Special Events | 5/1/2003 2:18:00 PM

The Barry University Athletic Department celebrated its 19th annual Sports Awards Banquet Thursday, May 1 at the Signature Grand in Fort Lauderdale. Awards were presented to athletes from every sport along with the cheerleaders and athletic trainers.

Senior soccer player Alen Marcina was named the Male Athlete-of-the-Year and senior softball pitcher Geralyn Elam was named the Female Athlete-of-the-Year.

Marcina became the third straight men's soccer player to earn Male Athlete of the Year, following Jacobi Goodfellow in 2002 and Andy Hylton (who was Co-Male Athlete of the Year with tennis player Christian Witt) in 2001. Marcina, the Bucs' leading scorer with 62 goals and 151 points, became the Buccaneers' very first First-Team NSCAA All-American this season as he scored a school-record 18 goals and led Barry to the NCAA Division II South Regional Finals.

Elam, the 2002 NFCA National Player of the Year and Sunshine State Conference Female Athlete of the Year, produced another outstanding season for the Buccaneers as they vaulted to #1 in the NFCA National Poll. She became the first pitcher in SSC history to post 30 wins each in two separate seasons and set Barry University records for strikeouts, shutouts and no-hitters, while being named SSC Pitcher of the Year by unanimous vote.

Men's soccer swept the male awards as Jericho Hartley was named Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year. A two-time letterman after transferring in from NCAA Division I Marshall, Hartley posted the highest GPA among all Barry men's athletes. Majoring in management information systems, he has been a Sunshine State Conference Commissioner's Honor Roll pick the past two seasons.

On the women's side, two athletes have virtually identical GPAs and were named Co-Female Scholar-Athetes of the Year: Victoria Courmes from tennis and Rachel Theisen from rowing.

Courmes is one of the top scholars at Barry. In seven semesters, her outstanding GPA has placed her on the president's list for six semesters and the dean's list for one semester. She has been a stalwart on the women's tennis team for the past all four years.

Theisen has been a president's list scholar twice in three semesters at Barry, while anchoring the women's rowing team.

Click link below for photos from the banquet.