STAUNTON, Va. – Six new members, including two with Hall of Fame credentials from other organizations, were inducted into the Mary Baldwin University Athletics Hall of Fame on Sunday at the Hotel 24 South Conference Center as part of the University’s Alumni Weekend.
The late Lois Blackburn Bryan, a member of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Hall of Fame, and distance runner Sophia Stone ‘15, a member of the USA South Athletic Conference Hall of Fame, were in the fourth class of inductees for the MBU Athletic hall of fame.
Two former Mary Baldwin athletic directors and coaches – Mary Ann Kasselmann and Sharon Spalding – along with two more former standout student-athletes – tennis player Martha Coates Walters ‘87 and basketball’s Jessica Carter ‘08 – were voted into the MBU hall of fame by the selection committee.
The ceremony will be held at the Hotel 24 South, near the MBU campus. Following a reception and brunch, the induction will begin at approximately 11 a.m.
Previous Hall of Fame ceremonies, inducting eight Mary Baldwin outstanding student-athletes, were held in 1982, 1984 and 2010. Blackburn Bryan, Kasselmann and Spalding will be the first inductees who were MBU athletic administrators, coaches and faculty members.
Mary Ann Kasselmann worked together with Blackburn Bryan through the 1980s to build a stronger program with additional staffing and enhanced facilities. Between 1982 and 1994, Kasselmann served as volleyball coach, basketball coach, admissions counselor, swim coach, athletic trainer, sports information director and Athletic Director.
Under Kasselmann’s leadership, the Mary Baldwin athletic program moved from King Gym into the currently used Physical Athletic Center (PAC), which included the institution’s first weight-training center, a larger dance studio and was adjacent to several new athletic fields and the new tennis complex. She eased travel by getting two MBC logo vans, added the sports of lacrosse and softball (club team) and facilitated the use of the YMCA pool for the swim teams. She helped develop the transition to the new Atlantic Women’s Collegiate Conference (AWCC), in which Mary Baldwin had great success for nearly two decades before joining the USA South Athletic Conference. Kasselmann, who also instituted several athletic awards still presented annually, currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Lois Blackburn Bryan was the Mary Baldwin tennis coach for two decades, building a program and a legacy that continues. She was presented dozens of honors and awards for her work, which included building one of the strongest tennis programs in Virginia, running state and national championship tournaments and even designing the MBU tennis complex that still bears her name.
She coached the only Mary Baldwin team to win an Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) championship (1988) and several players who were All-Americans and national award winners, including two Mary Baldwin Athletics Hall of Fame honorees. Her team record from 1969-89 was 223-112, which included a winning record every season.
During a six-year stretch, MBC finished third in the conference twice, second once and won the title once. Here teams won three Virginia state titles and two Eastern Collegiate championships, and she has three players named to the National Junior Weightman Cup team. The Squirrels were nationally ranked numerous seasons and reached as high as #5 in the small college national rankings.
Blackburn Bryan’s teams and players were well known for integrity and sportsmanship, winning multiple individual and team sportsmanship awards. She also gave her time to regional, state and national tennis organizations, holding officer positions and serving as director of numerous championship tournaments. After learning about the honor in 1996, Blackburn Bryan was inducted into the ITA Hall of Fame posthumously in 1997.
Martha Coates Walters is the second member of Lois Blackburn Bryan’s late 1980s tennis juggernaut program to be selected to the Mary Baldwin Athletics Hall of Fame, joining 2010 inductee and teammate Karin Whitt. Other former tennis standouts in the hall of fame include Cindy Goeltz Willkomm ’66, Nancy Louise Falkenberg Muller ’67 and Mary Hotchkiss Leavell ’73.
Coates Walters was a three-time selection to compete in the NCAA Division III individual championship (1985-87).She finished second in the ODAC singles championship tournament in 1984 to earn her first all-conference nod, a second team position. The following year, she won her first ODAC singles crown, which also earned her a berth on the all-conference first team and her first trip to the NCAA championships. In 1986, she repeated her 1985 accomplishments and advanced to the national quarterfinals, finishing sixth in Division III and earning her first Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Association (ITCA) All-American award.
She finished her career with another ODAC singles title and competed in the NCAA singles and doubles championship with Mary Baldwin Hall of Famer Karen Whitt. She was named the ODAC Player of the Year as well as the 1987 Mary Baldwin Athlete of the Year.
Originally from Charlottesville, Va., where she played on the 2002 state championship team, Jessica Carter played for the Fighting Squirrels from 2004-08, and then served as an assistant coach during the 2020-21 campaign. She is the Mary Baldwin career points leader (1,943), averaging over 15 points per season in each of her four seasons at Mary Baldwin. During her career, the Squirrels won 47 games and advanced to the conference playoffs each year, losing in the title game in 2006 after posting a 9-3 AWCC regular season record.
Carter also ranks second in numerous other Mary Baldwin statistical categories, including career scoring average (16.92), career three-point goals (184), three-point shooting percentage (34.14), free throws made (226) and free throw percentage (76.1). Among NCAA Division III leaders, Carter ranked among the top 57 scorers in each of her final three seasons, including seventh nationally with a 21.04 average in 2008. She was also ranked among the top 50 three-point shooters nationally three times during her career. Carter, a multi-year AWCC all-star and Division III Honorable Mention All-American, was honored for her accomplishments at an MBU game in 2020.
Sharon Spalding, who retired in 2020 as professor emeritus at Mary Baldwin and lives in Stuarts Draft, served two tenures as the director of athletics from 1997-99 and 2007-15. She began her tenure at MBU as an instructor in 1990 and advanced through assistant and associate professor positions until ultimately serving as the Director of Wellness from 2007-15. Spalding is still active in dozens of local health and wellness organizations and programs, including her current stint as an instructor at the Augusta Health Lifetime Fitness program.
She coached three different Mary Baldwin sports teams, including 10 years with the volleyball team. Her 1995 spikers won AWCC championship and she was named the AWCC Coach of the Year in 1996. . She also guided the basketball squad for one year and had led the cross country program that featured two-time All-American and Academic All-American in fellow 2023 Hall of Fame inductee Sophia Stone as well as many other USA South all-stars. During that span, Spalding began the first of her two terms as Athletic Director.
Spalding also contributed to the University with the Virginia Institute for Leadership for three years. During her tenure as Athletic Director, she added varsity track & field to the athletic department offerings and was instrumental in developing the new university branding for the 2016-17 academic year. She emphasized students to wear travel shirts on game days so professors and others on campus knew the teams and athletes representing Mary Baldwin.
Sophia Stone, who lives in Washington, D.C., set high standards at Mary Baldwin with a cross country career that produced a number of first-team and first-time awards for the Squirrels. In her sophomore and junior seasons, Stone won the USA South Athletic Conference cross country championship. She went on to capture the individual gold medals as Regional Runner of the Year three times in the NCAA Division III South/Southeast championship races. Nationally, she achieved first-team All-America recognition, finishing 31st in the national championship race in 2011 and 19th place in 2012.
Stone, who still owns the team records in the 5,000-meter run (18.24) and the 6,000-meter run (21:17), was also stellar in the classroom, earning first team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors twice. She is the only Mary Baldwin University student-athlete to be named to the national Academic All-America team.
Stone was the Mary Baldwin Newcomer of the Year in 2011, Athlete of the Year in 2012 and 13 and was a three-time Mary Jane Donnalley award winner for posting the highest grade point average among student-athletes. In 2022, she became the first Mary Baldwin athlete to be inducted into the USA South Athletic Conference Hall of Fame.