Wooster’s Nominees for NCAC Awards, Departmental Honors Announced

The College of Wooster athletics department has selected baseball All-American Tyler Chumita as its nominee for the North Coast Athletic Conference Don Hunsinger Award and softball and volleyball alumna Brooke Swain as its NCAC Pam Smith Award nominee. Additionally, Chumita, softball and swimming & diving All-American Molly Likins, and men's basketball's Brandon Styers were chosen as this year's Manges Athletics Prize winners, women's soccer College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-American® Alexa Bencic, four-time NCAC champion Will McMichael from the track and field team, and Swain were the recipients of the David Guldin Award, and McMichael and Swain also earned the NCAC Scholar-Athlete Award for Wooster's senior class.

Chumita, who was named the NCAC Player of the Year on Tuesday, was an American Baseball Coaches Association All-American and a CoSIDA Academic All-American® as a junior. He has logged two of the top offensive seasons in the storied baseball program's history. This spring, Chumita tied three-time All-American and W Association Hall of Famer Rick Sforzo's 1986 single-season school record with 77 RBI, doing so on a game-tying solo home run in Wooster's eventual 5-4 win over then-19th-ranked Denison University that forced the winner-take-all game of last weekend's NCAC Tournament. As season ago, Chumita hit .465 (59-for-127) with the average ranking as the fifth-highest in single-season program history. The smooth-swinging left-hander reached base at a .560 clip in 2021, with that ranking as the fourth-highest single-season mark. The 3.5-year starter helped the Scots to the program's second NCAA berth of his career, a conference title, and three straight appearances in the NCAC Tournament championship.

Chumita, who plans to teach high school mathematics and coach baseball in the Columbus area, did his student teaching at Wayne County Schools Career Center. While student teaching, Chumita completed student-impact learning projects focused on social emotional learning and contest he was teaching. Specifically, Chumita created a survey that examined math test anxiety and implanted strategies to help students feel less anxious during tests. Other field placements for Chumita included a calculus class at Wooster High School and assisting in the General's Academy. For his Independent Study, Chumita developed a model to predict which NCAC baseball players will make the all-conference team.

Swain, a two-time All-NCAC selection in softball, finished her career as the program's all-time leader in career and single-season stolen bases with 53 and 29, respectively. A career .352 hitter, Swain went 99-for-281 at the dish in 112 career games. The two-year starter broke Wooster's single-season record for runs (36) and holds single-game program-bests for hits (5) and runs (5), with those coming during a 29-1 rout over Kenyon College in 2021. In volleyball, Swain earned a starting role as a senior middle for the Scots, and was part of a program that played in the NCAC Tournament title match for the first time since 1985 and logged a 10-match winning streak for the first time in 37 years.

Academically, the soon-to-be University of Iowa College of Dentistry student identified the phosphorylation of Pho4p in yeast expressing the PsAvh110 effector protein for her Independent Study as a biology major. On campus, Swain was the vice president of the student Pre-Dental Society and was the treasurer for the campus chapter of Beta Beta Beta, a college honor society for students pursuing degrees in biological sciences. Elsewhere, Swain was involved with Wooster's signature health coach program, a partnership with Wooster Community Hospital where Wooster students meet regularly with community members who need companionship and encouragement in developing healthier lifestyles. Through the program, Swain assisted community members in promoting wellness, reduced the need for potentially unnecessary procedures and hospitalizations, and promoted delivery of evidenced-based care for patients.

Likins, an All-American breaststroker for Wooster for the 2019-20 season, earned eight All-NCAC honors for the program. The mathematics major, who earned the program's first All-American honor since 2013, had the seventh-fastest 100 breaststroke time (1:02.58) as a sophomore, and that time is Wooster's school record in the event. As a sophomore, Likins earned four All-NCAC swimming honors, the most by a Scot since Kate Hunt had five at the 2012 NCAC Championships. While studying at Wooster, Likins competed at the 2019 World Deaf Swimming Championships. There, the soon-to-be University of Nebraska-Lincoln civil engineering master's student won two of USA's nine medals, thanks to second-place finishes in the 50- and 100-meter breaststrokes. In softball, Likins became the program's first three-time first-team All-NCAC performer. Her 85 career RBI and 18 home runs are the most in program history, while the four-year star's .575 career slugging percentage is the second-best clip in the program annals. Likins set single-season program records for home runs (8) and slugging percentage (.718) as a junior and debuted on the first-team All-NCAC squad as a first-year after hitting .429 in conference play.

Styers' career included first-team D3hoops.com All-Great Lakes Region honors as a junior. That year, the biology major averaged career-highs in points and rebounds with 16.6 and 6.3 per game, respectively. He shot a lights-out 67.2 percent (41-of-61) from the floor, an electric 60 percent (12-of-20) from three-point range, and was a near-automatic 22-of-24 at the line. Those percentages led to a sixth-place national ranking in Div. III field-goal percentage, and the field-goal percentage rated as the third-highest among guards. Styers went on to earn first-team All-NCAC honors as a senior after leading the team in scoring with 15.6 points per night. Wooster won one NCAC title and made two NCAA appearances during Styers' career. Styers plans to apply to physician assistant school after gaining field experience in a hospital or outpatient setting.

Bencic, a third-team CoSIDA Academic All-American® made 55 career appearances and helped the women's soccer team to a pair of NCAC Tournament titles and NCAA berths. The biochemistry and molecular biology alumna investigated biomarkers of propionic acidemia, a rare metabolic disorder, and dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, in an Amish community for her Independent Study project. During her undergraduate studies, Bencic shadowed the head surgeon at Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, spent time as a patient safety observer at Wooster Community Hospital, was part of the community health coach program, and was a clinical researcher at New Leaf Center in nearby Mt. Eaton, Ohio. Bencic is off to medical school this fall at The Ohio State University.

McMichael, the NCAC Athlete of the Year for men's sprints and hurdles as a first-year, won four NCAC 400 meters titles and broke both the indoor and outdoor program record in the event with times of 49.75 and 48.47, respectively. He studied engineering of yeast for its function as a fluorescent reporter for acetylcholine for his Independent Study and is hopeful for a final decision on a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue his research in Sweden. McMichael spent two summers as a research assistant in the Rosenkranz Lab within the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago, Illinois. Elsewhere, McMichael was selected for six research presentations during his undergraduate studies and was a research assistant on campus.

The Hunsinger Award recognizes one male senior student-athlete who has distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate career in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service, and leadership. The Smith Award criteria is the same, and the NCAC's winner from that contest is put forth as the NCAA Woman of the Year nominee. A committee of NCAC administrators in conjunction with the conference office will review the nominees in the coming weeks and make the selection of this year's recipients.

The Manges Award, established in 1925 by Monroe Manges '88, is awarded annually at Wooster's graduation to the member of the senior class more proficient in vigorous physical activity, or more specifically, varsity athletics. The Guldin Award goes to the top two scholar-athletes in the senior class based on both their academic and athletic ability, while the NCAC Scholar Student-Athlete Award is awarded to one male and one female athlete as chosen by each member institution based on institution-specific criteria.