WESTFIELD, Mass.  --     Westfield State University athletics is pleased to announce the 2025 Class of the Westfield State University Athletics Hall of Fame, which will be inducted with a dinner and ceremony on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025 in the Scanlon Banquet Hall on campus.

The class includes:

Bill Lownds '75 – Men's Soccer

Cheryl Bassett '88 – Softball

Don Jones '04 - Football

Drew Soltysiak '08 – Men's Track and Field

Jen Ashton '15 – Women's Basketball and Women's Golf

Team of Distinction – 1975 Baseball

This will be the 26^th Class of the Westfield State Athletic Hall of Fame.  The first class was inducted in 1994.  This year's class will bring the hall's total inductees to 161 individuals and six teams.

Details on tickets for the event will be available in the near future.

A snapshot biography of each inductee follows.

Bill Lownds '75

Bill had a stellar four 4-year varsity career with the Owls men's soccer team, from 1971 through 1974, with many individual and team accomplishments. During his sophomore, junior and senior years Bill started every game, and graduated with a record for most consecutive games played, according to the 1975 yearbook.

Lownds teams combined for a four-year team record of 56-14-7, won three MASCAC regular-season titles, and advanced to two NCAA tournaments, including the storied  1974 "final four" run, that saw that team recognized as a team of distinction by the WSUAHOF.   He graduated ranking among the program's all time leaders in goals, assists, and points 27 goals and 24 assists for 78 points.

After Westfield State, Lownds had a long career of teaching and coaching, including a stop at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Mass from 1983-1985, where he coached the Boys Varsity Soccer Team to the Hampshire League Championship. Lownds finished his teaching career in the New Britain (Conn.) School system for 26 years.   He has competed in seven Boston Marathons.

Cheryl Bassett '88

Bassett was a standout shortstop for the Owls softball team who was selected as an Academic All-American as a junior in 1987, when she batted .402.

In 2017 Bassett was inducted into the Westfield State University Criminal Justice Hall of Fame, in 2018 she was named Westfield State University Alumna of the Year. 

She has held a distinguished career in public service, first with the Massachusetts Department of Labor, and later with US Homeland Security.   She has received awards from the Director of ICE, the Commissioner of the INS, as well as, the U.S. Attorney's Offices in Washington, D.C. and Boston for her successful investigative work on international human smuggling organizations and the dismantlement of a long-standing document fraud ring.

Don Jones '04

Jones was a mainstay as a running back on the strong Owls football teams of the early 2000s, competing as a member of the 2001 unbeaten-regular season team that won the NEFC title and advanced to the NCAA's.

He graduated as the school's third all-time leading rusher with 2,993 yards and ran for 1,281 yards as a junior in 2003.   Scored 25 career touchdowns as part of teams that went to three straight NEFC championship games, two ECAC Bowl games, and the Owls' only NCAA Playoff appearance.  His Owls teams were a combined 30-7 in regular season play, winning 18 straight regular season games from 2001-02.

A native of Springfield, Mass., he has gone on to a long coaching career, with stops at the Division 1, 2, and 3 levels, and since 2019 has been the head coach at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y.

Drew Soltysiak '08

Soltysiak was a two-time All-American in the javelin, highlighted by a third-in-the nation finish in 2008, after placing seventh the previous year.  Six times he earned all-New England honors, and he was the New England D3 and ECAC Champion in the javelin in 2008. He was named the 2008 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference's male scholar-athlete of the year.

A native of Westfield, Mass. Soltysiak continues to be active in the track and field community . After graduating Westfield, he placed 3^rd at the Penn Relays Olympic Development javelin throw in 2009.  He resumed competing at the Masters Level in recent years, where he earned a silver medal (Masters World Champion Runner-Up, 40+ age category) at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Gainesville, Florida in 2025 and is currently training to compete at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea in 2026.

He currently serves as a senior manager at Collins Aerospace in Windsor, Locks, Conn.

Jen Ashton '15

Ashton was the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference women's basketball player of the year in 2015.  She graduated as the program's second-all-time leading scorer with 1,524 points, holds the program's career record for steals with 440, and ranks second all-time in assists with 594.   She led the Owls to a program-record 24 wins and the ECAC New England Championship game in 2015.

After her senior year, she was selected to the D3hoops.com All-Northeast region first team; the New England Women's Basketball Association All-Region first team, and was selected to play in the NEWBA senior all-star game.

A native of Beverly, Mass. who now resides in Haverhill, Ashton also played three seasons as a member of Westfield's women's golf team.

After graduating from Westfield, she played four seasons of professional basketball overseas, three in England and one in Sweden, and was selected for British National Team Camp in 2017.   Currently employed by the Massachusetts Trial Courts, Ashton also is a certified basketball official, currently working games at the men's collegiate level.

1975 Baseball

The 1975 Owls baseball team finished the year with a 32-8 overall record, falling a game short of the College World Series.  Playing in the "College Division" prior to the D2-D3 split, Westfield lost the NCAA opener before winning four straight elimination games to get into the championship round before eventually falling to Montclair State in the second game of a doubleheader between the two schools.   Coached by Ken Ralph, seniors Bob Kallstrom and Bill Weber captained the Owls and are among seven players who have been enshrined in the hall of fame as individuals.