Hall of Fame
During her eight-year career as a high school and college lacrosse player, Shannon Witzel had no trouble locating the goal – prolific scorers never do.
Combine the 262 career record goals she tallied at Pottstown High School with the program tying 208 she scored while a Tiger, that’s 470 of them for an average of nearly 59 goals per year.
“I just always had a knack for finding the back of the nets,” Shannon said. “No matter where I was playing I always like to win, and wanted to win, and I would do whatever it took on the field to accomplish that.”
At Pottstown she also led the single game record with 11 goals and the single season record with 88. Without skipping a step she went right to work at Towson, establishing the program’s freshman records for goals (44) and points (53) in a season. That performance earned her Towson’s Female Rookie of the Year award.
“It was my goal when I came to Towson to start as a freshman,” said Shannon. “I wanted to compete. I wanted the ball in my stick. I wanted to be the one playing against the other team’s top attacker. I wanted to be in the mix of things.”
A starter at midfield in all 69 career games, Shannon scored a national leading 71 goals in her sophomore year to shatter a 21-year-old single season program record. That mark ranked second on the Colonial Athletic Association’s single season goals scored list.
Through their first 23 years as a Division I women’s lacrosse program a spot in the NCAA post-season tournament had eluded them. Shannon gave them a huge lift over that hurdle. As a sophomore she was the NCAA’s national leader with a 3.74 goals per game average while her 4.42 points per game ranked her sixth. That’s when she led the Tigers to their first CAA title by scoring seven goals in an 18-15 championship victory over Hofstra that put Towson into the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. She was named the CAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
The following year Shannon once again led the CAA in scoring to earn first team All-CAA and first team All-Region honors. She became just the third Tiger in the program’s history to be named All-American when she was picked to the IWLCA/US second team. She was a second team All-CAA selection twice. In 2007 she was honored as Towson’s Senior Female Athlete of the Year.
After graduating with a degree in Sports Psychology, Shannon embarked on her college coaching career. Following stints at La Salle and Towson she accepted an invitation to join her former high school teammate, Gina Oliver, the head women’s lacrosse coach at Cincinnati. At the time of her induction to the Towson Hall of Fame Shannon was in her eighth year as an assistant with the Bearcats.
