Detroit Mercy Titans Hall of Fame
Alainna Ryder (Stefan) made her mark as not only one of the best players in Titan history, but in the entire Horizon League. A two-time All-Horizon League selection and a two-time All-Tournament performer, she took over the reins as the No. 1 player for Detroit Mercy as a sophomore and led the team in scoring average for three-straight years, ending her career as the all-time leader in career average and holding the top spot for a single-season mark. She also posted 29, top-20 efforts, 17 top-10 finishes and won seven tournaments, a record at the time of her graduation.
In her senior year, she was honored as the 2011 President’s Award winner, given to the most outstanding senior student-athletes, who demonstrates what it means to be a true Titan. In that senior campaign, she put the finishing touches on a brilliant career with a career-best 79.3 average, with 13 rounds of her 27 in the 70’s and was the top Titan in 10 of Detroit Mercy's 12 events, finishing in the top 10 seven times and in the top five four times with three wins, capturing the Don Benbow Invite, the Titans Invitational and the Dual vs. IPFW.
As a freshman, she was one of three Titans to play in all 24 rounds, but she came into her own as a sophomore, leading the team with an 80.4 averaging and winning her first event in the Chicago State Fall Invitational.
But it was the magic of her junior season that catapulted her into legendary status as she became the first Titan to win the Horizon League Tournament as an individual and that helped the Titans win it all for the first time in school history. Stefan claimed medalist honors with a career and school-record 226 and the red, white and blue set a school record with an opening-round 300 in tough conditions to win the title, carding a 943 team score at the Kearney Hill Links in Lexington, KY, the site of the 1997 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. The victory sent the Titans to their first NCAA field - the first HL team to ever to appear in a women’s golf regional - at the Central Regional at Otter Creek Golf Club in Columbus, Indiana, where Stefan wrapped up her career leading the Titans once again.
A great golfer on the course, she was a true student-athlete in the classroom as she was a four-time member of the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll, a three-time member of the Horizon League Fall & Spring Honor Roll and a two-time recipient of the Women's Golf Coaches Association's All-American Scholar Team.
