PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania's Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics (DRIA) announced its major intercollegiate senior student-athlete awards for 2021-22 on Wednesday night, April 20. Five awards were handed out.
 
In the two most prominent senior awards of the night, Sam Handley (Portland, Ore./Jesuit) from men's lacrosse was honored with the Class of 1915 Award while field hockey player Gracyn Banks (Burlington, N.J./Burlington Township) was awarded the Association of Alumnae Fathers' Trophy.
 
Presented annually since 1931, the Class of 1915 Award is given to the male student-athlete who best exemplifies the spirit and tradition of University of Pennsylvania Athletics. The recipient must be a senior student-athlete who shows outstanding athletic, academic, and leadership qualities. The academic standard is a 3.0 GPA. Voting on the award is conducted by the head coaches of Penn's varsity men's programs.
 
The Fathers' Trophy has been given annually since 1945 to the woman who is recognized for her contribution to Women's Athletics at the University of Pennsylvania. The recipient must be a senior student-athlete who shows outstanding athletic, academic, and leadership qualities. The academic standard is a 3.0 GPA. Voting on the award is conducted by the head coaches of Penn's varsity women's programs.
 
Penn Athletics also announced winners of the Norman J. Goldring and George H. Frazier Prizes on Wednesday night. The Goldring Prize is given to one graduating male and one graduating female student-athlete with the highest GPA who earned a varsity letter in his/her senior year. The Frazier Prize, meanwhile, is given to a graduating student-athlete (male or female) with the highest GPA who competed on one of the following teams: basketball, crew, track, soccer, baseball or football.
 
Men's lacrosse player Theo Lenz (Vienna, Va./James Madison HS/Deerfield Academy) was named the male recipient of the Goldring Prize, while on the female side there were co-recipients in women's fencer Kristina Khaw (Princeton, N.J./West Windsor-Plainsboro North) and women's basketball player Nikola Kovacikova (Krskany, Slovakia/St. Vincent de Paul Levica). Kovacikova also was named the recipient of the Frazier Prize.

For the first time, Penn Athletics also handed out awards that were voted on by the student-athletes themselves. Sophomore wrestler CJ Composto was voted by his peers as the Newcomer of the Year, while senior men's basketball player Jelani Williams was voted the Comeback Player of the Year. The men's squash team, which had an undefeated regular season and won its first outright Ivy League title since 1969 before falling in the CSA Team Championship final, was voted as the Penn Athletics Team of the Year.

CLASS OF 1915 AWARD
Sam Handley, men's lacrosse
Despite missing nearly two full years of his sport due to COVID-19, Sam still boasts a distinguished resume based on his spectacular freshman season in 2019. That year, he was named the Inside Lacrosse National Freshman of the Year and was a consensus first-team All-America. Sam also was ECAC Rookie of the Year and a unanimous selection as the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, earning first-team All-ECAC and unanimous first-team All-Ivy honors. He then earned all-tournament honors at the Ivy League Tournament in helping Penn to just its second undefeated Ivy League campaign (the other coming in 1986). The Quakers then advanced to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Championship. This season, Sam is on the Tewaaraton Award Watch List as a potential national player of the year, and he was recently named a first-team Inside Lacrosse Midseason All-America. Sam is tops among Ivy League players in assists and points per game in Ivy play, and his 2.44 assists per game overall is third among Ivy players and 13th nationally. Off the field, Sam is a Friars Senior Society member, a Sigma Chi fraternity member, a volunteer with the Young Quakers Community Athletics program, and a volunteer teacher at Victory Academy in Wilsonville, Ore., the state's only school dedicated to children with autism. Sam is a Business Analytics and Management concentrations in the Wharton School of Business. He is the second men's lacrosse player to be voted the Class of 1915 Award over the last three years, and the sixth overall.
 
ASSOCIATION OF ALUMNAE FATHERS' TROPHY
Gracyn Banks, field hockey
A two-year team captain, Gracyn has become a regular in USA Field Hockey's Junior National program. She recently completed play at the Junior World Cup in South Africa, where the U.S. went 2-1 in pool play before finishing eighth in the knockout rounds. Last August, she won a bronze medal with Team USA at the 2021 Junior Pan Am Championships in Santiago, Chile. Gracyn returned to campus following her Pan Am stint and stepped right into Penn's starting lineup, earning first-team NFHCA All-Region and unanimous first-team All-Ivy honors. A starter in all 16 games, she earned Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week twice last fall and finished second on the team with 10 points (4g/2a). That included scoring the game-winning goals in Penn's last two Ivy games of the season, against Columbia and Dartmouth. Gracyn was second-team All-Ivy as a sophomore, then did not play as a junior when the Ivy League shut down all fall sports due to COVID-19 regulations. In the classroom, Gracyn was an Academic All-Ivy pick, an NFHCA National Academic Squad member, and a PhillySIDA Academic All-Area selection. She is a member of the Penn Athletics Wharton Leadership Academy (PAWLA) and the West Philadelphia School District After-School Program, and a founder of the Proving Grounds Collegiate Summer League. Gracyn is a neuroscience major in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is the 27th field hockey player named recipient of the Fathers' Trophy but just the third this century, the others coming in 2007 and 2018.
 
NORMAN J. GOLDRING PRIZE (male)
Theo Lenz, men's lacrosse
• The second men's lacrosse player to earn the Goldring Prize, which has been given annually since 2000 (Alex Ferro in 2011-12)
• Starter in all nine games this season on defense
• Has 16 ground balls, three caused turnovers, one shot on goal
• Played in two games as a freshman, did not see any game action as Penn played just six games his sophomore/juniors years due to Ivy League COVID-19 restrictions
• Dean's List 2018-19
• Neuroscience major, Chemistry minor in the College of Arts and Sciences
 
NORMAN J. GOLDRING PRIZE (female)
Kristina Khaw, women's fencing
• The second women's fencer to earn the Goldring Prize, which has been given annually since 2000 (Eve Overton in 2006-07)
• Member of the women's epee team, went 1-4 this winter at the Philadelphia Invitational hosted by Penn
• Went 22-14 for her career, did not fence her junior year as the Ivy League shut down winter sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic
• Dean's List 2018-19
• Bioengineering major, Chemistry and Engineering Entrepreneurship minors in the School of Engineering and Applied Science
 
NORMAN J. GOLDRING PRIZE (female) and GEORGE H. FRAZIER PRIZE
Nikola Kovacikova, women's basketball
• The second women's basketball player to earned the Frazier Prize, which has been given annually since 2000 (Kasey Chambers in 2016-17)
• Transferred to Penn after playing two years at Georgetown University
• Played in 19 games this past season, making eight starts
• Averaged 2.9 points and 1.6 rebounds while recording 22 assists, nine steals and three blocked shots
• Scored 18 points in win at St. Francis Brooklyn on November 18
• Communication major in the College of Arts and Sciences