Monmouth College's M Club Hall of Fame, Champions Club inductions were Oct. 18

By Barry McNamara

Four former Fighting Scot athletes were inducted into the M Club Hall of Fame during Homecoming festivities at Monmouth College Oct. 18. The ceremony for baseball ace Dan Dunn '06; national champion high jumper Tyler Hannam '11, speedy softball standout Lauren Bergstresser-Petoskey '12 and cross country All-American Mary Kate Beyer Black '12 was held in the Huff Athletic Center fieldhouse.

The ceremony included the induction of three teams into the college's Fighting Scots Champions Club - the undefeated 1925 football team and the 1985 and 1986 men's track and field teams, which both won Midwest Conference titles.

Lauren Bergstresser-Petoskey '12

It's possible that Lauren Bergstresser is the top position player in the history of Monmouth College softball, but what's nearly certain is that she's the fastest catcher the Fighting Scots will ever have.

A four-time All-Midwest Conference selection and two-time South Division Player of the Year, Bergstresser held the Scots' stolen base mark by a wide margin at the time of her induction, swiping 63 bases despite playing behind the plate all four seasons. Her 24 single-season steals are also a school record.

To record steals, a player has to get on base, and Bergstresser excelled in that category, too, batting .356 for her career. She holds the program record for hits (174), at-bats (488) and runs (122), leading the Scots in the latter two categories every season.

Bergstresser's steady play helped lift Monmouth to MWC playoff berths all four seasons, including a first-place South Division finish in 2011, when she hit a team-best .403.

Mary Kate Beyer '12

The first women's All-American in Monmouth College cross country history, elite distance runner Mary Kate Beyer was part of nine Midwest Conference champion teams.

Beyer placed 20th at the 2010 NCAA cross country meet to earn her All-American honor. In all, she qualified for a school-record three national meets with top-14 finishes at the always-competitive Midwest Regional, including a fifth-place finish in 2010. Her PR of 21:31 remained Monmouth's 6K record at the time of her induction.

In track, Beyer posted six individual MWC titles - including three in the steeplechase, an event she qualified for nationally - and her teams were a perfect 8-for-8 in indoor and outdoor championships. She still holds five individual school records and earned three Most Outstanding Performer honors.

Beyer added a ninth team title by pacing the Scots with one of her three runner-up MWC cross country finishes as they won the program's first league title in 2008. She was all-conference all four years.

Dann Dunn '06

Few players in Monmouth College baseball history have dominated over a two-year stretch the way Dan Dunn did in 2005 and 2006.

Thanks in large part to a program-record four shutouts and a then-record 29 consecutive scoreless innings, Dunn's ERA his first season with the Scots was a miniscule 1.66. He added two more shutouts in 2006, including a no-hitter, en route to making the NCAA's All-Midwest Region squad and being named the Midwest Conference's South Division Pitcher of the Year, the second of his two first-team All-South selections. His 78 strikeouts that year rank fifth on the Scots' single-season list.

Monmouth won at least 20 games and the division title in both of his seasons and reached the MWC championship game in 2006. In all, Dunn had 23 starts for the Scots and posted 15 victories. Nearly two decades after throwing his last collegiate pitch, his career ERA of 2.14 was still the school record.

Tyler Hannam '11

Monmouth College prides itself on providing a transformative educational experience. Tyler Hannam is perhaps the poster example of a transformative athletic experience at Monmouth. He went from barely high jumping 6 feet in high school and not planning to compete in college to clearing nearly 7 feet as a Fighting Scot, along the way earning a national championship in 2010 and a runner-up finish the next year for two of his three All-American honors.

A few months into his freshman year, Hannam met with coach Roger Haynes and decided to compete. Over the next few years, Haynes helped Hannam harness his elite athleticism. While soaring to new personal heights, Hannam cleared 6'11- outdoors (his national title-winning jump) and 6'10- indoors to rank first and second, respectively, on Monmouth's all-time honor roll at the time of his induction.

At the Midwest Conference level, Hannam won three outdoor high jump titles and was a two-time Most Outstanding Performer.

Champions Club

The Champions Club, established in 2022, serves as a proud tradition of recognizing the most accomplished teams in Monmouth's storied athletics history. This prestigious honor spotlights squads whose dedication, skill and teamwork have led to truly outstanding achievements on the field, court or course. Induction into the Champions Club is reserved for teams that have reached the pinnacle of competitive success, whether by capturing a conference championship, earning a team trophy at an NCAA national championship, or advancing in NCAA regional competition or playoffs.

Coached by M Club Hall of Famer Herbert Hart and known as "The Trick a Minute Machine," the 1925 football team won Monmouth's first conference title since World War I and posted the second season in school history without a loss. The squad had seven wins and two ties with a school-record seven shutouts, including five straight to end the season. Thanks in part to a goal-line stand, Monmouth tied Cornell 0-0 to finish 3-0-1 in Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference play, tying the Rams for the title. Monmouth also won the Little Nineteen Conference title. The team's shutouts included a 12-0 Thanksgiving win over Knox. Warren Taylor was the captain of the team and its offensive leader. In addition to Taylor, Forest "Fat" Lewis, Leverett "Lev" Wallace, future Monmouth Review Atlas sports editor Judson Jones and Frank "Pop" Gorom were all named All-State, with Wallace earning first team All-Midwest honors. Future NFL player and coach Keith Molesworth was also on the squad, which outscored its opponents 90-13. Team members in the Hall of Fame include Jones and Gorom, who both came to campus from Loveland, Colorado (where they were coached by Hall of Famer Bill Reed '20), as well as Taylor, Molesworth, Alex Thom and Roy Mann. Taylor later coached the Scots to another undefeated season in 1931.

The 1985-86 men's outdoor track teams, coached by Roger Haynes, captured back-to-back Midwest Conference titles, with the '85 squad's victory being the program's first in 24 years. The '85 Scots were led by a trio of field event performers, who are all in the M Club Hall of Fame: individual MWC champions Eric Ealy (high jump), Peter McNaughton (hurdles and long jump) and Roger Well (triple jump and decathlon). Ealy set an MWC record at 6'9- and Well set a school record with 6,583 points in the decathlon at the MWC championships. Ealy, Well and McNaughton all qualified for nationals and Ealy was an All-American with a fifth-place finish. The '86 team featured the program's first ever NCAA national champion, as Ealy won the high jump at 6'10-. He also won the MWC title, and other conference champs were Dan Cox in the discus and Brian Ross in the 400-meter dash. Ealy, Cox and Well (decathlon) all qualified for nationals.