Betty
Wesner finished her 30th season as the head field hockey coach at Kutztown
University.
Wesner won her 300th career game at KU with a 3-2
overtime win at Mercyhurst on September 20th, 2008. In her 30 years with
KU, Wesner has compiled a record of 317-229-15 and 21 winning
seasons.
She has been named the PSAC Coach of the Year
five times. Three players were honored by the PSAC, with two being
named to the first team.
The 2009 squad lost in the quarterfinals of the
PSAC playoffs to Shippensburg by a score of 2-0. The highlight of
the season came with a 2-1 win over then ranked No. 1 Bloomsburg on
September 12th. Wesner has led the Golden Bears to three-straight
PSAC trips to the playoffs and five of the past six years.
In 2007, her team became the first KU woman's program to
receive a No. 1 NCAA ranking during the regular season.
During the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Wesner''s teams
combined for 29 wins and back-to-back trips to the PSAC playoffs. In
2005, the Golden Bears were ranked as high as third among NCAA
Division II teams and second in the South Region. In 2004, KU ranked
as high as fourth in Division II and third in the region. Wesner,
the 2004 PSAC Coach of the Year, recorded her 250th career win vs.
Shippensburg in 2004.
From 2000-03, the Golden Bears won 32 games.
During the 1999 season, Wesner recorded her 200th career victory, an
overtime decision over Mercyhurst, with the winning goal scored by
her daughter, Sarah. In 1998, Wesner's team reached the PSAC playoffs.
In 1997, the Golden Bears reached the pinnacle of
success, advancing to the NCAA Division II Championship game for the
first time in school history. For her effort, Wesner was named NFHCA
Division II Coach of the Year, as well as NFHCA South Region, PSAC
and Kutztown University Women's Coach of the Year.
Wesner was named PSAC Coach of the Year after her
1988 squad recorded a school-record 18 wins and finished fifth in
the national tournament. She has captured three PAIAW conference
crowns, while coaching one national player of the year, 38 national
All-Americans, eight all-regional selections, 19 PAIAW all-stars,
and 52 All-PSAC honorees.
Her team has earned the NFHCA Team Academic Award
each of the past five seasons, finishing in the top five in Division
II in team GPA each year.
Wesner has taken her team on international tours
to Great Britain, Holland and Australia to compete against some of
the best teams those countries have to offer.
Wesner served as head women's lacrosse coach at
KU from 1984-90. She was the director of equal opportunity in sports
from 1985-1987 and has served as the department's compliance
officer. Prior to KU, Wesner taught health and physical education
and coached field hockey in the Twin Valley School District. Her
1975 squad won the Berks County title.
Wesner serves on several field hockey committees,
including that of the PSAC, NFHCA and the NCAA national selection
committee. She has served as the president of the Lehigh Valley
Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
Wesner received a bachelor's degree in health and
physical education from West Chester in 1971. Wesner and her
husband, Doug, reside in Exeter Township. Their son, Joshua, passed
away in April 2000 after a courageous battle with Hodgkin's Disease. Their daughter, Sarah, was a member of the field hockey team from
1997-2000, and was a team captain in 2000. She graduated with a
degree in social work and a minor in anthropology from KU in 2002.
Sarah returned to KU in 2007 as the head women's lacrosse coach,
after serving as head field hockey coach and assistant lacrosse
coach at Gwynedd-Mercy College.
Beth Wheeler finished her third year as the
assistant field hockey coach at KU.
Prior to KU, she
was a four-year member of the Roanoke College field hockey team and
a three-year member of Roanoke's lacrosse team. While at Roanoke,
she was a member of the program's first Old Dominion Athletic
Conference Championship field hockey team in 2002. Wheeler came to KU
from Saint James School, a boarding school in Saint James, Md.,
where she coached the girls varsity field hockey team to a 12-3-2
record and a league championship. She is a graduate of the
2008 NCAA Women Coaches Academy.
Goalkeeper
Coach Trista Oxenreider
Trista (Hershey) Oxenreider returned to KU as a
goalkeeper coach for the Golden Bears in 2008. Oxenreider was a
four-year starting keeper for KU from 2002-2005, playing in 79
games. During her junior and senior seasons, she recorded a combined
24-12 record in goal. She posted a 1.14 goals against average as a
senior.