Plum's Ellis, Kondis fare well for Mercyhurst football team
Plum graduates Dylan Kondis and Tarique Ellis enjoyed strong fall seasons for the Mercyhurst Lakers football team in the Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.
The team wrapped up its season Nov. 14 against Shippensburg, and shortly after, several Lakers earned selection to the PSAC all-star squads.
Kondis was honored by the conference with a spot on the second team as a punter.
He was one of four Lakers to earn recognition on the second team, while three others made the first team.
Kondis served as both a kicker and a punter for Mercyhurst.
He made 44 punts for 1,840 yards (41.8 average). His longest punt was 67 yards, and he pinned 11 punts inside the 20-yard line.
Kondis accounted for the second most points on the team this season with 44, as he booted three field goals for nine points and added 35 more on extra points.
The junior set a school record last year for most extra points without a miss in a single season (49) and became just the third kicker in school history to have a perfect extra-point success rate in a season.
Ellis, a redshirt junior defensive back, led Mercyhurst in tackles this season with 102, and he also had a team-best 77 solo stops.
His season-best performance came against NCAA playoff qualifier and PSAC champion Slippery Rock on Oct. 17.
He made 14 tackles, including 13 solo stops, against the Rock in the Lakers' 35-24 loss.
Ellis reached double figures in tackles five times. He had 13 total tackles, 10 of them solo, in Mercyhurst's 20-14 win at Bloomsburg on Sept. 19.
He took a redshirt season in 2014 after playing two seasons at Alderson Broaddus in West Virginia.
Mercyhurst finished its season 5-6 overall and was 2-5 in the PSAC.
Scott Benzel
Plum native Scott Benzel just completed his second season as head coach of the Westminster College football team, and he helped lead the Titans to one of their best seasons in nearly two decades.
The Titans capped their season Saturday by winning the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC James Lynah Bowl, 42-21, over St. John Fisher College at Central Connecticut State University's Arute Field.
Westminster finished the 2015 campaign with a 9-2 record, and the nine wins were the most by a Titans team in a single season since 1997.
Westminster appeared in its first-ever ECAC bowl game and advanced to the postseason for the first time since appearing in the NAIA Division II playoffs in 1997.
The 42 points scored Saturday were the most in a postseason game since 1994, the same year the Titans won the NAIA Division II national championship.
Benzel led Westminster to a five-game improvement from last year's 4-6 overall mark.
Last year, the Titans finished 4-4 in the Presidents Athletic Conference, and this year, they upped that record to 7-1 and finished second in the standings to undefeated Thomas More (8-0).
Westminster capped the PAC schedule with a 32-0 home victory over rival Geneva and added conference wins over Bethany, Carnegie Mellon, Thiel, Grove City, Waynesburg and St. Vincent.
Michael Love is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach him at 412-388-5825 or at mlove@tribweb.com.
