Allegheny College Athletics

Liz Orr Sowa was an anchor for the Allegheny defense throughout her four year career spanning 1999-2002. Named the team’s Defensive Player of the Year in all four seasons, she led a Gator defense that authored 42 shutouts over her career.

As a freshman in 1999, she started all 19 games, helping her team to a 12-5-2 finish, while earning her first of four straight All-NCAC honors.  In 2000, the Gators finished 16-4-1, and in addition to earning all-conference accolades, Liz was named NSCAA All-Region.  She earned her third straight All-NCAC honor in 2001, before wrapping up her career by being named First Team All-Region and NCAC Defensive Player of the Year during a 2002 season in which Allegheny finished 14-5-1.

Starting every game over her four-year career, Liz helped the Gators to a 55-18-5 overall record, including a 23-8 mark in conference play.  She was subsequently named to the NCAC’s 20th Anniversary All-Decade Team in 2003.

A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, Liz graduated with a degree in political science, while minoring in English writing.  Following graduation, she was accepted into the Teach for America Program, and taught on the Zuni Indian Reservation in New Mexico for five years.  

Liz currently works a director of a child care facility in Wexford, Pennsylvania.  She and her husband Matt, a 2001 Allegheny graduate, are the parents of two children, Caiden (8) and James (4), and they reside in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh,.