TOWSON, Md. - As the Landmark Conference counts down to the start of the 2026-27 academic year, the Conference will revisit some of the best stories from its member institutions through the Landmark Rewind series.
Running August 3-14, Landmark Rewind will spotlight one Landmark institution each weekday by featuring two stories originally produced by that school's athletics department. From student-athlete features and championship moments to community impact and campus initiatives, the series gives fans another opportunity to discover the people and programs that make the Landmark Conference special before fall competition begins.
Jamie Spencer ’01 was just a 21-year-old senior playing his first year on the men’s golf team in 1998 when he stepped to the tee on the second hole of the white course at the Shawnee Golf Resort.
It was the second day of the Middle Atlantic Conference Championship, then a grueling 54 holes over the course of two days. We’ll let Spencer tell the story from here.
“I had some high expectations, hoping to do well, and had a decent first day, but I also hit a couple bonehead shots,” he said. “Then I got lucky. I didn’t hit it pure, but I got a lucky bounce, and it rolled into the cup. I finished in the top 20. That was pretty cool.”
It was the first hole-in-one by a Warrior at the championship. After graduating from Lycoming, Spencer worked at White Deer Golf Course as the public relations and marketing coordinator for 15 years before becoming a sales executive with Susquehanna Marble & Granite. He also stepped into the world of coaching, first as a student-assistant coach with the Lycoming basketball team under head coach Terry Conrad, then through successful runs as the head boys’ basketball coach at Muncy and Montoursville High Schools and St. John Neumann Regional Academy. He also writes a weekly article in the Webb Weekly, distributed to 60,000 households in Northcentral Pennsylvania, where Spencer likes to say he focuses on fishing and the outdoors, but just as often will delve into complete roster evaluations, with full personality profiles, of the Lycoming golf team.
Lycoming golf has always been at the top of Spencer’s pantheon of favorite topics. His version of how he got hired as the golf coach is that as he finished his degree as a part-time student in 2001, he walked into Athletic Director Frank Girardi’s office and begged to be the head men’s golf coach.
Lycoming golf, first started in 1958 under the direction of Jack Phelan was on its sixth coach in seven seasons in 2001, as Spencer succeeded a long-line of coaches not known for golf, including soccer coaches Rob Eaton (1991-95) and Jack Shafer (1999), wrestling coach Roger Crebs (1996) and football coaches Mike Silecchia (1997-98) and Mike Clark (2000).
Spencer took the reins and led the team to a last-place finish in the MAC, but five years later, the Warriors finished second in the MAC Freedom behind conference runners-up Jordan Isenberg ’07 (South Williamsport) and James Bechtel ’06 (Sullivan County). He was the lead charge for 15 years, long enough to go from being the youngest coach in the conference to the longest-tenured. He coached a pair of MAC Scholar-Athletes (Bechtel, Drew Tompkins ’13) and six all-conference selections.
“That was really cool,” Spencer said of the second-place finish in 2005. “I remember it like it was yesterday. Those local kids were good golfers and great kids. We also had a whole list of dual-sport athletes in those years.”
In 2016, though, a change in structure at White Deer Golf Course led to a career change, and for the time being, Spencer needed to step away from Warrior golf. When he returned as head coach in 2022-23, he came back to a team playing on a new home course, Williamsport Country Club, but not getting the most out of the opportunity that came with playing on a course designed by the legendary A.W. Tillinghast.
“To be totally honest, we would play a couple of tournaments and a couple of duals, and if we won a dual, it was a successful season. That was the feel for it. We would do our best and have a memorable experience. We’ve shifted gears – in my early years, if I had one guy shoot in the 70s, he was the man; now I have six guys who can do it and do it on tough courses in tournaments.”
His first recruit to come in the second tenure, Will Eberz ’27, started to mark a sea change. By last season, the Warriors were competing in 15 rounds a season, a far cry from Spencer’s third year, when the team played in five.
Once again, Spencer was in the midst of a renaissance for the program. Eberz earned First Team All-Landmark Conference honors in 2025, and then Spencer helped claim perhaps the best recruiting class in the history of the program when Tre Lesperance ’29, Hill Meserve ’29, and Ryan Ault ’29 joined the team. The team enjoyed an eye-opening fall, capping it when Connor Shanahan ’27 teamed with Lesperance, Meserve, and Eberz to set a program record with a round of 304 on the second day of the DeSales Fall Invitational. Lesperance shot a 72, the first even-par round for a Warrior golfer on record that day.
“Will is a driven, great player, and a captain,” Spencer said. “He had a great first year, and his sophomore year was off the charts. He did so much for us behind the scenes, too. We brought in a really good class, and Will was the closer with all of them.”
Eberz also set up a meeting with new president Chip Edmonds that led to the first on-campus home for the golf team, complete with a golf simulator and a putting and chipping mat in the basement of Clarke Chapel. The team raised more than $75,000 for the space. Lockers are also planned to be added as the renovation of the old rehearsal space is revamped.
“We have a beautiful facility and a lot of it is because of Will Eberz,” Spencer said. “He is the driving force. Coaching golf is different than other sports. It’s even more relationship-based. It’s one of the reasons I continue to do it. Zack Czap ’13 was an all-conference kicker who also happened to play golf and was just a fun kid to have around. He played for us 15 years ago, and he’s a good friend. We had a bunch of smart kids like Drew Tompkins ’13, Will Dietz ’14. Those guys made us look good. When we did the fundraising for the golf simulator, it was cool to talk about the van rides and all the fun things associated with those years.”
For Spencer and the Warriors, thanks to their new facility and young talent, the fun may just be beginning.