(For each day this week during NCAA Division III Week, Geneva Athletics will be highlighting and remembering the spring sports seniors who had their seasons cut short due to the coronavirus.)

Today Geneva Athletics is remembering the men's volleyball team, and in particular the five seniors that saw their careers come to an unexpected end when the remainder of the season was cancelled due to the coronavirus.

This was just the second varsity season for the Geneva's men's volleyball program, but it was shaping up to be a tremendous one.  The Golden Tornadoes were off to an 18-6 start, including a perfect 5-0 record in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC), and Geneva looked destined for an AMCC Championship.  The Golden Tornadoes defeated Mount Union in early March for the second time this season, the only two losses the Raiders had all year to that point, just before Spring Break was set to begin.  The team was off over the break and was looking forward to coming back to complete the regular season and finish its run to a championship.  Unfortunately, the Golden Tornadoes never got that chance when spring sports were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Quinn McCracken (Beaver Falls, Pa./Beaver County Christian), a business major, was at the head of this senior class in a number of ways.  He began his career at Geneva on the men's soccer team, but when Geneva announced it would be starting a men's volleyball program, McCracken made the switch to volleyball, and it came with tremendous success.  He was named the AMCC Newcomer of the Year in 2019, and a First Team All-AMCC player, leading the Golden Tornadoes to a regular season tie in the AMCC in Geneva's first season of competition. 

McCracken only improved from there.  He put up a dominant senior campaign, and he was rewarded by being named the AMCC Men's Volleyball Player of the Year, despite the shortened season.  He broke the single-match school record with 26 kills against Johnson & Wales, and he led the AMCC with 321 kills on a .337 hitting percentage.  He also contributed 143 digs and 57 blocks.  McCracken also excelled in the classroom, where he was named an AMCC Academic Peak Performer, which is given to any student-athlete with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

Joining McCracken as two-year players were Lincoln Mimidis (Belle Vernon, Pa./Belle Vernon) and John Pillsbury (Scarborough, Maine/Mitchell Hill Academy).  Mimidis, a physics major, served often as Geneva's libero this season, contributing 77 digs while also providing strong leadership in the program. 

Pillsbury, an engineering and computer science major, provided Geneva with a veteran presence, as he, Mimids and McCracken were also part of the Geneva club team prior to the varsity program's beginning.  Pillsbury was also an AMCC Academic Peak Performer in the classroom.

Geneva's other two seniors this year, Amir Cobbs (Pittsburgh, Pa./Woodland Hills) and Michael Pohlod (Gibsonia, Pa./Pine Richland), joined the men's volleyball program this season after participating in other sports at Geneva.  Cobbs, an engineering major, was a sprinter on the men's track and field team where he contributed to the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) championships that program achieved in recent years, and he served as a defensive specialist on the men's volleyball program. 

Pohlod, a civil engineering major, came over from the men's soccer team where he was a starter at forward, having a part in the strong success of that program in recent years, including Geneva's PAC Championship in 2017.  Pohlod served as an outside hitter on the men's volleyball team, and he was seeing more and more playing time as the season progressed.  Pohlod was also named to the AMCC All-Academic Team for his work in the classroom.

Not only did this team excel on the court, but they also excelled off the court, where they were named the AMCC Men's Volleyball Team Peak Performers for having the highest GPA of any team in the conference.

"I just want to thank our five seniors for their contributions to our program," said Head Coach Curt Conser.  "All five came from various backgrounds in volleyball, and none of them came to Geneva to be part of a men's volleyball varsity program, but over their time with us, they all became legitimate NCAA volleyball players.  It was really a joy to see how much each of them were improving each day, and I wish we could have had a chance to see how good we could have been on April 10 and 11 (the dates the AMCC Conference Tournament was scheduled)."

"We had some very good success on the court," continued Coach Conser, "but that's not what I'll remember most.  Their attitudes, hard work and willingness to learn are traits that served them well in the gym, and they will continue to help them be successful in the future.  These five players have really helped to build a strong foundation for our young program."


Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to God and neighbor. Offering over 145 traditional undergraduate majors and programs, fully online Adult Degree Programs and high-demand graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. Geneva is included on Kiplinger's Personal Finance's "2019 Best College Values" list and has one of the top undergraduate engineering programs in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report. Adhering to the truth of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God's Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today's world.