Rockland County’s Backyard Brawl
by Karl Heck
The Backyard Brawl. The Game. The Big Game. The Civil War. Some of the biggest rivalries in college sports exist because two schools are in close proximity to each other. Passions are high, and every meeting is special.
There are several rivalries in the Division II East Region that stir the faithful, and d2easthoops.org will be highlighting these local and regional rivalries that may not be as well-publicized as Ohio State-Michigan or North Carolina-Duke, but are every bit as intense for the people involved. Local watercoolers buzz when Southern New Hampshire and St. Anselm play in Manchester, New Hampshire, the Le Moyne-College of Saint Rose “Upstate Challenge,” or the various Philadelphia-area rivalries among the Division II schools in and around the City of Brotherly Love.
The first in our series is the Battle of Rockland County - St. Thomas Aquinas (STAC) and Dominican (NY). These two Catholic schools are only a mile apart and this rivalry has spanned multiple conferences, sanctioning bodies, fights and generations of students, but remains intense on both sides.
“In the 1990’s, when we played STAC, there were packed houses twice a year as we were in the same conference (the former New York Collegiate Athletic Conference),” said Dominican men’s basketball coach Joe Clinton, a 30-year veteran of the rivalry. “This season when we played over there they had to turn people away. It was the first time in years that had happened, and makes the game much more special,” Clinton said.
Whether the game is at STAC’s cozy Aquinas Hall (a place d2easthoops.org’s Tim McCaffery has christened “The Toll Booth”) or Dominican’s Hennessy Center (christened by long-time Dominican PA announcer John Lennon as “Orangeburg’s Most Famous Arena”, home of the “It’s Another DC-3,” for every Dominican successful three-pointer), the rewards are just a bit sweeter when your neighboring school is on the receiving end.
The two schools not only are Catholic but share Dominican roots. St. Thomas Aquinas was founded by the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill while Dominican College was founded by the Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt, both founded in 1952. The feud is always a bit more intense when it is personal and the common roots definitely help make it that way in this case.
STAC men’s basketball coach Tobin Anderson also greatly appreciates the rivalry, which is one of the few in the region among teams from different conferences. In recent seasons, both teams have been among the strongest in the region, which has added intensity and juice to the games. “I think last year made the rivalry even stronger,” said Anderson. “We won the regular season game on our last possession and then we played in the NCAA tournament in an OT game that was just an incredible game. Both games were played at a very high level and brought out the best in both of us,” said the Spartans coach.
After a hiatus in the series, STAC and Dominican began playing once again in regular season settings. This year STAC is currently in second place in the East Coast Conference with a 12-2 conference record and 22-4 overall mark. STAC has been a member of the ECC since 2000, when they left the former NYCAC, where they faced Dominican twice a year. The Chargers are now a member of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference, where the Chargers are 13-4 in conference atop the CACC’s North Division, and 20-6 overall. After STAC “swept” Dominican by a total of five points in two games last season, Dominican went down the street and beat STAC 87-73 this year.
“The likely height of the rivalry was in the 1980’s and 1990’s,” said former St. Thomas Aquinas Athletic Director Gerald Oswald. “Back then, all of the local papers and media did pre-game, game day and post-game stories on the STAC-Dominican games, covering the local rivalry in the same manner that larger Division I local matches like Manhattan-Fordham were covered”, said the long-time STAC AD. In those days, newspapers were the main source of information on college sports, as opposed to the deluge of televised and Internet-streamed games currently available to fans on a 24-hour basis.
“The rivalry isn’t just about basketball,” said Oswald. “Baseball is pretty intense as well, along with golf and soccer,” the former Spartan leader said.
Dominican Associate Director of Athletics/Director of Sports Information Kelly-Ann DiGiulio Light also emphasized the comprehensive nature of the rivalry. “While there were years we didn’t play in basketball, we continued to play STAC in many other sports,” said Di Giulio Light. The local battles are just as intense on the soccer pitch, baseball diamonds and golf courses as they are on the basketball court, said the Charger SID.
Every year, and sometimes twice a season, Dominican’s Black and Red battle STAC’s Maroon and Gold for supremacy on the court and bragging rights among Division II fans in the lower Hudson Valley. For those fans, it is the biggest game of the year.