SUNY Cortland Athletics

Very few athletes in any sport rival Janine Engelhard Bennett’s accomplishments on the soccer field at Cortland. The defensive standout was a rare four-time All-American from 1987-90, and as a senior was chosen as the NCAA Division III Player of the Year while helping the Red Dragons advance to the national championship game.

Also as a senior, Bennett was a nominee for the prestigious Honda Broderick Award and shared Cortland’s Female Senior Athlete of the Year honor with current C-Club Hall of Fame member Vicki Mitchell ’91. She was named to the 1990 NCAA Division III Final Four all-tournament team. In all, Bennett’s teams posted a combined 66-11-12 record, won three State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) championships and made four NCAA tournament appearances.

Bennett has since enjoyed a successful coaching career, primarily on the high school level. After two years as head women’s soccer coach at the University of the South in Tennessee and one year as an assistant women’s soccer coach at Cortland, she took over as the varsity girls’ soccer coach and junior varsity softball coach at Newark Valley High School in 1995. She moved to the Dryden Central School District in 1998 as the varsity girls’ soccer coach and a middle school physical education teacher.

At Dryden, Bennett has led her soccer squad to six Interscholastic Athletic Conference (IAC) divisional titles, three IAC overall crowns, a Section Three co-championship and a sectional runner-up finish. She has won more than 150 games and her teams have been named National Scholar Athlete teams five times.

Bennett has conducted numerous coaches’ and youth clinics with the Dryden Sertoma Club, a local community organization, since 1991 and was a volunteer coach for the Crown City Soccer Club from 1992-2009.  She’s also been active with the New York State West Youth Soccer Association Olympic Development Program as well as a variety of other committees.