UMBC ATHLETICS HISTORY (1966-present)

1966

• October 30 - A dedication ceremony for naming "Sam", the first official UMBC Retriever mascot, is held
• November 4 - Men’s Soccer plays the first intercollegiate game in school history and earns high praise despite a 4-1 loss to Maryland.

1967

• November 18 - Men’s Basketball plays its first varsity contest after a year on the club level, dropping a 73-63 verdict to Catonsville CC. The team would finish its first season at 4-7.

1968

• January 9 - Men’s Basketball wins its first intercollegiate game, an 84-75 triumph over Eastern College of Commerce.

1970

• September - UMBC is officially accepted into its first athletic conference, the Mason-Dixon Athletic Conference. UMBC would remain a member of the MDAC through 1978 and join again from 1983-86.

1974

• April 13 - Mel Hammell tosses the first no-hitter in school history, a 20-0 win over Coppin State.

1975

• December 6 - Men’s Cross Country wins its first Mason-Dixon title, capping a perfect 10-0 season.

1977

• February 6 - Men’s Basketball earns its first win over a Division I program, defeating Madison College (later James Madison Univ.), 82-80.
• November - Men’s Soccer is invited to the 1977 NCAA Regionals, the first such appearance by a UMBC team.

1979

• March 10 - UMBC draws 3,617 fans to an NCAA Men's Basketball Quarterfinal game vs. Cheyney. The Retrievers fell, 65-62, to the John Cheney-coached team, but finished the year ranked sixth nationally in Division II.

1980

• May 18 - Men’s Lacrosse wins the NCAA Division II national title, defeating Adelphi, 23-14. The lacrosse program would move up to compete at the Division I level in 1981.

1985

• May 22 - Karin Wagner finishes eighth in the 10,000 meters at the NCAA Division II nationals at UCLA. Earlier that spring, she finished 17th in the Boston Marathon.

1986

• September - UMBC plays its first contest as a full-fledged NCAA Division I-AAA member, as the men’s soccer team defeats Randolph-Macon, 1-0.

1987

• February 19 - Women’s Basketball standout Tammy McCarthy becomes the first player in the history of the state of Maryland to score 2,000 career points.

1989

• January - Men’s Basketball wins the inaugural Baltimore Beltway Tournament at Loyola College with a 87-81 win over Towson State.

1990

• February 17 - Larry Simmons breaks the school’s all-time Men’s Basketball record with his 1,729th point. He would finish with 1,805 career points.

1992

• February 15 - Derell Thompson sets a Men's Basketball school record by scoring 43 points in a 113-103 loss at Towson.
• March 21 - Jason Smith scores a Men's Lacrosse school-record 10 goals in a 20-6 win over Colgate.
• April 25 - Steve Marohl breaks the USILA single-season assist mark with his 74th in a game vs. Towson State. He finishes the year with 77 assists.
• May 24 - Baseball plays in its first NCAA Division I regional, falling to top-ranked Miami, 3-1, despite 11 strikeouts by Retriever Craig Grasser. UMBC received an at-large bid after a 37-11 season.

1993

• October - Mike Meyer wins the ECAC Golf Championship, shooting 75-73-148, winning with a birdie on the third playoff hole.

1994

• November - Volleyball standout Kelly O’Brien is named Big South Player of the Year for the second consecutive season and finishes her career 12th in NCAA Division I history in total kills.

1995

• March - UMBC hosts NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament (First/Second Rounds) at the Baltimore Arena.
• November - Trailing 13-10 in the fifth and deciding game, the Retriever volleyball team rallies to win, 15-13, over UNC Greensboro and capture the Big South title.

1996

• May 2 - Kathy Zerrlaut coaches the final game of her 24-year UMBC career in both volleyball and lacrosse.
• August - Jay Witasick debuts with the Oakland Athletics and becomes the first Retriever to play in the major leagues. Witasick has enjoyed a 10-year major league career, including World Series appearances in 2001 (Yankees) and 2002 Giants)
• October - Track and Field complex and new turf installed at UMBC Stadium.

1997

• April - David Bobb earns his third, fourth, and fifth All-American awards in track and field. He finishes second in the 100 meters at the outdoor track and field championships and is the fastest American-born sprinter in the collegiate ranks that year.

1998

• May - Men’s Lacrosse team defeats #1-ranked Maryland, 12-8 at UMBC Stadium and earns its first bid to the NCAA Division I Championships.
• May - UMBC hosts the NCAA Women’s Lacrosse Championships and draws record crowds.
• September - UMBC begins play in the Northeast Conference. A month later, NEC newcomer UMBC bested defending champion and #1 seeded Central Connecticut State 5-4, in the finale of the Northeast Conference Women’s Tennis Championships.

1999

• February - Men’s Basketball defeats St. Francis (NY), 81-66, before 3,084 rowdy fans at the RAC Arena and wins the Northeast Conference regular season title. It was UMBC’s first Division I basketball title as the Retrievers won a league record 15 games to start the league season.
• May - UMBC wins the Commissioner’s Cup in its first year of competition in the Northeast Conference. Tennis standout Oscar Lopez becomes UMBC’s first-ever First Team Academic All-American, giving UMBC a record five Academic All-Americans in the same academic year.
• September - The Retriever Activities Center is added to the existing complex, doubling the indoor space of UMBC’s facility.
• November - P.J. Wakefield scores just moments after entering the game as men’s soccer defeated Mt. St. Mary’s, 2-1, to capture the Northeast Conference title in front of 1,650 fans at the brand-new UMBC Soccer Stadium. UMBC matched up against top-seeded Duke in the NCAA Tournament and grabbed a 3-1 lead before falling, 4-3, in overtime. That is UMBC’s lone loss of the season as the Retrievers finish with the nation’s best winning percentage at 19-1-2.

2002

• March - Men’s basketball wins 20 games in a season for the first time in UMBC’s Division I history. Earlier in the year, they repeated as Battle of Baltimore champions and would end up victorious in the final four years (2000-03) of the tournament.
• March - Cleopatra Borel becomes UMBC’s first Division I national champion as she wins the indoor shot put at the NCAA Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
• May - Women’s Lacrosse makes its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

2003

• March - Women’s Basketball advances to its first-ever conference championship game.
• April - UMBC Athletics joins the America East Conference
• May - Women’s Tennis advances to its fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament.
• June - Undersized Huguens Jean becomes an All-American in track and field, finishing fourth in the nation in the high jump with a leap of 7’3”.

2004

• March - Men’s Swimming and Diving wins UMBC’s first America East championship, earning its seventh straight league title.
• August - Cleopatra Borel competes in the Athens Olympics, finishing tenth in the world in the shot put.

2005

• April - New, lighted tennis court facility unveiled at UMBC. This is the last piece of UMBC’s latest facility upgrade, which included a new turf field at UMBC Stadium, new basketball locker rooms, a sports medicine complex, an academic center, and a media center.
• May - Adam Grossman wins both the 100 and 200-meter dashes at the America East Championships and is named the league’s Scholar Athlete in both indoor and outdoor track and field for the second consecutive year.
• November - Men’s Cross Country wins its first-ever America East title, moving from fifth place the previous year to first in its third year of league competition. The Retrievers edged the field on the course at Binghamton University, and the victory came nearly 30 years to the day that UMBC had won the Mason-Dixon Cross Country title in 1975.

2006

• May - Men’s Lacrosse wins its first America East championship, blowing out Albany, 19-10, on the turf at UMBC Stadium. Senior Brendan Mundorf, who would go on to star professionally and on the international stage, is part of that championship team.

2007

• March - Women’s Basketball records an America East first – as the seventh seed, UMBC defeats Nos. 2, 3, and 1 to win its first NCAA Division I conference title at Binghamton University. The Retrievers compete in their first-ever NCAA Tournament and play at UConn, the pre-eminent program in women’s college basketball.
• May - Men’s Lacrosse earns an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, and defeats host Maryland in the First Round to advance to the Quarterfinals for the first time.

2008

• March - Men’s Basketball wins a school Division I record 24 games, which is capped by a transcendent day at the RAC Arena. Before a packed, black-and-gold-filled gym and a national television audience, the top-seeded Retrievers defeat Hartford, 82-65, to capture the America East title and earn a bid to “The Big Dance.” UMBC draws Georgetown in Raleigh, N.C.

2010

• November - Men’s Soccer wins its first America East title by advancing past UNH in penalty kicks before a frenzied Retriever Soccer Park crowd. UMBC defeats No. 10 Princeton, 2-1, in the NCAA First Round and is a heartbeat from reaching the round of 16, but falls in penalties at William & Mary.

2012

• November - Pete Caringi’s squad followed a similar script from two years earlier, finishing the regular season strong and taking the America East title with a home-field penalty kick shoot-out victory over New Hampshire. Once again, UMBC moves to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, advancing past host Old Dominion in penalties, but the Retrievers cannot do the same against defending national champion North Carolina. UMBC does not allow a goal in four postseason games.

2013

• March - Junior swimmer Mohammed Hussein becomes the first male UMBC swimmer to compete at the NCAA Championships. In UMBC’s final year in America East competition, Hussein and his teammates won their ninth league title in ten years.
• May - Sophomore sprinter Mercedes Jackson caps a fantastic year by earning a spot in the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. She competed in the indoor championships a few months earlier and was America East’s Most Outstanding Track Athlete in both the indoor and outdoor championship meets.
• June 30 - Dr. Charles Brown, who led the department as Director of Athletics for 23 years, retires.
• November - Men’s Cross Country kicked off a “November to Remember” by winning its second America East title. Ironically, both titles have occurred on the same course at Binghamton University. The Retrievers would go on to place ninth, their first-ever top ten finish at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regionals.
• November - In one of the most remarkable stories in UMBC Athletics’ history, the women’s soccer team completed a worst-to-first journey and won the America East championship, defeating Stony Brook, 2-1, at Retriever Soccer Park. Leslie Wray’s forces, which had combined to win only one contest in the previous two seasons combined, shared the regular season league title with Stony Brook, and defeated Hartford in the semifinals at RSP before celebrating the program’s first-ever conference on home turf. UMBC went on to compete in its first NCAA Tournament and competed well, despite a 2-0 loss at national power Virginia Tech.
• November - In a season to rival its 1999 campaign, for the second time in its history, the men’s soccer team leads the nation in winning percentage (16-1-3). UMBC enters the top-ten in all collegiate soccer polls and demolishes Hartford, 4-0, to win its third America East title in four years. For the first time in school history, a program hosts and competes in an NCAA Tournament game, as UMBC welcomes national power UConn on a frigid late November evening. UMBC rallies twice to send the game to overtime at 2-2, but the Huskies prevail in penalties to advance

2014

• March - Freshman Emily Escobedo becomes UMBC’s first female swimmer since 2002 to earn a spot in the NCAA Championships.

2015

• October 31 - Hassan Omar becomes the first Retriever to earn individual gold at the America East Cross Country Championships, capturing the title at Stony Brook. Two weeks later, he becomes the first UMBC cross country athlete to compete at the NCAA Division I national championships.
• November & December - UMBC men’s soccer easily authors the deepest run by a Retriever program in an NCAA Tournament. It starts with a 2-1 win over Hartford in the America East title game (Nov. 15). Then, Pete Caringi, Jr.’s squad does not allow a goal in advancing past hosts Wake Forest (0-0, Nov. 20), Maryland (1-0, Nov. 23), Louisville (1-0, Dec. 30) and Creighton (0-0, Dec. 12) to reach the College Cup (national semi-finals). The upstart Retrievers outplay eventual national champion Virginia, but fall 1-0.

2017

• March 18 - Escobedo concluded her historic career as a Retriever with a bronze medal in the 200 breaststroke at the 2017 NCAA Championships. She earned her second All-American accolade.
• May 28 - The Retriever baseball team nips Maine, 2-1, to win its first-ever America East title and head to the NCAA’s for the first time since 2001.
• June 30 - Director of Sports Medicine Cindy Kubiet has announced her retirement. The UMBC Hall of Famer served as the athletic department’s head athletic trainer/director of sports medicine since 1979.

2018

• January 31 - Women’s Basketball team plays the final intercollegiate basketball game at the RAC Arena (formerly UMBC Fieldhouse), falling to Stony Brook, 69-44.
• February 3 - Men’s Basketball opens up the UMBC Event Center before a sold-out crowd of 4,753. Vermont defeats the Retrievers, 81-53.
• March 10 - Jairus Lyles knocks down a buzzer-beating trey as the men’s basketball team stuns top-seeded and host Vermont, 65-62, to win the America East Tournament. Vermont entered the game with 23 consecutive victories versus the Retrievers.
• March 16 - The UMBC Retrievers (25-10) became the first No. 16 seed in the history of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship to defeat a No. 1 seed as they defeated top-ranked University of Virginia (31-3), 74-54, before 17,943 mostly-exuberant fans in a South Region First Round game played at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C.
• April 6 - In the midst of an injury-plagued season, the UMBC men’s lacrosse team knocks off top-ranked UAlbany, 11-7. The Great Danes had been ranked No. 1 for six consecutive weeks.

2019

• February 17 - For the first time since 2010-11, both of UMBC’s swimming and diving squads capture conference titles.
• March 11 - Graduate student forward Joe Sherburne was named the 2018-19 Men’s Basketball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
• May 4 - The fourth-seeded men’s lacrosse team rallies to defeat Vermont, 14-13, to win its first America East title since 2009. Starting the season at 1-6, UMBC won four consecutive elimination games away from home to eventually advance to the NCAA Round of 16.
• May 11 - The softball team, picked to finish last in America East, defeats Stony Brook, 4-0, to complete a four-game sweep of the league championships and earn their first league title and NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002. Freshman pitcher Courtney Coppersmith earns tournament MVP honors, winning all four games on the mound.

2020

• January - Brian Barrio takes the reins as UMBC's fifth Director of Athletics
• February 16 - Swimmer Ilia Rattsev wins the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle events for the third consecutive season at the America East Championships, leading the men to their third straight league title.
• March 12 - Baseball defeats Coppin State, 4-2, in the last intercollegiate game played by the Retrievers in the 2019-20 season. All spring seasons are cancelled due the CoVID-19 pandemic.

2021

• February 21 - After 344 days without athletic competition, UMBC Athletics returns and the volleyball team defeats Coppin State, 3-0.
• February 23 - Head Soccer Coach Pete Caringi, Jr. wins career game No. 300 as freshman Taylor Calheira scores his first career goal in a 1-0 overtime win over GW on the turf of UMBC Stadium.
• April 2 - They wore masks. They didn’t change ends of the court. They played for the first time all “season” in front of fans, but nearly all of those rowdy fans hooted and hollered for the host UAlbany Great Danes. And they fell behind two sets to one and 10-7 in the deciding fifth set. But the Retriever volleyball squad rallied to defeat the Great Danes, 3-2, and win their first-ever America East Championship in a surreal spring season. UMBC would face Pepperdine in its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1998.
• May 15 - For the first time in seven years, a UMBC squad captured a conference title on its home field. The Retriever softball team hosted the America East Championships, and the top-seeded squad won all three games, including a dramatic 1-0 clincher over Stony Brook.
• November 20 - Twenty-four hours after erasing a 2-1 deficit to defeat Stony Brook, 3-2, in the America East semi-finals, the Retriever volleyball team came back from two sets down to defeat UAlbany, 3-2, and capture their second consecutive America East title. And this time, the triumph occurred on the hardwood of “The Peake”, marking the athletic program’s first title celebration on its new digs.
• November 27 - The men’s basketball team knocks off another ACC opponent, defeating host Pitt, 87-77.

Note: Both the men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse teams earned shares of America East regular-season titles in the 2021 spring semester

2022

• February 13 - The men’s swimming and diving team recaptured the America East title, marking 13 victories in 15 tries for the league crown. Niklas Weigelt earned the meet’s Outstanding Swimmer Award for the second consecutive season.
• February 26 - Catilyn Bobb was named Most Outstanding Female Track Performer, Most Outstanding Rookie, and won the Coaches' Award for most points scored, while junior Jasmine Holland was named Most Outstanding Field Performer at the America East Indoor Championships. Bobb earned a pair of gold medals in the 200m and 400m, while Holland captured the triple and long jump events.
• May 14 - The Retriever softball team won its third consecutive America East title in its third different location, sweeping past host Binghamton and UAlbany twice (allowing 0 runs) to earn a trip to Duke for the NCAA Championships.
• June 9 - Caitlyn Bobb capped off her historic rookie season with a 17th place finish at the NCAA Championships. Bobb reset her own school record in the 400m with a sub-52-second run in the semifinals.
• October 22 - The UMBC men’s soccer team scores twice in the final 7:30 to knock off No. 10 Vermont, 2-1. The win halted the nation’s longest winning streak and 24 unanswered goals by the Catamounts.
• November 20 - Under first-year head coach Casey Krider, the volleyball team defeated UNH, 3-0, in Vestal, N.Y., to claim the program’s third consecutive America East title.

2023

• February 25 - The men’s swimming and diving team held off hard-charging Binghamton to win its 14th America East crown in 16 attempts. Sophomore Oliver Gassmann earned Swimmer of the Meet honors.
• March 1 - Women’s Basketball won its first-ever America East Conference playoff game on its home court, defeating NJIT, 82-71 in the league quarterfinals.
• April 29 - It was the definition of bittersweet. The women’s lacrosse team rallied from a 10-5 deficit to defeat host UNH, 17-15, but fell a goal short of advancing to the America East Championships via a tie-breaker. Seniors Megan Halczuk and Claire Bockstie closed out brilliant careers, finishing first and second, respectively, on UMBC’s career charts with 348 draw controls and 163 goals scored.
• May 7 - The men’s track and field team produced a memorable Sunday at the America East Championships. The sixth-best qualifier, freshman Liam Meginniss captured the 800m in come-from-behind fashion. Another freshman, Iosif Papa capped his phenomenal campaign as a champion, placing first in the discus throw with a 53.15m. Papa and classmate Gabriel Koletsi (javelin) would go on to compete in NCAA East Regional competition.

2024

• July 16 - Tiffany D. Tucker was named UMBC’s Director of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation. She became the sixth athletics director since UMBC’s founding in 1966.

2025

• April 19 - The men’s lacrosse team clinched a share of the America East Conference co-regular season title. The Dawgs went 5-1 in the league but fell to UAlbany in the conference semifinals.
• May 2 - Jayo Adegboyo from men’s track and field was named the 2025 Arthur Ashe Jr. Male Sports Scholar of the Year.
• June 13 - Iosif Papa earned Honorable Mention All-America honors in the Discus at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
• November 13 - Women's Basketball went on the road to Virginia, knocking off the Cavaliers 61-56 to earn the program's first-ever victory over a Power 4 school (ACC, SEC, BIG 10, BIG 12). UMBC was previously 0-15 all-time against the ACC and 0-38 against Power 4 programs. 
• November 22 - UMBC volleyball won its fifth America East Tournament Championship in six seasons, defeating UAlbany 3-1 inside Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena. Trailing 24-23 in the fourth set, UMBC won the final three points, getting two kills from Hannah Dobbs and an ace from Hannah Howard to earn the right to lift the trophy.

 

 All-Time Coaching Records

 

 

UMBC HISTORY OF PAST PROGRAMS