College will hold 31st Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony November 1
EASTON, Mass. (September 19, 2019) – Stonehill College will induct its Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2019 on Friday, November 1, in the Petit Atrium, inside the Shields Science Center.
Stonehill's 31st Athletic Hall of Fame class includes two men's basketball alumni with Rhode Island ties who have turned their successful athletic careers in Easton into flourishing professional careers in high school and collegiate athletics in Ed Cooley, '94, currently the head men's basketball coach at Providence College, and Jamal Gomes, '95, the longtime boys' basketball coach and recently named Athletic Director at Bishop Hendricken High School. The Hall of Fame Class continues with Butch Santosuosso, '90, who will become just the second ice hockey alum inducted, Carissa Medeiros, '03 of women's lacrosse, and the 1999 Stonehill Women's Soccer Team.
The induction ceremony will be held on Friday, November 1, inside the Petit Atrium at the Shields Science Center. The event starts with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m., with dinner at 7 p.m., and the induction ceremony to follow. Tickets are $50 for adults, $25 for children aged 2-12 years, and available for purchase online at stonehillskyhawks.com/information/Hall_of_Fame/tickets, through Monday, October 21. For all ticketing questions, please contact Colleen Ford, '93 at cford@stonehill.edu or 508-565-1384.
Ed Cooley, '94 |
Cooley, a product of Central High School in Providence, was a member of the Stonehill men's basketball program at Stonehill between 1989 and 1994, serving as team captain for three seasons. He finished his career with 795 points, 594 rebounds and over 100 assists in 107 career games, helping Stonehill to four Northeast-10 Tournament appearances, reaching the semifinals his senior year, when he finished seventh among Northeast-10 Conference leaders with 7.0 rebounds per game.
Following graduation, he has enjoyed a successful coaching career, including the 1995-96 season at Stonehill under Dave DeCiantis, before joining Al Skinner at the University of Rhode Island in 1996. Cooley followed Skinner to Boston College from 1997-2006, before becoming the head coach at Fairfield University. After five years at Fairfield, he accepted the head coach position at Providence College in 2011, where he has led the Friars to a 162-110 (.596) record over eight years, winning the 2014 BIG EAST Championship, with five NCAA Tournament and two NIT appearances. Cooley has posted an overall head coaching record of 254-179 in 12 years, with five NCAA and three NIT bids.
Cooley has also been active with USA Basketball, culminating with his selection as head coach of the 2019 Pan Am Games Team that won a bronze medal in Lima, Peru, this summer.
Jamal Gomes, '95 |
Gomes, a Cranston, Rhode Island, native, was a member of the men's basketball program at Stonehill from 1991-95 serving as captain his senior year. He still ranks 31st in program history with 1,082 career points, adding 357 assists and 150 steals in 109 career games, helping Stonehill to a pair of 19-win seasons and second place finishes in the NE10 regular season standings.
Following graduation, Gomes played professionally in Ireland before returning to Bishop Hendricken High School in Rhode Island, where he is a 1991 graduate. He was named the boys' varsity head basketball coach in 2000 and has gone on to lead Hendricken to over 350 wins and 11 Rhode Island state championships. Gomes is a two-time Rhode Island Basketball Coaches Association (RIBCA) Coach of the Year, a six-time RIBCA Championship Coach of the Year, a USA Today Rhode Island Boys Basketball Coach of the Year and a member of the Bishop Hendricken Athletic Hall of Fame. He was honored last December by having the basketball court inside Ray Pepin Gymnasium named after him and was recently named the third Athletic Director at Hendricken since 1971, which includes Pepin, the late Stonehill Hall of Famer, who would later coach Gomes at Stonehill.
Butch Santosuosso, '90 |
Santosuosso, a Belmont, Massachusetts, native and product of Belmont High School, was a member of the Stonehill ice hockey program between 1986 and 1990, serving as team captain his senior year. He led the team to a 14-12-0 record and appearance in the ECAC Tournament in 1989-90 and is one of 11 100-point scorers in program history - one of the first to do so for the Stonehill hockey program. Santosuosso finished with 64 goals and 67 assists for 131 points, still ranking fourth in program history for career goals and fifth in scoring and assists.
Santosuosso, currently president of a healthcare marketing and consulting group in the greater Philadelphia area, tallied 48 points his senior year, a total that still ranks third in program history, while his 27 assists that season rank fifth and 21 goals seventh on the Stonehill ice hockey program's single-season list.
Carissa Medeiros, '03 |
Medeiros, a enjoyed a rise from walk-on to All-American as a member of the Stonehill women's lacrosse program between 2001 and 2003, helping lead the team to its first of two NCAA Division II National Championships her senior year. The 2003 Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) Division II Goalkeeper of the Year and first team All-American was a three-time All-NE10 selection over her career. Stonehill's starting goalkeeper for three seasons, she helped the program to the NCAA Tournament three-straight years, finishing as national runners-up as a junior prior to the 2013 season in which Stonehill finished 17-2 overall on its way to the national title.
Medeiros, a native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and product of New Bedford High School, was a member of three NE10 Championship squads, who still ranks second in program history with 448 career saves, while her .587 career save percentage also ranks second all-time. She was in goal for 45 of Stonehill's 60 wins over her four years, a win total that still ranks third all-time at the College, while her 6.37 career goals against average still stands as fourth-best in NCAA Division II history. Medeiros posted a 5.70 GAA as a junior, setting a program record at the time, which ranks third all-time, while her 156 saves in 2001 is the fifth-highest single-season total in program history.
Medeiros, currently an assistant women's lacrosse coach at SUNY-Cortland, got her coaching career started here at Stonehill as an assistant for Stonehill Athletic Hall of Famer Michael Daly for three seasons, including the program's second National Championship season in 2005. She then took over as head coach of the women's lacrosse program at Bentley University for six seasons before being hired to startup the NCAA Division I program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2015. At Bentley, Medeiros led the Falcons to 60 wins, reaching postseason play in five of her six seasons at the helm.
1999 Stonehill Women's Soccer |
The 1999 Stonehill women's soccer team established a new level of excellence on the field prior to the program entering a new era with the Northeast-10's expansion the following year. Stonehill posted a 17-4 record overall, including 8-1 in the NE10 to claim a share of the regular season championship, after playing to an 8-7-3 mark in 1998 (5-3 NE10). A big highlight of the season was Stonehill's 2-1 win over eventual National Champion Franklin Pierce University, ending the Ravens 100-plus match regional winning streak.
Stonehill won 11 games by shutout that fall, with four of its five All-NE10 selections earning first team honors. Head Coach Jose Gomes, the NE10 Coach of the Year, saw Lindsay Pepler, '00 earn NE10 Player of the Year honors and Kathleen Neff, '01 named the NE10's Goalkeeper of the Year to highlight the postseason accolades. Three members of the team, Pepler (Class of 2007), Neff (Class of 2007) and Erin Vrysen, '00 (Class of 2018), have already been inducted to Stonehill's Athletic Hall of Fame as individuals.
With 21 intercollegiate sports, Stonehill boasts one of the top athletic and academic programs in the country. Stonehill has won the Northeast-10 Conference Presidents' Cup five times, all coming within the last 14 years. The Skyhawks have received the NCAA Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Achievement each of the first eighth years of the program's existence of honoring institutions with an Academic Success Rate (ASR) of 90-percent or better. Stonehill has earned a 96% Academic Success Ranking (ASR) by the NCAA, which considers the academic success rate of the institution based on the graduation rate of student-athletes, good for seventh among all NCAA Division II institutions, with eight Skyhawk teams receiving a perfect rating of 100%. In addition, the Skyhawks are ranked 11th in the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) Power Rankings for Division II used to assess the academic and athletic standards of all NCAA and NAIA athletic programs.
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