University of Richmond Athletics
2024-25 Richmond Athletics Annual Report
Richmond has been competing in intercollegiate athletics for more than 125 years, but seldom have the Spiders reached the levels of athletic, academic, and administrative success that they did during the 2024-25 school year.
2024-25 was Richmond's fourth year under the Richmond Athletics Strategic Plan, unveiled in August 2021 and subsequently affirmed in University of Richmond President Kevin Hallock's A Plan for Richmond. Under its strategic plan, Richmond Athletics is responsible for achieving ambitious goals in the areas of Academic Excellence, Competitive Excellence, Student-Athlete Leadership and Development, Compliance, Policy and Governance, and Finance, Advancement, and Facilities while also ensuring that the department continues to reflect UR’s deep commitment to creating a sense of belonging for all Spiders.
ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
98% Graduation Success Rate is tied for 6th highest in Division I
3.35 average student-athlete GPA
6 teams with perfect Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores
Richmond reinforced its reputation as one of the NCAA's premier academic institutions in 2024-25. In November, the NCAA revealed that 98 percent of Spider student-athletes earned their degree within six years among those who enrolled between 2014 and 2017 (the latest available data). The figure is UR's best Graduation Success Rate (GSR) since the introduction of the program in 1998. Among the more than 350 schools in NCAA Division I, only five — Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Notre Dame, and Santa Clara — ranked ahead of the Spiders.
In May, the NCAA released updated Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores for its member institutions, showing that six Spider teams — field hockey, men's cross country, men's golf, women's basketball, women's golf, and women's swimming and diving — received the highest possible APR score of 1,000. It was the most perfect APR team scores for Richmond since 2019.
79 percent of student-athletes recorded a term GPA of 3.0 or greater during the spring semester, the same percentage of Spiders who ended the school year with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0. Across all sports, UR student-athletes maintained an average cumulative GPA of 3.35 at the conclusion of the 2024-25 school year.
Spider soccer combined to post a team GPA of 3.79 during the school year, best among UR's 17 varsity teams. At April's annual SPIDYs awards, Liam Weaver from men's basketball and Isabel Blaylock from women's cross country and track & field were presented with the Presidential Citation Award as the graduating male and female student-athletes with the highest GPAs.
COMPETITIVE EXCELLENCE
5 conference championships
1st NCAA Tournament wins for men's lacrosse and women's basketball
2nd best finish in LEARFIELD Directors' Cup in last 19 years
The Richmond Spiders won early and often in 2024-25, earning conference titles, setting school records, and advancing further in NCAA Championship competition than ever before.
In May, men's lacrosse upset 8th-seeded North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Championship to record the first NCAA Tournament win in program history and earn a matchup with No. 1 seed Cornell in the NCAA Quarterfinals. Before a large contingent of Spider faithful, Richmond pushed the top seed to its limit, leading midway through the fourth quarter before a pair of late goals gave Cornell a 13-12 win. UR finished with a 14-4 record and was ranked as high as No. 5 in final national polls. Eight different Spiders earned All-American honors as the program celebrated its greatest season in its brief but decorated history.
Just two months earlier, the women's basketball team captured national attention after dominating Georgia Tech 74-49 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for its first NCAA Tournament win. UR's 25-point margin of victory was the biggest for any team seeded 8th or lower in the tournament since 2019, and the largest for any program in its first NCAA Tournament win since 2012 (Delaware). With the win, UR earned a shot against overall No. 1 seed UCLA in historic Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles. The Spiders were tied 36-36 with the Bruins at halftime before UCLA established itself in the second half to secure the win. Head coach Aaron Roussell was named national Mid-Major Coach of the Year and signed an extension with Richmond after the season.
Men's lacrosse (regular season, conference tournament) and women's basketball (regular season) combined to win three of Richmond's five conference championships during the 2024-25 school year. The first came in November, when Spider football dominated rival William & Mary 27-0 to shut out the Tribe for the first time since 1973 and close the regular season with a perfect 8-0 record in the CAA. 2024 was the second unbeaten conference season in program history and its first since 1968. Four Spiders earned All-American honors, including defensive end Jeremiah Grant, who finished third in voting for the Buck Buchanan Award, given to the nation's best defensive player in the FCS.
Women's golf earned a conference title for the fifth time in the last nine years but its first in the Atlantic 10, which completed its inaugural women's golf season in 2025. The Spiders rallied from a five-shot deficit in the final round as Hannah Lydic captured individual medalist honors, becoming the first Spider ever to win three tournaments as an individual. At the NCAA Regionals in Charlottesville, Richmond placed 11th, its best showing ever in an NCAA Regional, as Lydic registered the highest finish (tie for 30th) ever by a Spider in the opening stage of the NCAA Women's Golf Championship.
Lydic's win was one of 14 for the Spiders in individual or event conference finals in 2024-25. Swimming & Diving won four events (50 free, 200 free relay, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay) on its way to a runner-up finish at the Atlantic 10 Championships in February. Melissa Nwakalor, who won four gold medals at the conference championships, became the first Spider to advance to the NCAA Championships since 2019, placing 24th in the 50 free at the national meet.
Women's track & field captured five gold medals and finished third at the Indoor Track & Field A-10 Championships in February and won four more golds as the team finished fourth at the Outdoor Track & Field A-10 Championships in May. Richmond won the 4x400 and 4x800 relays and the long jump at both meets, with Molly Wise adding two more long jump conference titles to her resume. Teammate Darya Mikusova (400 hurdles) and Wise advanced to the NCAA East Regionals, where Wise placed ninth to earn a spot at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon, becoming the first Spider to reach the national meet since Brooke Fazio in 2021.
Also in Spider Athletics this year:
• Richmond finished second among A-10 schools and 117th nationally in the LEARFIELD Directors' Cup, its second-best result in the last 19 years. UR was helped in the competition, which awards schools points based on how far their teams advance in NCAA Championships, by having multiple teams (men's lacrosse, women's basketball) advance past the first round of an NCAA Championship for just the third time in the 21st century (also 2022-23, 2000-01).
• Spider teams combined for an overall win-loss record of 153-96 (.614), the third best win percentage of any Division I university in Virginia, per the Virginia Association of Sports Information Directors. UR trailed only Liberty (.632) and UVA (.626).
• Men's golf placed second at the Atlantic 10 Championship by the smallest possible margin, finishing one shot behind Davidson. Cole Ekert finished second on the A-10's individual leaderboard, concluding his career with two wins, five runner-up finishes, and the lowest scoring average in program history.
• Spider baseball finished 33-19, its most wins in a season since 2004. UR defeated three ACC opponents — Boston College, NC State, and Virginia — and swept A-10 rival VCU.
• Women's tennis used an 11-match win streak to reach 16 wins, the most for the program since 2009. The win streak came to an end in the A-10 championship match, in which UR fell to VCU. It was the program's second straight runner-up finish in the Atlantic 10.
• Spider field hockey went 5-2 in A-10 play to reach the conference tournament for the first time since 2021. Faced with a schedule that included six games vs ranked opponents, UR finished 11-8 overall, its best record in a season since 2014.
• The men’s tennis team reached the semifinals at the A-10 Championship for a third straight year. The Spiders finished 12-9 for their third straight winning season.
• Women's lacrosse went 7-3 in A-10 play and 11-8 overall for its ninth straight winning season. The Spiders hosted the conference tournament, in which they fell to UMass in the semifinals.
• Women's cross country placed seventh at the A-10 Championship, which was hosted by Richmond at Pole Green Park in Mechanicsville, Va. Laurel Kurtz finished eighth to earn First Team All-Atlantic 10 honors.
• Dusan Neskovic earned Atlantic 10 All-Academic honors as the men's basketball team finished 10-22.
• Men's cross country placed 12th at the Atlantic 10 Championships with freshman Brady Barber leading the team with a 47th-place finish at the meet.
• Spider soccer went 4-10-3 on the season, with six losses coming by one goal.
STUDENT-ATHLETE LEADERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT
Launched Spider Performance, a comprehensive student-athlete success program
PowHER On luncheon for all female student-athletes
3 Sport Performance Fueling Stations provided over 100,000 healthy snacks
As part of its efforts to provide an unrivaled student-athlete experience, Richmond Athletics launched Spider Performance in June. Spider Performance is designed to support Spiders in their pursuit of athletic, academic, personal, and professional achievement.
SP4 is the evolution of longtime performance and development programming geared toward assisting Richmond student-athletes in all areas of their lives. The program provides tools, resources, connections, and more for Spider athletes in competition, in the classroom, and in their careers, with the aim of building champions for life.
Year-long programming for members of the 2024-25 leadership cohort was built on the theme of Achieving the Impossible Dream. Student-athletes were assigned a mentor to assist with their leadership development, and programs included a kickoff event, sessions focused on reflection, legacy, and actionable growth, and a leadership graduation.
In January, Spider Performance hosted a PowHER On event, bringing together female student-athletes for a luncheon and panel discussion featuring accomplished Spider Athletics alumnae. The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Sandra J. Peart, dean of the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership Studies.
SP4 partnered with UR Career Services and corporate partner CoStar to host its annual Etiquette and Networking Dinner at the Country Club of Virginia in October. More than 100 junior student-athletes attended the event, which for the first time included a pre-dinner mock interview exercise with more than 25 potential employers.
Other professional development efforts included summer trips for the men's and women's basketball teams to Richmond-area employers as well as winter trips for the men's and women's lacrosse teams to New York City. Juniors and seniors completed financial literacy training programs, and Spiders from every class participated in a pair of job and internship fairs organized by SP4.
Data collected during the year showed that of the members of the Richmond Athletics Class of 2024, 59 had secured employment, 25 were attending graduate school, and six were pursuing professional athletics.
Spider Athletics welcomed a trio of accomplished alums back to campus in February as Gregg Bond, ‘86, Alexis Brandolini, ‘01, and Dalton Maine, ‘94, received the department’s annual Alumni Achievement Awards.
Richmond Athletics also continued to provide a host of services designed to ensure that current Spiders are operating at their physical and mental peaks:
- Daily analytics reports for coaches included new data from CoachMe Plus, an applied sport science platform that uses hydration monitoring to assist with athletes' recovery.
- Strength and Conditioning and Sports Medicine collaborated on the design and implementation of injury prevention programs for Spider teams.
- Student-athletes continued to benefit from Polar wearables technology that combines precision GPS-derived movement data, inertial sensor metrics, and integrated heart monitoring.
- Sports Medicine operated three Sports Performance Fueling stations to fill nutritional gaps between meals and provide hydration and sustenance, providing over 100,000 healthy snacks throughout the year.
- Registered dietitians worked with Spider coaches and Sports Medicine staff to provide pre-game and post-game fueling plans for both home and away competitions.
- The student-athlete mental health referral system was enhanced by the establishment of a psychiatric provider clinic and the creation of a consultation process for those recovering from significant injuries.
- More than 400 student-athletes participated in mental health screenings upon their arrival on campus, with more than 100 attending a one-on-one counseling session during the year.
- Sports Medicine conducted 442 pre-participatory physical exams and performed more than 25,000 treatment and rehabilitation sessions during the course of the year.
- The Athletics department offered summer water safety and skill development lessons for student-athletes for the first time.
- Athletics collaborated with Dining Services to host interactive Top Chef-inspired cooking competitions with multiple Spider teams.
COMPLIANCE, POLICY, AND GOVERNANCE
Joined Patriot League as an associate football member on February 1
Opted into terms of House v. NCAA settlement
Partnered with Athlete's Thread to offer custom apparel, NIL opportunities
Richmond joined the rest of the Atlantic 10 and more than 300 Division I schools when it announced it would opt into the terms of the House v. NCAA settlement in late February. UR revealed that it would begin to provide direct payment's to men's and women's basketball players, as permitted by the terms of the settlement.
In the announcement, University President Kevin F. Hallock noted that “Athletics brings generations of Spiders together, strengthens our ties with the surrounding region, and offers a platform to showcase our remarkable university on a national stage." Director of Athletics John Hardt added that the decision “is essential to maintaining Richmond's status as a top-tier men's and women's basketball program in the Atlantic 10 and continuing Spider Athletics' tradition of competitive excellence at the highest possible level.”
Richmond continued to adapt to intercollegiate athletics in the age of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). In September, Spider Athletics partnered with Athlete's Thread to give UR student-athletes the ability to create personalized online stores that offer officially licensed apparel featuring their own Name, Image, and Likeness. The partnership marked the first time ever Spider fans were able to purchase the official merchandise of their favorite Spider student-athlete.
Richmond football officially joined the Patriot League on February 1, making its first change in conference affiliation since joining the CAA in 2007. Shortly thereafter, UR's longtime football rivals William & Mary and Villanova announced they would follow Richmond to the Patriot League beginning in 2026.
FINANCE, ADVANCEMENT, AND FACILITIES
Record $1.28 million raised during UR Here Giving Day
RichmondSpiders.com redesigned for the first time since 2017
The Princeton Review ranked Richmond's athletics facilities 8th in the NCAA
The Spider Athletic Fund continued to ensure that Richmond Athletics has the resources needed to fulfill its mission of educating, inspiring, and assisting Spider student-athletes. With SAF leading the way, the Athletics Department raised more than $1.28 million during UR’s seventh annual #URHere Giving Day in April, a record total and an increase of 25 percent from 2024. More than 2,500 donors contributed to Athletics during the 36-hour event, another record.
Men's lacrosse received a great deal of support on Giving Day, raising the most donations ($283,728) of any team. The program also was well-supported throughout its home schedule, drawing an average crowd of 1,473 to its eight home games, the 14th-highest average attendance of any D-I program.
With an always-challenging Atlantic 10 home schedule and a non-conference home slate that included matchups against Georgetown and sixth-ranked Texas, the women's basketball program drew an average of 1,704 fans to the Robins Center, an increase of 36 percent from the previous season.
Philanthropy and careful stewardship of resources allowed the department to continue to enhance a suite of athletics facilities that was ranked 8th best in Division I by The Princeton Review in August. Shortly thereafter, Dick Tarrant Court in the Robins Center was completely remade, resulting in an improved playing surface, a smaller jump-ball circle, and the elimination of the old women's three-point line. Following the school year, the department announced additional renovations to the Robins Center that will result in new locker rooms for the soccer and women's lacrosse programs and a team room for game day use by the men's and women's basketball teams.
Soccer and women's lacrosse are among the programs that will benefit from renovations to President's Field at River Road that were announced in July. The soccer field will be completely resodded with Bermuda grass, while the lacrosse practice field will receive brand new field turf. A retaining wall will also be built on the western edge of the facility to shift the lacrosse field 20 feet westward, allowing for better angles during streaming soccer broadcasts and creating space for potential future enhancements to the venue.
More than 110 Spider games, a department record, were produced by SpiderTV for streaming on ESPN Plus and FloSports and broadcast on regional television during the course of the school year. A new website greeted the more than four million annual viewers of RichmondSpiders.com in November, when the Athletics PR office and its technology partner Sidearm Sports unveiled a complete site redesign, the first for the site since 2017.
Athletics Public Relations partnered with the Spider Athletic Fund to launch Web Threads, a monthly series of in-depth, behind-the-scenes stories that give a glimpse into the ambitions, motivations, and sacrifices of the individuals who allow Richmond to excel at the highest levels of intercollegiate athletics and academics as well as the philanthropy that supports them every step of the way.
INCLUSION AND BELONGING
Fall break tour of Civil Rights sites
Immersive travel experiences for lacrosse in Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands
8 student-athletes attended the Black Student-Athlete Summit in Chicago
Spiders were informed, prepared, and ready to participate in the 2024 elections thanks to the efforts of the Spiders Vote Initiative. A panel discussion in October explored voting through both historical and contemporary lenses and asked attendees to consider how the act serves as a conduit to connect people's aspirations to actions. Spiders also joined a group of more than 2,000 student-athletes for a virtual nonpartisan voting rights event that celebrated and expanded on the unique impact that athletes can have on campuses, communities, and the future. The department also produced a series of public service announcements featuring Spider student-athletes that aimed to make sure their peers were aware of the 2024 elections and how they could participate.
During fall break, five Spider student-athletes embarked upon a tour of key civil rights sites throughout Alabama and Tennessee as a part of the Richmond Athletics Civic Engagement and Co-Curricular Programming. They shared their reflections in daily blogs on RichmondSpiders.com and in sit-down interviews upon returning to campus, allowing for the creation of feature-length videos and vignettes to support Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month programming.
A group of eight Spiders attended the Black Student-Athlete Summit in Chicago in May. The group learned strategies designed to help Black student-athletes excel in competition and in the classroom and how they can best serve as leaders in their athletic departments and among the entire student population.
Athletics partnered with the Student Center for Equity & Inclusion, Christian Life in the Office of the Chaplaincy, and others to sponsor a screening of the movie Mama Bears, which encourages respectful dialogue around LGBTQ+ identity and Christian faith.
The department also partnered with the Chaplaincy to host a screening of Swing for Gold, a film about the Israeli Olympic baseball team that features Spider baseball alum Jonathan DeMarte, '17 and assistant coach Nate Mulberg, during the campus's Jewish Film Festival.
Richmond’s Academic Services department also worked to ensure that Spiders have access to high impact, experiential learning opportunities as well as the opportunity to pursue new courses of study. The department paved a path for 20 student-athletes to enroll in summer Study Abroad experiences spanning the globe.
Shortly after final exams, members of the men's and women's lacrosse teams set off on once-in-a-lifetime trips to Europe, thanks to the generosity of contributors to the Spider Athletic Fund. The men's team visited Portugal and Spain, where they helped to renovate a local nonprofit gymnastics club while learning to surf and cook in the Iberian style. Women's lacrosse traveled to Spain and the Netherlands, where they were immersed in the culture of Spain's Basque region and helped spread their love of lacrosse to students in academies throughout Holland.
