Email coach
Sharon Pfluger
Entering 38th season as head field hockey coach and 37th season as head women's lacrosse coach at TCNJ in Fall of 2022.
Trenton State College ’82
Hometown: Pompton Lakes, NJ
Education: BS, Health and Physical Education
19 Total National Championships
648-127-9 Field Hockey Record
9 Field Hockey National Championships
575-74-1 Lacrosse Record
10 Lacrosse National Championships
1,223-201-10 Overall Record
Sharon Pfluger directs both the field hockey and women's lacrosse programs at The College and ranks among the all-time leaders nationally in wins in both programs.
She is one of just two female coaches (Pat Summitt being the other) featured in the NCAA Hall of Champions’ Legends of the Game display located in Indianapolis, IN.
She authored a chapter for a book edited by Cecile Reynaud, PhD entitled, “She Can Coach: Tools for Success from 20 Top Women Coaches,” which was published by Human Kinetics Publishers in March 2005. Pfluger’s chapter focuses on team cohesion.
Pfluger was an assistant coach at Drew University in 1982 for field hockey and in 1984 for lacrosse, and the head field hockey coach at Kean College in 1983 and at Montclair State College in 1984, prior to her return to the College.
Field Hockey
Pfluger leads all active NCAA Division III coaches when it comes to victories and winning percentage as the veteran coach has collected 648 wins with an impressive .832 overall winning percentage. That number is even better in her tenure at the College as she has racked up a .853 winning percent with a mark of 639-108-5. Overall, Pfluger has a career record of 648-127-9.
During the 2018 season, Pfluger collected her 600th career victory with a 4-2 win over FDU-Florham. She collected her 500th career win early during the 2013 season as the Lions posted a 4-0 victory over Cabrini College.
Under her guidance, the Lions have captured nine NCAA Division III Championships (1985, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2011 and 2014) and have boasted five undefeated seasons. Her teams have qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 32 of her 35 years. TCNJ's most recent title came in the fall of 2014 when the Lions blanked Bowdoin College for the program's 11th national title.
Pfluger led the Lions to another tremendous season in 2015, coaching TCNJ to a 20-2 overall record and trip back to the national semi-final. The Lions also won the 2015 New Jersey Athletic Conference championship.
Her latest national semi-final appearance came in 2017, when she coached TCNJ to a 17-4 overall record and winning the NJAC championship.
Since the inception of the NJAC in 1985, her squads have won 24 NJAC titles. Pfluger has been tabbed as the NJAC Coach of the Year 11 times, with selections in 1989, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014, and 2015 in addition to being the Co-Coach of the Year in 2007. In the fall of 2011, she was honored as the 2011 National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division III Coach of the Year, an honor she repeated following the 2014 season.
Pfluger has coached 91 All-Americans at TCNJ with four of those players being tabbed as the national player of the year. She has also had five players selected as Honda-Broderick Award Nominees as the top player in their sport, with Gina Carey being named the Most Outstanding Collegiate Field Hockey Athlete in 1992.
She is a member of the NFHCA Hall of Fame Class of 2003 which was inducted on January 10, 2004 at the NFHCA Awards Luncheon in Baltimore, MD. The Class of 2003 was only the fourth group of inductees to be honored by the NFHCA Awards & Hall of Fame Committee.
Pfluger was a member of the College’s 1981 field hockey team that was named as a Team of Distinction by the Athletic Alumni Hall of Fame in the summer of 2006.
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