Blanca Millan, who became America East’s first women’s basketball player to be twice named the league’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season, and NCAA national champion ice hockey player Cory Larose headline the University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame’s class of 2026.
They will be joined by cross country legend Frank Preti, distance running phenom Patrick O’Malley, women’s ice hockey goaltender Mandy Cronin, diving coach Rich Miller and the 1976 Black Bear baseball team that won two games at the College World Series.
They will be inducted Oct. 16 during a banquet at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer. The class was chosen by the UMaine Sports Hall of Fame committee and approved by Director of Athletics Jude Killy.
Millan was a first team All-America East selection three times and was also a three-time All-America East Defensive Team choice. She was named the NCAA’s International Player of the Year by World Exposure Report and was a finalist for the 2021 Becky Hammon Award that goes to the nation’s best mid-major player.
In 2020-21, she ranked 15th in the country in scoring (21.4 points per game) and steals (2.90), and her 1,974 career points are sixth-most in school history.
She averaged 15.7 points per game during her 126-game career and led UMaine to back-to-back America East tournament titles and NCAA tourney appearances in 2018 and 2019.
Larose was a member of the 1998-99 NCAA championship hockey team, and he made the cross-ice pass to Marcus Gustafsson that led to the overtime game-winner in the NCAA title game victory over New Hampshire.
He was a first team All-Hockey East choice and second team All-American the following season and is the school’s eighth all-time leading scorer with 180 points on 61 goals and 119 assists in 146 games. His 119 assists are third-most. He went on to play 425 games in the American Hockey League, collecting 374 points. The Campbellton, New Brunswick, native played in seven games for the NHL’s New York Ranger, notching an assist.
Preti was a vital member of the 1915 UMaine cross country team that won the IC4A meet in New York thanks to his second place finish. That was considered the national championship meet because it was in the pre-NCAA days. He had finished first in the New England cross country championships in 1914 and was third in 1916 and along with an 11th-place showing in the IC4A meet.
He was a state champion in the two-mile run.
Cronin joined the women’s ice hockey program in its second year in 1998-99 and held the school record for most saves in a game with 66 until Brittany Ott made 72 in a game in 2013.
She is tied for second in career shutouts with nine and is fifth in career saves with 1,757 and in games played with 66. She was a two-year captain.
Cronin was one of the cofounders of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and played five years in the league after playing five years in the National Women’s Hockey League.
She signed with the Boston Blades, the first American team in the CWHL, and eventually went on to serve as the general manager of the Buffalo Beauts and the Toronto Six in the Premier Hockey Federation. She has also worked with USA Hockey as a goalie coach and evaluator at national camps including at the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Performance and Development camp in Finland.
O’Malley was a three-year letter-winner in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track and was a three-year cross country captain and one year indoor and outdoor track captain
In 1989, his time of 30:42.21 in the 10,000 meters set an America East record and would stand until 2008.
He had UMaine’s second fastest 10,000-meter time and third fastest time in the 5,000 meters.
He was a multi-time all-conference and All-New England track and cross country selection.
He went on to work for 10 years at Nike followed by four as the director of product/running at Reebok and then moved on to Saucony where he eventually worked his way up the company president.
His shoe products have won a number of prestigious awards.
Miller coached nine NCAA national qualifiers and participants (four men, five women) during his 13-year tenure as a diving coach at UMaine. He coached 16 New England intercollegiate diving champions including UMaine Sports Hall of Famer Roy Warren and Eastern Seaboard intercollegiate champion Kevin Martin.
He coached three NCAA women’s All-Americans and three AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) qualifiers and participants.
Every female diver he coached at UMaine scored at the New Englands.
The 1976 UMaine baseball team was the second one from the school to reach the College World Series following in the footsteps of the 1964 team.
It is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its accomplishment.
The team, under head coach John Winkin, went 29-9 including seven consecutive wins in the ECAC New England (3-0) and NCAA Northeast Regional (4-0) tournaments to earn its berth in the College World Series.
After losing its CWS opener to Eastern Michigan, 3-2, the Black Bears bounced back to beat Auburn 9-8 and Washington State 6-3 before being eliminated by Arizona State 7-0.
The team featured UMaine Sports Hall of Famers Eddie Flaherty, Jack Leggett and Bert Roberge. Shortstop Russ Quetti was named to the all-tournament team in Omaha.
Auburn’s Roberge, who went on to pitch for six years in the Major Leagues, was 9-2 with a 2.06 earned-run average that year and the top-notch staff also included Portland’s Steve Conley (7-2) and Skowhegan’s Barry Lacasse (7-1).
Maine Baseball Hall of Famers Tony DiBiase from Westbrook and John Dumont from Brunswick were the team’s leading hitters at .339 and .311, respectively, followed by South Burlington, Vermont native Leggett (.307), who also played football at UMaine.
