WALTHAM, Mass. – On May 2, the Brandeis University Department of Athletics handed out their annual Departmental Awards and the 2024 Michael Coven Awards Banquet. This year's award honorees were
 

Athletic Director's Awards were presented to Alya Campbell of Eastchester, New York, and the women's track and field team. Campbell has established three school records this year, in the 60-meter hurdles indoors and the 100-meter hurdles and the 4x100-meter relay outdoors. In 2024, she was named All-UAA in the 4x100 and All-New England Division III in the 100-meter hurdles, lowering the school record to 14.61 seconds, ranked 34^th in Division III this season. Campbell has scored points for the Judges at six different conference championships;
 

Alex Cohen of West Palm Beach, Florida, and the softball team. Cohen is a three-time All-UAA selection and one-time All-Region choice for her excellence as both a pitcher and hitter. She is among the career leaders in 20 different hitting and pitching categories, including 5th in strikeouts and 6th in wins. She displayed great heart and toughness at the end of the softball team's season, starting the last seven games in a row - including four in three days against NYU - when one of her teammates sustained a season-ending injury;
 

Liz Korn of Piedmont, California and the women's track and field team. A four-year member of the team, Korn has scored at every UAA Championship meet she has run in, and three times earned All-Association honors as a member of relay teams. At Carnegie Mellon for this year's UAA Outdoor championships, she helped the Judges tie the school record in the 4x100-meter relay with a time of 49.12 seconds. Liz is also being honored for her work away from the track, where she boasts a 3.78 GPA as a Biology and HSSP major with a French minor, while also finding time to volunteer with the Prospect Hill Kids Club, the Crisis Text Line and at Newton-Wellesley Hospital.;
 

And Aedan Using of Old Lyme, Connecticut, of the men's basketball team. After coming off the bench as a sophomore and missing his junior season due to injury, Using joined the starting lineup as a senior and became one of the most versatile players in the UAA. He led the Judges in assists, steals, blocked shots, and rebounds this past year, finishing among the conference leaders in all four categories. Brandeis was among the leaders in Division III in scoring defense, turnover margin and steals per game, and for his efforts, Aedan was named the UAA Defensive Player of the Year, the third Judge to win the honor in its 11-year history.
 

The Morrie Stein '58 Award of Valor It is presented to a student athlete who has demonstrated courage both on and off the playing fields and/or intervened to better the lives of others. It went to men's swimming and diving sophomores Sam Bundy of Charlotte, North Carolina, and AJ Martinez of North Miami Beach, Florida.
Bundy and Martinez suffered devastating personal losses at the start of the 2023-2024 season. Martinez grieved the sudden passing of his father Angelo, shortly after the loss of his mother in high school. In January while on a team training trip in Puerto Rico, Bundy lost his mother, Mary, to cancer. These losses could have led both student-athletes to step away from the team to focus on themselves. They instead chose to support each other and continue surrounding themselves with the team.
 
Model teammates and scholar-athletes, both Bundy and Martinez are recognized for their leadership, work ethic, and top performance in academics and swimming. Despite facing immense challenges –balancing a heavy workload after returning to campus, and leaning on their teammates for support – they both persevered. Bundy's unwavering dedication saw him excel in academics while bringing positive energy back to the team. Martinez's experience fostered a newfound appreciation for the power of gratitude, his teammates, and the sport of swimming, all while demonstrating the strength that comes from inspiring others.
 
The experience of these young men helped initiated a policy change in academic advising at Brandeis, creating a more consistent and streamlined approach for faculty to follow when tragedy strikes students, ensuring they receive the support they need during difficult times.
 

The Martin Zelnik '61 Award is presented annually to up to two "walk-on" or non-recruited student-athletes who make a significant contribution to a varsity team or teams through spirit, enthusiasm, and work ethic to improve their own skills and those of their teammates. This year's recipient was Olivia Zarzycki of Belmont, Massachusetts, and the women's track and field team.
Zarzycki joined the women's track and field team as a sophomore walk-on with an undiagnosed ACL tear from high school soccer. She put together an impressive first year with the team, scoring in multiple events at UAA's, and was poised for a competitive postseason, all while managing knee pain. Unfortunately, she sustained another injury to the same knee, tearing her meniscus and MCL and damaging other cartilage in the area. The entirety of her junior year was spent rehabbing, helping the team as a captain from the sideline, and hobbling through a few races in the spring. This year Zarzycki has rebounded to set personal records in every event she competed in, finishing in the top four in two events at the UAA Championships. She is ranked 36^th in Division III in the 400-meter hurdles
 
Zarzycki has been a fierce competitor for the Judges while maintaining a 3.77 GPA as a physics major. She serves as a TA for physics and biochemistry, as President of the Brandeis Medical Brigades, leading a trip to Honduras during February break, as the Coordinator for Companions 2 Elders for the Waltham group and as a member of the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps (BEMCo).
 
 
The Morris Sepinuck Award is presented to the varsity athlete who not only displays outstanding sportsmanship but also makes a significant contribution to the athletic program and to campus life at Brandeis. This year's winner was Sydney Lenhart of Tucson, Arizona, and the women's soccer team.

Lenhart served as a women' soccer team captain in 2023, and she was a member of the 2021 squad that reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. She is a two-time All-Region selection at forward and was an All-UAA team member as a junior who has 14 career goals and 33 points.
 
Off the field, Lenhart received the 2021 Lead 'Em Up Leadership Award, given to top student-athletes in the country who participate in the Lead 'Em Up leadership development organization. She has done just about every job under the sun in the Athletic department, always with a sunny attitude and infectious curiosity about every little detail going on behind the scenes, whether working as an intramural supervisor to setting up and breaking down a fencing meet to learning how to do baseball and softball statistics.
 

The Charlie Napoli '58 Scholar-Athlete Award is given to outstanding student-athletes who have excelled in the classroom and in the athletic arena. The men's winner was Ryan Power of Waltham, Massachusetts, who earned the honor for the second year in a row. Power has averaged around 7.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game in each of the last two seasons, but his contribution extended well beyond the numbers. Power battled injuries and taken on whatever role the coaching staff asked of him. Whether it's been scoring as a starter, or coming off the bench as a lock-down defender, Ryan has led by example in every aspect of the men's basketball program.
 
Off the court, Power is a six-time Dean's List member, three-time Academic All-UAA, and a College Sports Communicators' Academic All-District selection. Ryan has a 3.84 grade-point average as a Health: Science, Society and Policy major, who interned at the Woburn Nursing Center this past year. Next year, he'll be attending Tufts University Medical School.
 

The women's recipient was Francesca Marchese of Staten Island, New York, and the women's basketball team. Marchese has been a steadying presence for the women's basketball team over the past four years. She has not missed a single game in her career, starting every one over the last three seasons. Marchese's 3-point mastery has sparked the team, giving them one of the highlights of the season when she broke the school's career record on Senior Day against a top-ranked NYU team. She became the only woman in Brandeis history with 40 or more 3-pointers in all four seasons.
As important a part as she played on the floor, Marchese has been just as important a role model off of it. An Athletic Director's Award winner last year, she graduated with a 3.70 GPA as a business and psychology double major and this year has a 3.56 GPA in Brandeis's business school. She is a four-time Academic All-UAA and two-time College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selection. She has TA'ed for two graduate level courses this year, been a member of Brandeis's Student Leadership Academy, the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and served on the Student Union board as director of media and outreach. She's been a worker in the admissions office and around the Gosman Center, and served as a sportswriter for one of Brandeis's weekly newspapers, The Hoot.
 

For the second-straight year, Brandeis presented a Rookie of the Year Award to the top first-year competitors, one each from a women's and a men's team. The women's team winner was Lika Bolkvadze of Tbilisi, Georgia, and the women's tennis team.

Bolkvadze has been a phenomenal addition to the women's tennis team. She came to Brandeis in the fall from the country Georgia. Like a number of her teammates from outside of the US, she had the difficult task of transitioning to living a new country, across the world from her family, and acclimating to college life academically, athletically, and socially, all while competing to be a starter on perhaps the deepest team in the history of Brandeis Women's Tennis.
 
She earned an opportunity to start in singles against the University of Redlands, the #10 team in the country, on the team's February break trip to California, and played a very classic first official college match, losing in three roller-coaster sets. She learned from that match and won the very next day against nationally-ranked Caltech, and followed it up with another win the following day against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, the two-time defending national champs and #1 team in the country. The player who she defeated that day had played #3 and #4 singles the previous two years on their national championship-winning teams. Since then, Bolkvadze has been a stalwart in our singles lineup, leading the team with wins vs nationally ranked opponents on the strength of her powerful forehand.
 

The men's Rookie of the Year winner was Pierce Garbett of Coral Gables, Florida, and the men's tennis team.

During a tumultuous season for the men's tennis team, Garbett climbed the Judges' ladder, playing matches in every position from #6 to #2. He finished second on the team in both singles and doubles victories, compiling 10 of each. His best performances came at #3, where he went 4-0 this season. With a roster that was reduced to five players by the end of the season, three of whom were first-years, Garbett's success this year should bode well for the three years to come as the Judges build depth around him.
 
 
The Harry, Joseph, and Ida Stein Award was presented to the top student-athlete from a men's team in 2023-24. It went to swimmer Sam Dienstag of Wilmette, Illinois, for the second-straight year.
There was not much room for improvement for Dienstag over last year, when he finished fourth in the 1,650 freestyle and 13^th in the 500 free at the NCAA Championships.  After a slow started to the season, he learned that he had come down with mononucleosis, and it would go on to sideline him for the majority of the regular season. Dienstag came back and swam a potential NCAA qualifying time in the team's last meet before UAAs. At the conference championship, he showed the league and all of Division III that he was back, finishing second in the mile freestyle and winning the 500 - Brandeis's first UAA swimming champion since 2004. Dienstag's success carried all the way to nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he won his prelim in the 500 and finished second in the finals, leading the race for 450 of the 500 yards. He also finished second in his heat and fifth overall in the 1,650 as Brandeis finished 25th in the team standings, their best-ever showing.
 
In all, Dienstag ends his Brandeis career as a five-time All-American with three top-five finishes; a three-time All-UAA swimmer; a UAA champion; a school record holder in every freestyle race from 200 yards to a mile, plus two relays; a College Sports Communicators Academic All-American and a four-time College Swim Coaches Scholar All-American.
 
 
The Max I. Silber Award was presented to the top student-athlete from a women's team in 2023-24. It went to Maggie Shealy of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, of the fencing team also for the second year in a row.

Shealy's efforts for 2023-24 began as soon as last year ended. Once she decided to return to Brandeis for graduate school and use her final year of eligibility, preparation began for her to try to find a way to take the next step from a year that ended in the NCAA championship semifinals.

The Judges planned to cut down on Shealy's regular-season competitions to keep her fresh for nationals this year, but an injury to a teammate meant that her fencing workload was just as significant as it had been throughout her career.

In the process, Shealy became the winningest female fencer in school history. She returned to the NCAA Championships to finish the job she started last year. Shealy finished pool play with an 18-5 record and a second-place finish - clinching first-team All-America honors for the second year in a row and a berth in the national semifinals. This year, she was able to take her journey one step further. Shealy defeated opponents from Columbia in the semifinals and St. John's in the finals to become the first Brandeis woman to win a national championship against Division I Competition and the first Division III NCAA Fencing Champion since 2000. Shealy was able to achieve all this while competing internationally, working on her master's in public policy and substitute teaching in Waltham Public Schools.
 
Brandeis Athletics will hand out four more awards, Linsey Fellowships and the McCully Awards on May 12^th at the annual Charlie's Reception.