East Stroudsburg enjoyed its best football season in eight years in 2001 with a 7-3 overall record and a runner-up finish in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division with a 5-1 mark.

It was the school's first seven-win campaign since the 1993 team posted a 7-2-1 record. The team enjoyed its best PSAC finish since the 1992 team also placed second at 5-1.

The Warriors placed eight players on the All-PSAC Eastern Division first team, third most in the school's history and the most in 23 years. For the first time ever, two players, punter Adam Hostetter and offensive guard Jim Sodano, made the Associated Press Little All-America team.

Coach Denny Douds' gridders beat arch-rival West Chester, 28-9, for their most one-sided series win in 24 years as tailback Andre Castiglioni ran for 186 yards and safety Jeremy Brown intercepted two passes and returned one 80 yards for a touchdown. They also won league games over Kutztown, 19-10; Millersville, 42-10; Mansfield, 35-7, and Cheyney, 52-8.

The Warriors scored bookend wins in the final minutes over two PSAC Western Division opponents, Clarion, 33-27, in the first ESYA College Football Classic at the beginning of the season, and Edinboro, 31-30, at the end. Tailback Andre Castiglioni scored the winning touchdown against Clarion on a 16-yard run with 1:53 remaining. Quarterback Jeremy Palm completed a 22-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Justin Kondikoff an Mike Berry kicked the extra point with 1:38 left for the one-point margin over Edinboro. The losses were to division champion Bloomsburg, 34-7; and to Shepherd, 33-26, and Shippensburg, 19-14, in down-to-the-wire games.

Hostetter led the NCAA Division II statistics in punting with a 44.4-yard average on 54 punts for 2,397 yards. He made Daktronics Division II and the D2Football.com All-America first teams, the AP Little All-America third team and the ECAC All-South Region first team.

Sodano, a 6-3, 305-pounder, didn't allow a sack and had 20 pancakes blocks. He was a D2Football.com All-America first team choice and an AP Little-America and Daktronics All-America second team selection.

Also chosen on the all-Conference team were Castiglioni, who rushed for 1,077 yards; end John Kotarsky (110.7 yards receiving per game), kicker Mike Berry (49 points), Brown (8 interceptions and a team-leading 68 tackles), tackle Dustin Barno (7 sacks and 10 tackles for loss) and end Shaun Bowman (5 sacks and 13 tackles for loss).

Palm passed for 1,924 yards and 22 touchdowns with only five interceptions and made the All-PSAC second team along with linebacker Brian Holkovic (62 tackles including 10 for loss), center Joe Burton, defensive tackle Bryan Rybicki.