SELINSGROVE, Pa. - Susquehanna University has six new assistant coaches currently working with six of the spring sports teams. All of them either replace coaches who took other positions, or fill previously vacated positions.
Both former Susquehanna baseball catcher/designated hitter and current football assistant Matt Kazmierczak, formerly of Oakland, N.J. (Indian Hills H.S.), joins with former Pennsbury High School starter and Bucks County Babe Ruth League baseball coach Sean Noonan as the new assistant baseball coaches for second-year head coach Tim Briggs.
Former Gardner-Webb (N.C.) University and Cabrini College men's lacrosse player and 1993 Westtown School head coach Alan Fitzgerald of Selinsgrove is now an assistant with Susquehanna's new men's lacrosse team.
Four-year Middle Atlantic Conference All-Star and Susquehanna career women's lacrosse scoring leader Sandy Jenkin, originally from Millersville, Md. (Severna Park H.S.), has returned to the school as an assistant coach with the women's lacrosse team.
Former Bloomsburg University Academic All-American and Selinsgrove Area High School head softball coach April Metzger (formerly April Grimes) of Selinsgrove is a new assistant with the Crusader softball team.
Randi Kunkel of Northumberland has also returned as jumping coach of both the Crusader men's and women's track and field teams. A former Shikellamy High School and Delaware Valley College track and field star, Kunkel had previously been Susquehanna's jumping coach for four seasons from 1995-98, leaving last year when she took a job in North Carolina. She was also Susquehanna head cross country coach in 1997, also serving as an assistant for two years.
Matt Kazmierczak
A 1999 Susquehanna graduate with a bachelor's degree in political science,Kazmierczak was a catcher/designated hitter on the baseball team as a freshman in 1996 - playing in 17 games and hitting .353 with four runs batted in and an .857 fielding percentage.
He was a four-year football letterwinner at Susquehanna as a linebacker, earning MAC Second Team All-Star honors in 1998. During his All-Star season, he finished third on the team in tackles with 63 (26 solo), including seven for losses of 15 yards. He also had three interceptions and two pass break-ups. He had 109 career stops (46 solo).
Kazmierczak also was an assistant coach for the MAC Commonwealth League champion Crusader football team last fall, working with the outside linebackers.
He resides in Selinsgrove.
Sean Noonan
Noonan played baseball for three years as a third baseman at Pennsbury High School in Fairless Hills before graduating in 1994. He went on to college at Shippensburg University, where he opted not to play baseball, but earned his bachelor's degree in elementary-education with a minor in history and reading in 1999.
He was a head coach for Babe Ruth League baseball teams (ages 16-18) in the Bucks County Area the past five summers. Noonan took two of his teams to tournaments in Cocoa Beach, Fla., in both 1998 and 1999 - with his team placing third in that tournament last summer.
A substitute teacher in the Selinsgrove, Shamokin and Shikellamy School Districts, Noonan and his fiancée, Susquehanna Assistant Athletic Trainer Laurie Bowers, reside in Selinsgrove.
Alan Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and came to the United States on a lacrosse scholarship. He played attack on the 14-0 team at NCAA Division III Gardner-Webb (N.C.) University in 1992. The following year he transferred to Cabrini College to help start-up the men's lacrosse program, serving as a captain and starting attack for the team.
While at Cabrini, Fitzgerald also served as head coach of the boys' lacrosse team at the Westtown School in 1993, guiding it to a 9-4 record.
He is presently a territory sales representative for Canada Dry. He and his wife, Susquehanna Director of Annual Giving Karen Fitzgerald, live in Selinsgrove.
Sandy Jenkin
Jenkin was a first-team MAC All-Star all four years of her Susquehanna career and was the top vote-getter at attack last season by conference coaches. She broke the school record for career goals (112) and points (141) last season, playing in 55 career games collegiately. She also set new single-season records in both goals with 40, and points with 55 - also adding 15 assists a year ago. She led the team in scoring for a third-straight season, tying for fifth in conference assists per game (1.13) while ranking seventh in points per game (3.80) and eighth in goals per game (2.67).
Also a four-year letterwinner and three-year starter on the Crusader women's basketball team, Jenkin graduated with her bachelor's degree in English last spring.
She is presently a student in Susquehanna's Teacher-Intern Program and residing in Selinsgrove.
April Metzger
Metzger (Grimes) was a three-sport standout at Harry S. Truman High School in Bristol, Pa. - starring in softball, field hockey and basketball before graduating in 1992. She was inducted in the school's Sports Hall of Fame in January 1999.
She went on to play at NCAA Division II power Bloomsburg University, earning a starting job in the outfield in each of her final two seasons. Metzger was a starting rightfielder on the Bloomsburg team which finished second in Division II nationally in 1995. She was a starting centerfielder in 1996, earning second-team All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division honors, while also becoming an GTE Academic All-America. A .269 career hitter, she graduated from Bloomsburg with her bachelor's degree in elementary-education in 1996.
Metzger was hired by the Selinsgrove Area School District as a sixth-grade mathematics teacher and also served as head girls' softball coach for the past three years - from 1997 through '99. She continues to also serve as the middle school's intramural softball coach.
Also presently a student pursuing her master's degree in special education at Bloomsburg, Metzger and her husband, Matt, reside in Selinsgrove.
Randi Kunkel
Kunkel returns as the Crusader men's and women's track and field jumping coach after serving in that capacity for four seasons from 1995-98. During her previous tenure, she helped coach nine MAC champions, three NCAA Division III national qualifiers, and one All-American in the jumping events.
She was also previously the head men's and women's cross country coach at Susquehanna in 1997, guiding the men to a ninth and the women 10th at the MAC Championships. She also was the assistant cross country coach for the two seasons prior to taking the head job.
Kunkel was herself a 1989 NCAA Division III All-American and two-time national qualifier in the javelin at Delaware Valley, where she still holds six records. In addition to javelin, she holds records in the high jump, long jump, triple jump, shot put and heptathlon. She graduated with her bachelor's degree in business from the school in 1989.
A teacher in the Shikellamy School District, she resides in Northumberland.
