Bucknell's Evelyn Bliss wins top Mid-Atlantic field athlete honor

Evelyn Bliss turned a record-setting spring into Bucknell history and gave Lewisburg another national sports headline. The junior javelin thrower was named the USTFCCCA NCAA Division I Mid-Atlantic Women’s Field Athlete of the Year, becoming the first Bucknell athlete to win the honor and adding another layer to a season that already included an NCAA silver medal and a brief climb to No. 1 in the world.

Bucknell said the award came one week after Bliss finished second at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the highest placement ever by a Bucknell woman. She threw 60.28 meters, or 197 feet, 9 inches, on her final attempt to take silver, and she recorded marks in five of her six throws. Rice senior McKyla Van der Westhuizen won gold with a personal-best 60.87 meters, or 199 feet, 8 inches.

The spring campaign that carried Bliss into that national spotlight was built on volume and consistency. Bucknell said she won six competitions, set six facility records and five meet records, and broke 60 meters for the first time at the Bison Outdoor Classic in front of a home crowd. That throw measured 61.34 meters, or 201 feet, 3 inches, a personal best that also set facility and meet records and moved her to No. 1 in the world at the time.

Bliss kept rewriting Bucknell’s record book at meets across the East, setting facility marks at the Colonial Relays at William & Mary, the Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania, the Kehoe Twilight at Maryland, the Patriot League Outdoor Championships at Navy and the NCAA East First Round in Kentucky. She won the Patriot League title for the third straight year and repeated as champion at both the Colonial Relays and the Bison Outdoor Classic for the third consecutive season.

Her rise has also reshaped Bucknell’s place in the sport. Bliss became a three-time All-American, tying Maura Fiamoncini for the most in program history, and Bucknell said she joined Fiamoncini and Lonnie Fertik as the school’s only First Team All-Americans. In javelin, she is one of only two Bucknell athletes ever to earn First Team All-America status, alongside Fiamoncini.

Bucknell throws coach Ryan Protzman called it a “dominating season” and said Bliss had “taken a major step towards the most elite level of track and field” after earning a trip to Tokyo in the fall. Head coach Kevin Donner said her NCAA silver medal was “the highest finish ever by a female athlete in program history.” Bucknell said Bliss’s previous best was 58.88 meters, set at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, and that her current trajectory puts her within striking distance of the 64-meter Olympic standard for Los Angeles 2028. The daughter of a former collegiate thrower from Rimersburg, Bliss has become a hometown name with national reach, and her latest honor gives Bucknell and Union County a rare place in the collegiate track spotlight.