Although most students went home the moment spring exams ended, many Tribe athletes remained on campus, competing into the early summer. Throughout May, several of William and Mary’s 23 athletic programs battled into the postseason and raked in awards. In the following months, others made staff changes and saw alumni soar to professional success. Before the 2025-2026 athletic year begins in earnest, it is time to recognize the achievements the Green and Gold’s spring athletes accumulated over the break.
Baseball
In head coach Rob McCoy’s first year at the helm of the program, William and Mary got off to a slow start but caught fire in conference play, winning five of six Coastal Athletic Association series from March 28 to April 27. To cap off the streak, the Tribe rattled off six consecutive victories, taking two of three games against Campbell, beating Navy in a midweek matchup and sweeping Stony Brook.
Unfortunately, William and Mary wasn’t able to sustain its momentum into May, losing nine of its final 11 regular-season games and failing to record a win at the CAA Tournament. Nevertheless, the Tribe managed to post a 14-13 mark in conference play despite its roster being “as injured as we possibly could be,” as described by McCoy. Four William and Mary players were selected to an all-conference team: senior outfielders Christian Rush and Lucas Carmichael, freshman infielder Jamie Laskofski and graduate student outfielder Ben Parker, whose 34-game hitting streak and .407 batting average earned him the CAA Co-Player of the Year award.
Parker is the first William and Mary player to be named conference player of the year since Ben Williamson ’23, who became the 12th Tribe alumnus to appear in a Major League Baseball game April 15. After being selected by the Seattle Mariners in the second round of the 2023 MLB draft, Williamson spent the last two seasons working his way through the organization’s minor league system, finally getting his big break on Jackie Robinson Day against the Cincinnati Reds. The third baseman recorded a single in his first major-league at-bat and has since been lauded by Mariners manager Dan Wilson for his excellent defense.
In other Tribe baseball news, senior reliever Carter Lovasz, William and Mary’s all-time leader in saves, was chosen by the Atlanta Braves during the eighth round of July’s MLB draft. Lovasz, an All-CAA selection in 2022, 2023 and 2024, concluded his college career with 225 strikeouts, a mark that puts him tenth on the program’s all-time leaderboard. In 2025, Lovasz posted nearly 1.5 strikeouts per inning. McCoy described him as “just spectacular” after he turned in a nine-strikeout performance against CAA runner-up UNC Wilmington in April.
Men’s and Women’s Golf
Both men’s and women’s golf enjoyed respectable seasons in 2025, with the former program posting five top-five finishes and the latter program placing sixth at the CAA Championships. The women were able to achieve success despite not having a permanent head coach, something that changed May 12 when William and Mary hired Jonathan Howard away from Christopher Newport. Howard, a CNU alumnus who joined its women’s golf program as an assistant before its inaugural 2017 campaign, had served as the Captains’ head coach since 2022. Last year, he powered his alma mater to a school-record season scoring average of 315.7 and a national ranking of No. 20.
“My deepest thanks to Director of Athletics Brian Mann for this incredible opportunity and for trusting me to lead such a distinguished program,” Howard said in a statement. “I’m profoundly grateful to the entire Christopher Newport University community for their unwavering support and inspiration. I look forward to this next chapter in Williamsburg with immense gratitude and enthusiasm.”
Nine days later, Tim Pemberton ’05, the head coach of the Tribe men’s golf program since 2021 and the interim Director of Golf during the 2024-2025 season, was elevated to permanent Director of Golf. Under Pemberton, the men have recorded four of the top ten season scoring averages in program history. William and Mary Director of Athletics Brian Mann cited the academic success of Pemberton’s athletes, his engagement with the community and his performance in the interim role as additional factors that led to his promotion.
“[Pemberton] showed tremendous leadership as the Interim Director of Golf over these last several months, and I look forward to his continued impact on our student-athletes,” Mann wrote in a statement. “Tim has also built a terrific culture within the golf programs and engages with alumni as well as anyone in our department. His strategic guidance will be a benefit to our new head women’s golf coach, Jonathan Howard.”
Lacrosse
Although William and Mary women’s lacrosse didn’t have its most successful season in 2025, posting an overall record of 6-10 and going 2-6 against CAA opponents, one of the Tribe’s highest points came on the last day of the campaign. Hosting Campbell at home April 26, William and Mary erupted for a season-high 19 goals, knocking off the Fighting Camels and sending off its 15-member senior class in style. The contest saw multiple Tribe players rack up impressive stat totals: senior Paige Gilbert accumulated seven points on four goals and three assists, redshirt freshman Molly Delaney caused four turnovers, a performance that earned her the CAA Rookie of the Week award, junior Kate Draddy scored six goals and senior Ainsley Huizenga recorded her fourth hat trick of the season.
Later that week, Gilbert was named to the All-CAA second team for the second consecutive season. The midfielder racked up 60 draw controls, 56 points, 37 goals and eight hat tricks on the year, leading the Tribe in each category. She departed William and Mary with her name cemented into the program record books, ranking sixth on the all-time draw controls list with 133.
Men’s and Women’s Tennis
Neither tennis program concluded the 2025 season with the results it wanted, as the women fell short of their fourth consecutive CAA title and the men failed to make the conference tournament, but that didn’t stop six Tribe athletes from claiming all-conference honors.
On the women’s side, seniors Hedda Gurholt, Alessandra Anghel and Ine Stange, junior Sia Chaudry and sophomore Francesca Davis were each honored with All-CAA accolades. Gurholt was named to the first team in both singles and doubles, Anghel was named to the first team in singles and the third team in doubles, Stange was named to the first team in doubles, Chaudry was named to the third team in singles and Davis was named to the third team in doubles. The Tribe’s cascade of awards befitted a senior class that won three consecutive CAA championships and maintained a conference winning streak that numbered 28 games and lasted from 2022 to 2025.
On the men’s side, freshman Gur Trakhtenberg was named to the All-CAA second team in singles. He paced the Green and Gold in both singles and doubles, knocked off Monmouth’s Mateo Bivol, a member of the All-CAA first team, and became the first male William and Mary freshman in ten years to be awarded an All-CAA singles nod.
Track and Field
The track and field program posted a season that ranked among the Tribe’s most successful of the spring, finishing the year after accruing a plethora of school records and sending multiple athletes to the sport’s biggest stage. At May’s CAA Championships, the William and Mary women claimed second place while the men took third. Both teams found success on the backs of multiple historic performances: senior Emily Ervin cruised to a silver medal behind a program-record time of 54.07 in the 400m, sophomore Brian Walsh won the conference title in the decathlon with a meet-record 7,076 points, freshman Armon Wright turned in the second-best triple jump performance in school history and the men’s 4x400m relay team broke its own program record with a time of 3:09.63.
Two weeks later, senior Arianna DeBoer, junior Catherine Garrison and sophomore Elizabeth Strobach headed to the National Collegiate Athletic Association East Regional Preliminaries courtesy of the marks they posted earlier in the season. Competing against a crowded, competitive field that included many of the top-performing athletes in the nation, DeBoer turned in a 10,000m time of 35:41.91, placing 44th, Garrison completed the 3,000m steeplechase in 10:07.98, placing 17th and coming milliseconds away from her school record of 10:07.00 and Strobach, who set the pole vault program record of 13 feet, 7.75 inches just over a week earlier, failed to clear the opening height.
