WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – With approval from the Lycoming College Board of Trustees, the College will expand its varsity athletic offerings with the addition of baseball and field hockey, during the 2022-23 academic year, the College's President Kent Trachte announced on Thursday, Dec. 17.
 
"This decision to add baseball and field hockey to the intercollegiate sports program reflects Lycoming College's commitment to educating the whole person—mind, body and spirit," Lycoming College President Kent Trachte said. "It will also enable the College to attract more talented student-athletes to our community. Taking this step will require that we provide the programs with access to athletic facilities. The College is in the second phase of what will be a $3 million investment in UPMC Field that includes lights, locker rooms, stadium seating, offices and an athletic training station. We are grateful to UPMC Susquehanna for their substantial support of this project. The addition of baseball, meanwhile, is made possible by a partnership with the Williamsport/Lycoming Visitors Bureau and their plans to construct a new baseball and softball facility, which will become the home of Warrior baseball."
 
Lycoming began the process of reinstating the two programs in 2018 and with the approval of the Board of Trustees has advanced the process to its next stage, where the College will begin national searches for the program's head coaches in early 2021 with the expectation that both teams will be ready for varsity action in 2022-23.
 
"The decision to add baseball and field hockey, two sports with strong local roots, is another great example of Lycoming College's commitment to a strong intercollegiate athletics program," Director of Athletics Mike Clark said. "Baseball, obviously, has firm roots in Lycoming County, with long and distinguished histories established through minor league baseball at Bowman Field, Little League International and several really, really good high school programs in District 4. Field hockey, also, has strong roots in Central Pennsylvania, with the two best nationally-recognized programs little more than 40 minutes from our campus in Bloomsburg and Lock Haven, as well as six state champion teams hailing from District 4. We are excited to return to action and help continue to build on that tradition."
 
The two sports are the first to be added to Lycoming's athletic offerings since men's and women's lacrosse were started in 1997, increasing the school's NCAA sports offerings to 19. Baseball will take the field for the first time representing Lycoming since 1971 and field hockey will take the field for the first time since 1992.
 
Lycoming now offers 10 men's sports (baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis and wrestling) and nine women's sports (basketball, cross country, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis and volleyball).
 
The Warriors will round out the MAC Freedom to full membership allotments in both baseball and field hockey when they begin competing, joining Arcadia, Delaware Valley, DeSales, FDU-Florham, King's (Pa.), Misericordia, Stevens and Wilkes.
 
The Warriors will begin to assemble a baseball team with the hiring of a coach, followed by a club season in the spring of 2022 in preparation for becoming a member of the MAC Freedom in 2023. The team plans to make use of the baseball complex that the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce is planning to build on the South end of Rose Street, which is expected to be completed by spring 2022.
 
"We are incredibly excited that Lycoming College is going to call Williamsport Ballpark Inc.'s complex home," Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce President Jason Fink said. "We are looking forward to officially welcoming the Warriors to their new home and providing the Warriors with a true home-field advantage – an artificial turf-collegiate competition field with lights as well as an accompanying practice field that they can utilize."
 
Lycoming will be the 390th Division III baseball program, the most in the history of the division. In 2019, there were a record 14,177 student-athletes that participated in the sport at the Division III level and a record 36,011 played NCAA baseball, as the average squad size in Division III was around 32 participants.
 
The sport has also grown in high school, with 10,000 more participants during the 2019 season than 2009, reaching more than 482,000 in the country. In Pennsylvania and its neighboring states, nearly 87,000 student-athletes participated in baseball in 2019.
 
Lycoming's plan to launch field hockey will also begin with the hiring of a new coach, with a full slate of MAC Freedom games expected to be completed in 2022. The Warriors will make UPMC Field at the Shangraw Athletic Complex their home, joining the men's and women's soccer and men's and women's lacrosse teams at the field. In preparation for a third fall sport at the complex, lights were installed at UPMC Field in the fall and further enhancements to the field which include new seating and a locker room complex are currently in the fundraising stage.
 
Field hockey was sponsored at a record 278 NCAA institutions with 6,119 participants in 2019, with the average squad around 22 participants. Lycoming will be the 166th field hockey program at the Division III level.
 
At the high school level, nearly 61,000 student-athletes participated in field hockey during the 2018 season, its most in five years, and more than half of those athletes hail from Pennsylvania and its neighboring states.