Kovacevich and Merryman named Marietta’s 2009 Clyde Lamb Award winners
Seniors honored at Monday's OAC banquet

By Logan Wern, SID Intern
May 11, 2009
MARIETTA, Ohio — The Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) recently announced the 2009 Clyde A. Lamb Award winners, and Marietta College senior track & field throwing specialist Tiffany Kovacevich (Strongsville) and senior baseball standout Justin Merryman (New Philadelphia) were among the 10 female and 10 male student-athletes, one from each of the OAC institutions, chosen for the prestigious honor.

All 20 Clyde A. Lamb Award winners were honored at the 25th annual OAC Awards Banquet on Monday (May 11) evening at the Holiday Inn in Worthington. Until 2004, a committee of athletics directors and faculty representatives selected a male and female from the 20 student-athletes to be awarded Clyde A. Lamb Scholarships after the banquet. Criteria for the award includes at least two years participation in an OAC-sponsored sport, senior status, a minimum grade point average of 3.00 and sportsmanlike conduct in a manner that has brought credit to the student-athlete and his or her institution.

Kovacevich, a four-year letterwinner in Track & Field, holds the school records in the indoor Shot Put (11.82m), indoor Weight Throw (14.84m), outdoor Shot Put (12.16m), and outdoor Hammer Throw (45.33m).

As a senior, Kovacevich stepped up as one of the team’s four captains and was named OAC Student-Athlete of the Month for April. Her All-OAC performance in the indoor Weight Throw contributed to the team's fourth place finish at the 2009 OAC Indoor Championships. Kovacevich then won the Hammer Throw title for the second year in a row at the 2009 OAC Outdoor Championships where Marietta took fifth. Recently, she threw a mark in Hammer Throw (47.25m) that provisionally qualified her for the NCAA Division III National Outdoor Track & Field Championship, which will take place May 21-23 in Marietta, Ohio.

Over the course of her college career, Kovacevich, an Advertising & Public Relations major, has been active not only on the field, but also in the classroom. She has made the Dean's High Honor's List for six semesters and is a member of business honorary Tau Pi Phi.

Merryman is a three-year letterman in baseball, contributing to the team as an outfielder, a pitcher and a first baseman. Although his final season was cut short after 24 games due to a medical condition, he managed a hitting average of .400 and scored 24 runs. Merryman also went 1-0 with a 3.31 ERA and five saves in nine appearances on the mound.

Merryman was a member of the 2006 National Championship team. In 2007, he received All-OAC honorable mention and was named the Mideast Regional Tournament MVP. At the end of his junior year, Merryman was Marietta's top hitter with an average of .390, earning him All-OAC second team honors.

Off the field, Merryman, a Finance major, made the Dean's List in 2005 and 2007. He also serves as a volunteer baseball coach for 16-17 year olds during the summer.

The award, founded in 1985, is named in honor of Clyde A. Lamb. Lamb organized the department of health and physical education at Ohio Northern University in 1929, and served as a coach, department chairman and athletics director at ONU from 1929-64. He continued to teach full-time until his death in 1969. Lamb, who received his bachelor’s degree from Coe College in 1923 and a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1929, coached numerous sports at Ohio Northern during his tenure. In 1959, he was elected to the NAIA Helms Hall of Fame. He was honored as Ada’s Distinguished Citizen in 1956 and was inducted into Ohio Northern’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1969.