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A three-time All-American and the 2000 Middle Atlantic Conference Player of the Year as a longstick midfielder, Mark Barnes is now just the second men's lacrosse player in conference history to earn induction into the MAC Hall of Fame.
"For me, I was telling family and friends, this is probably the most prestigious honor of my lacrosse life," Barnes said. "It's an elevation of what you did for the team, yourself, your school. Being recognized by the conference that you played in is just a fantastic honor. I thought getting into my high school and college hall of fames was probably going to be the tip of the iceberg. Being the second lacrosse player to be recognized, that's pretty cool. It makes all the hard work 20 years ago well worth it."
Barnes joins FDU-Florham's Brian O'Keefe (2017), who starred as an attackman and goalie for the Devils before playing four years with the New York Saints in the National Lacrosse League, as men's lacrosse inductees to the MAC Hall of Fame.
"Brian (O'Keefe) was a great player and a great pro," former Lycoming College head coach Gene Peluso, who coached Barnes during all four years of his career, said. "It makes me proud, but not surprised, that Mark is one of two lacrosse players in the MAC Hall of Fame. The stuff he did was impressive and when you look back on it, it's even more impressive. When I coached him, it was within my first five years as a head coach. I've been coaching 26 years and I haven't seen anyone else like him. I know this is a term people throw around, but he was a generational-type player."
From Corning East High School, Barnes helped the Trojans to three appearances in the state finals and helped East win three Section IV titles, while also wrestling at the school.
Barnes joined a Lycoming men's lacrosse program in its second year as a varsity program under Peluso, who is now firmly entrenched amongst the top 25 winningest coaches in Division 3 history and the head coach at Stevens Institute of Technology.
The team in 1998 featured just one senior, 11 sophomores and 11 freshmen, but doubled their win total from three in 1997 to six. Barnes left an immediate impact, winning 52% of his faceoffs and grabbing 123 groundballs. The longstick midfielder also had 11 goals and 12 assists to earn his first of four first-team All-MAC honors.
"I recruited him out of high school and he was a wrestler and lacrosse player," Peluso said. "He brought that wrestling tough-guy attitude to the face-off 'X' and his defense. He was one of the first guys to faceoff with a long pole. A lot of times you did that to be defensive because you're not winning matchups. We did it because Mark was a threat offensively. We had game plans around winning the faceoff with the long pole and getting into transition offense. A lot of our goals throughout the years were the result of Mark facing off, getting possession and getting us into early offense."