ROLLA, Mo. – With the decade of the 2010s coming to a close, it's time to look back at 10 of the most significant things that happened in Missouri S&T athletics during the last 10 years.

 

While looking at the last decade, we also want to highlight 11 significant single-season performances, aside from one mentioned in the main story, on an individual level over that span.  The performances were limited to one per sport mentioned.
Taylor Cipicchio (Women's Track & Field, 2014): Cipicchio set school records in the pole vault during a season in which she won the conference championship in league record fashion in both the indoor and outdoor seasons.  Following those GLVC titles, she would earn fourth place finishes at the NCAA Division II Championships in both seasons.
Bryce Foster (Men's Basketball, 2013-14): Named to two all-region teams after finishing second in the GLVC in scoring with an average of 21.6 points per game, the highest scoring average for a Miner in two decades.  Was also named as the Capital One Academic All-America of the Year following the season.
Zack Gronek (Baseball, 2011): Gronek finished the season with a 10-1 record on the mound with a 2.38 earned run average, striking out 64 hitters in 87 innings and holding opponents to a .226 average.  He helped lead S&T to the GLVC West Division title and threw a five-hit shutout in the NCAA Midwest Regional opener against defending national champion Southern Indiana.
Krista Haslag (Volleyball, 2015): Haslag became a three-time All-America selection following a year in which she recorded a career-high 373 kills and a school record 163 blocks, including 31 solo blocks.  She scored 496 points and recorded a hitting percentage of .309, making her the first player with three seasons over the .300 mark.
Adriel Hawkins (Men's Track & Field, 2014): During the 2014 season, Hawkins was named as the GLVC's "Track Athlete of the Year" for both the indoor and outdoor seasons and earned All-America honors in the indoor 60-meter dash with a sixth place finish.  Hawkins won dual GLVC titles in the 200-meters and also captured the outdoor triple jump.
Sabrina Hostler (Women's Soccer, 2014): Hostler finished tied for second in the GLVC with 11 goals and 24 points, including four game-winning goals in helping lead S&T to the championship game of the GLVC Tournament.  Hostler's 11 goals were the most by a Miner since 2003.
David Huskisson (Men's Cross Country, 2010): Huskisson earned all-conference honors with the highest finish ever by a Miner at the GLVC Championships, placing sixth in that year's meet.  It was part of a season in which he was also named as the GLVC's "Runner of the Week" on three occasions.
Deshawn Jones (Football, 2017): The season was a banner one for Jones, who shattered a pair of long-standing rushing records at S&T with 1,579 yards and 16 touchdowns; he also became the first to rush for at least 100 yards against every GLVC team in a season and also broke the school's single-game record with 275 yards against Saint Francis (Ill.).
Toni Knar (Women's Basketball, 2013-14): Knar was one of the top three-point shooters in the history of the program and had her best season during this year, when she made 69 at a clip of 45.1 percent and ranked among the top four in the GLVC in those categories.  She hit an S&T single-game record eight treys in a win at Illinois Springfield.
Pat McNamee (Men's Soccer, 2010): The Miners' run to a GLVC regular season title and trip to the title game of the NCAA Midwest Regional came in large part of McNamee's play, as he recorded a 0.67 goals against average and nine shutouts.  His year included a school record run of 572 consecutive scoreless minutes in goal.
Olivia Young (Softball, 2018): Young put together one of the best power seasons by a Miner softball player in history, belting a school record-tying 14 home runs and driving in an S&T record 58 runs.  That included a twinbill at Missouri-St. Louis where she homered three times and drove in 11 runs; she had a school record nine RBI in the second game win.

10. The return – and addition – of golf: The decade saw the return of men's golf to the athletic program and the addition of the first women's golf team.  Play began for the two teams in the fall of 2017, with the men returning to the course for the first time since 2003.  The first two-plus seasons for the men's squad was highlighted by a tournament victory at Kentucky Wesleyan's Panther Invitational and a fifth place effort at its first Great Lakes Valley Conference championship meet.

The women's team recorded tournament wins of their own during each of its first two seasons of competition, winning the Palm Springs Invitational in its first season and capturing the Drury Lady Panther Classic a year ago.

9. New looks for Missouri S&T athletics: During the last 10 years, a lot of aesthetic changes have taken place within the S&T athletic department.  The changes began with the renovation of several facilities, notably Allgood-Bailey Stadium with the addition of a synthetic playing surface in the summer of 2014 and Gibson Arena, where a new floor was installed in the summer of 2018.  New scoreboards were put into the arena as well as all of the outdoor venues during the decade.

In addition, the department unveiled a new visual identity in the spring of 2018 with a revised and expanded set of athletic logos, new secondary marks and a subtle update to the Joe Miner logo that has been synonymous with the program throughout its history.

8. Women's cross country team reaches a first in program history: At the 2017 GLVC Championships, the S&T women's cross country team not only recorded its highest team finish ever by coming in third place at the meet, it also had two individuals earn all-conference honors at a meet for the first time ever when Megan Schulte finished fifth and Hannah Schulte crossed the finish line in 15^th place.

A year later, the Miners duplicated the feat when Emily Griesenauer and Kennedy Duffy finished among the top 15 at the conference meet.  The men's cross country squad had dual All-GLVC performers for the first time at the 2019 conference meet when Duncan Clark and Andrew Lofgren earned the honors.

7. Soccer teams put together impressive post-season runs: Missouri S&T's men's soccer team was a consistent entry into the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament, making the field in eight of the 10 years of the decade.  The best year of that stretch came in the 2010 season, when S&T finished in a three-way tie atop the GLVC in the regular season and earned its first berth to the NCAA Division II Tournament.  The Miners reached the Midwest Regional championship game, where they lost on a late goal to eventual national champion Northern Kentucky.

Not to be outdone, the women's soccer team its own magical run in the 2014 GLVC Tournament when it earned a spot in the championship game.  The Miners -- who entered the tournament as the seventh seed -- shut out Bellarmine 2-0 in the opening round, then played to a scoreless tie over 110 minutes in the semifinals against Quincy before beating the Hawks 4-3 in the penalty kick shootout on Alex McCord's goal in the fifth round.  The run ended with a loss to host Wisconsin-Parkside in the title contest two days later.

6. Volleyball team's success at GLVC, regional levels: Beginning play in the 2007 season, S&T's volleyball team had its first breakthrough in the first year of the decade when it recorded its first season above the .500 mark with a 14-13 record.  The Miners narrowly missed the GLVC Tournament that year, but crashed through the door in 2011 by going 15-3 to win the GLVC West Division championship and 24-10 overall to earn a bid to the NCAA Division II Tournament.

The Miners repeated as GLVC West champions in 2012 and got back into the NCAA Tournament two seasons later.  S&T won at least 20 games in three of the first six years of the decade, then following a couple of lean years has made its way back under head coach Andy Halaz as the Miners closed the 2010s by going 21-10 and making it back to the GLVC Tournament.

5. Ending a 68-year drought in style: Missouri S&T's football team earned its first post-season opportunity since 1950 when it was selected to play in the 2018 Mineral Water Bowl – and made the most of that appearance as it routed Minnesota State Moorhead 51-16 to cap a 10-2 season.  After trailing 6-0 at the end of the first quarter, the Miners rode the arm of Tyler Swart and a swarming defense to the win, as S&T outscored the Dragons 48-3 over the span of the second and third quarters.

Swart was named as the offensive player of the game after throwing four touchdown passes and running for one, while defensive end Tershawn Wharton earned the defensive honor after recording 4.5 tackles for a loss, two sacks and returning a fumble 53 yards for a touchdown.  The Miners' 10-win season in 2018 was their second of the decade, as the 2012 team reached that mark in the first year of GLVC-sponsored football.

4. Baseball team makes its mark in the GLVC:  Since the Miner baseball program began in the mid-1960s, it had not had a significant run of success heading into the 2010s.  That changed in the last decade, as the Miners became a consistent force in the GLVC that included four regular season championships and two NCAA Division II Tournament appearances.

Following a narrow miss to reach the GLVC Tournament in 2010, the Miners broke through in 2011 by capturing the GLVC West Division title and earning the program's first berth to the NCAA Tournament in 39 years – and opened that by shutting out defending national champion Southern Indiana.   The Miners also won GLVC West titles in 2012 and 2016 and gained a share of the 2019 regular season title, while also making a run to the Midwest Regional championship game in 2016 as it knocked off the top three seeds in successive games to reach the title contest as part of a school record 39-win season.

3. Success on the track: After joining the Great Lakes Valley Conference prior to the 2005-06 school year, Missouri S&T began to become a conference power in men's track & field.  After winning a GLVC title in the final year of the 2000s, the Miners followed that with three more conference championships in the last decade as they took home the gold in 2014, 2015 and 2018.

The 2014 title saw the Miners earn three of the league's major awards and six of those team members went on to compete at the NCAA Division II Championships, while the 2015 title came by a 69-point margin as the Miners scored at least 10 points in eight different events over the course of the meet.  S&T got its third title of the decade three years later when the 4x400-meter relay team won the Miners' sixth event of the meet to hold off a late surge by Indianapolis.  S&T had 17 event wins during its three title runs and in 20 conference meets over the decade (indoors and outdoors), the Miners finished among the top three teams in 19 of them.

2. Change coming at the top: Mark Mullin has served as the director of athletics at Missouri S&T for nearly three decades, but on Sept. 1, he announced that he is retiring from the position effective Sept. 1, 2020.  Mullin, who has been part of the S&T community since 1985 when he joined the staff as the head coach of the swimming program, oversaw a program that captured 14 conference championships, 10 additional regular season or divisional titles and had 71 teams that competed at the NCAA Division II Championships.

On the field, the Miners had 193 individuals earn All-America honors as well as 97 relay teams in the sports of track & field and swimming, while S&T student-athletes have garnered 350 all-conference honors in the GLVC since the Miners became a member of that league during his tenure in 2005.  The success carried into the classroom, where S&T has had some of the highest numbers of GLVC All-Academic selections on an annual basis and has had 102 Academic All-America selections, which ranks fifth in NCAA Division II.  Several of the aforementioned athletic facility improvements at Missouri S&T also took place under his guidance.

1. National champion – times two: Over the long history of the Miner swimming program, only one Miner swimmer had ever won an individual national championship.  But during one four-day span in 2018, Tim Samuelsen put his name into the annals as he won a pair of NCAA Division II championships in swimming.

On the first day of the meet in Greensboro, N.C., Samuelsen captured the 1,000-yard freestyle title with the first sub-nine minute time in program history with a mark of 8:59.45 and beat the defending national champion by more than four seconds in the process.   On the final day of the meet, he took his second title with a seven-second win in the 1,650-freestyle, posting another school record time of 15:08.53.  The two national titles allowed Samuelsen to join Zlatan Hamzic as the only Miners to win individual national titles; the Miners also had three relay teams win national championships in the early 2000s.

10 notable games/meets from the 2010s:

February 14, 2011 – Women's basketball team tops Drury for first time in GLVC play
May 19, 2011 – Baseball team defeats Southern Indiana for first NCAA Tournament win
January 5, 2012 – Men's basketball team stuns second-ranked Screaming Eagles
October 18, 2014 – Volleyball team sweeps 11^th-ranked Grand Valley State at Midwest Crossover
November 7, 2014 – Women's soccer team wins penalty kick shootout to reach GLVC championship game
May 2, 2015 – Men's track team repeats as GLVC champions
March 5, 2018 – Women's golf team captures tournament in first season of competition
April 13, 2018 – Softball team gets career day from Olivia Young in doubleheader at UMSL
December 1, 2018 – Football team rolls to victory in Mineral Water Bowl
March 16, 2019 – Swimming team completes sixth place finish at NCAA Division II Championships