in this league. They have their sights set on another conference title, which would be the team’s third conference title in a row.
Scarpone’s goals for all fall sports is that they all stay competitive.

Last year men’s soccer, women’s soccer and volleyball all went undefeated and won their conference titles. So from that Scarpone says, “the three team sports in the fall played very well and look to do the same this year as they stay focused and competitive.”
The men’s and women’s cross country teams are all off to a good start, as one of the freshman Brian Able, won the Delaware Valley invitational. He is Brandywine’s first male runner to win a race in the invitational. Freshman Katherine Mooney finished second place in her first her race. So both of those teams are off to running starts. The men’s golf team finished seventh in September. They are in their second year back after not having a team for nearly five years. Overall “Penn State Brandywine’s sports teams look to have very good seasons, and stay competitive in conference play,” said Scarpone. Good luck to all Penn State Brandywine fall athletes for a healthy, successful season.