The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has released the 25^th Anniversary Team for field hockey in conjunction with the 25^th anniversary of women’s championships. The College of New Jersey’s field hockey team placed four student-athletes on the team, while head coach Sharon Pfluger was named the coach for the 25^th Anniversary Field Hockey Team.

Among the former Lion student-athletes selected to the team were Gina Carey-Smith, Diane Smith, Melanie Vasofski, and Tiffany Trockenbrod.

The 2005 NCAA Division III Championship in field hockey will mark the crowing of 25^th NCAA Division III Field Hockey champion. TCNJ, formerly Trenton State College, won the very first NCAA Division III field hockey championship in the fall of 1981 when the Lions defeated Franklin and Marshall College 2-0 on the campus of Westfield State College (MA). The Lions went 20-0 that season under the direction of coach Melissa Magee, while current TCNJ field hockey coach, Sharon Pfluger was a member of the Lions’ squad that fall.

TCNJ’s1981 field hockey team will be recognized by the College this next year in conjunction with the 2006 TCNJ Athletic Alumni Hall of Fame ceremony as a “Team of Distinction.”

Pfluger is in her 21st season at the helm of TCNJ’s field hockey program this fall. In addition, Pfluger will be entering her 20th season as the head coach of the Lion women’s lacrosse squad in the spring of 2006. She currently owns an overall coaching record of 368 wins against 62 losses and nine ties, with 359 of those wins happening here at the College. Her winning percentage of .849 is fourth among coaches from all three NCAA divisions, while her 368 wins are eighth. Pfluger is also 21st in total games coached with 439.

Acknowledged as one of the premier field hockey coaches in Division III, Pfluger became TCNJ’s all-time winningest coach in the sport in less than six full years at her alma mater, moving ahead of Melissa Magee, her predecessor and head coach during the early ‘80s. Her teams have earned 20 consecutive NCAA Tournament berths. Pfluger notched her 350^th career win with an overtime victory over Messiah on October 21, 2003.

Since the inception of the NJAC in 1985, her squads have won 16 of 20 possible NJAC titles. Pfluger has been tapped as the NJAC Coach of the Year five times, with selections in 1989, 1995, 1999, 2001, and 2004.

Three times, she has coached squads to consecutive national championships. First, from the fall of 1990 to the spring of 1992, Pfluger earned four titles. Then she followed that up with four more from the 1995 women’s lacrosse title to the 1996 field hockey title. Pfluger picked up two more rings as the 1999 field hockey and 2000 women’s lacrosse teams were victorious.

She is a member of the NFHCA Hall of Fame Class of 2003 which was inducted on January 10, 2004 at the NFHCA Awards Luncheon in Baltimore, MD. The Class of 2003 was only the fourth group of inductees to be honored by the NFHCA Awards & Hall of Fame Committee.