April 29, 2008

LEWISBURG, Pa. - Bucknell senior Darren Mastropaolo (Falmouth, Maine/Falmouth), a team captain and key frontcourt player for the Bison men's basketball team, received a special award at the University's annual Senior Athletic Awards Banquet, sponsored by the Bison Club and held in Sojka Pavilion on Apr. 29.

Mastropaolo won the Edward W. Pangburn Award, presented for sportsmanship, fellowship and contribution to the University. Badmus shared the award with Erin Cranmer-Hart of the women's cross country/track & field team.

In addition to Mastropaolo and Cranmer-Hart, several other student-athletes were honored at the banquet, including the winners of the Christy Mathewson Award, given to the most outstanding athletes in the senior class. All-America rower Katherine Brewster-Duffy and record-setting baseball player Jason Buursma won the Mathewson Awards.

One of the most inspirational stories in this year's senior class involved Mastropaolo, who needed less than five months to return to the floor after he suffered an ACL tear in a summer pick-up game. All he did after returning to the lineup was set career highs in scoring average (7.8) and minutes played per game (24.4).

Mastropaolo, a two-time winner of the Tommy Thompson Award as the team's top defensive player and Bucknell's very first basketball player from the state of Maine, will best be remembered for things that go beyond the stat sheet. One of the team's emotional leaders, he was a strong fundamental player. He twice led the team in drawn charges, and coach Pat Flannery called him the best screener he has ever coached.

Mastropaolo was part of the second-winningest senior class in Bucknell basketball history, and he was a starter on the 2005 and 2006 teams that won Patriot League championships and defeated Kansas and Arkansas, respectively, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Bucknell is a highly-selective, privately endowed liberal arts institution with an enrollment of approximately 3,400 undergraduate students. Bucknell competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the Patriot League and has full membership along with American, Army, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy. Bucknell has won the Presidents' Cup, signifying the Patriot League's all-sports champion, in 13 of 17 years.

Bucknell annually ranks among the national leaders in graduation rates, and recently 17 Bison programs - the fourth-most in Division I - earned NCAA Public Recognition for having Academic Performance Rates in the top 10 percent nationally in their respective sport. In addition, Bucknell ranks fifth in Division I in the total number of CoSIDA Academic All-America selections, with 114 national Academic All-Americans since 1970.