Chronicles of Z – Twenty-year regional anniversary
By Stephen Zerdelian
Those of you who read this column regularly know how much I love to dig into the history of the region. This season marks a milestone of sorts – it is the twentieth anniversary of the expansion of the region, moving from two conferences to three. There has been a lot of change in that generational span, and it is worth seeing how different it is now as opposed to the 2003-’04 season, when the changes came into play.
Let’s begin with the basics – the newest regional conference. The Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) joined the Northeast-10 Conference (NE10) and New York Collegiate Athletic Conference (the NYCAC, now the East Coast Conference) as part of the regional fold for the 2003-’04 campaign, when the region was still known as the Northeast (now East). That brought a dozen new programs into the area, raising the total from 28 the previous year.
Ten of the twelve teams in the CACC that season remain in the loop - Bloomfield, Caldwell, Dominican, Felician, Georgian Court, Goldey-Beacom, Holy Family, Nyack (now known as Alliance), Teikyo Post (now known as Post) and Wilmington. The two that are gone are NJIT (reclassified to Division 1) and the University of the Sciences (absorbed by St. Joseph’s University).
Three teams have joined the CACC in the meantime, so they now stand at thirteen teams. Two came from the ECC (Bridgeport and Philadelphia University, the latter now known as Jefferson) and the other from the Division III ranks (Chestnut Hill in 2007).
The Northeast-10 Conference stood at fifteen teams for the 2003-’04 season and eleven are still there - AIC, Assumption, Bentley, Franklin Pierce, Le Moyne, Pace, Saint Anselm, the College of Saint Rose, Southern Connecticut, Southern New Hampshire, and St. Michael’s. The other four (Bryant, Massachusetts-Lowell, Merrimack and Stonehill) have departed for the Division 1 ranks. Newly arrived in the league since that season are Adelphi and New Haven, both imported form the NYCAC/ECC, which means the league is currently down to thirteen teams.
The NYCAC/ECC has undergone the most radical change, starting with the name itself, altered in 2006. Of the thirteen teams that were part of the league in 2003-’04, just four remain – Mercy, Molloy, Queens and St. Thomas Aquinas. Four schools no longer exist – Concordia (which did move to the CACC in the interim before folding), C.W. Post (also known as LIU Post), Dowling and Southampton – while another, New York Tech, has dropped athletics.
Teams that have left the ECC include Adelphi and New Haven (to the NE10), and Bridgeport and Philadelphia/Jefferson (to the CACC). Give the ECC major points, though, for importing new schools to the league (and the region). Much of it was done for self-preservation but nonetheless, saying hello to Daemen, District of Columbia, D’Youville, Roberts Wesleyan and the College of Staten Island is thanks to the ECC’s desire to exist/expand/reinvent. In the end, what was the NYCAC and is now the ECC has gone from thirteen teams in 2003-’04 to nine teams this season.
The entire region has 35 teams this season but back in 2003-’04 it stood at 41 teams. If you do the math, the ’03-’04 conferences had 15 (NE10), 13 (NYCAC) and 12 (CACC) for a total of 40. The other one? It was one-season Division II drive-through Green Mountain College (Vermont), which left virtually no imprint, going 1-20 with the only win a 69-54 victory over Johnson State (Vermont) on February 5.
So, who fared well in 2003-’04? There were a dozen teams that won at least 20 games, half of them from the NE10. Merrimack (31-4) was the ultimate regional champion, the first of a back-to-back set. Holy Family (28-4) reached the field at the first time of asking, as did the University of the Sciences (24-6), known colloquially then as USP, but both lost first round games in North Andover (Merrimack hosted the regional, which was the first time the eight-team format [64 nationally] was employed). Bryant wrapped up their D2 status by going 22-9 and reaching the regional final. AIC (24-7), Bentley (23-8) and Stonehill (21-8) joined Merrimack and Bryant as NE10 NCAA tournament participants. The ECC had four teams hit the 20-win mark but only tourney champion Adelphi (20-11) got a bid; New Haven (20-9), Philadelphia (20-10) and Southampton (20-9) did not. NE10 squad Assumption missed out on the NCAA field despite compiling a 21-9 mark.
Merrimack’s regional title started a streak that is still mostly intact – balance and variety in the region. Over the course of the last 20 years (18, really, since the ’20 NCAA tournament was cancelled by the pandemic, and this year’s winner is still to be determined), a dozen different teams reached the Elite Eight from this region. For a region that saw just nine schools turn that trick from 1982-2003, that is a sea change.
Bentley, which took home ten regional crowns prior to the conference expansion, still has the most in the post-expansion era with four (2011, 2012, 2014 and 2016) while Franklin Pierce won three in a row from 2008-2010. Merrimack’s 2004 and 2005 titles represent the only other program to win more than one in this span. Alphabetically, they are AIC, Daemen, Dowling, New Haven, Pace, Queens, Saint Anselm, Southern Connecticut and Stonehill. Talk about spreading it out!
Merrimack reached the Final Four that season, beating Augusta State in the quarterfinal stage before losing to eventual national champion California (PA). They made another Final Four appearance in 2005, while AIC (national title game, 2006) and Southern Connecticut (NCAA champions in 2007) kept on raising the bar. Franklin Pierce (2009) and Dowling (2013) advanced to the national title game over the next few seasons, and Bentley put the frosting on the cake by winning the 2014 crown without losing a game all season.
All in all, that’s an eleven-season span which produced two national champions, three finalists and two national semifinalists from the region. Not bad!
Not a single regional team appeared in every WBCA poll during the 2003-‘04 season. Bentley was #2 in the pre-season poll but dipped to #12 when the first in-season version was released. They hung around the teens and twenties until falling out late in the season. AIC was in it early and dropped out while Holy Family and Merrimack worked their way into and then up the poll. The Warriors broke into the top 10 in the final month of the season and their national semifinal run pushed them to #4 in the post-season poll. Bryant also ended the year in the top 25 (25th) with AIC, Bentley, Holy Family and Stonehill receiving votes in the final poll.
Now let’s turn the focus on personnel. Three teams still have the same coaches as they did during the 2003-’04 campaign – Assumption (Kerry Phayre), Pace (Carrie Seymour) and Philadelphia/Jefferson (Tom Shirley). Oddly, two of the teams that fled to Division I, Bryant (Mary Burke) and Stonehill (Tricia Brown) are still led by the same coaches from that season.
The WBCA awards from that season featured Bentley’s Becky Davison as an All-American choice and she was joined on the All-Region team by Katelyn Dwyer (Assumption), Joelle Martin (Merrimack), Sharmion Selman (AIC) and Jenny Smith (Merrimack).
The Daktronics (remember when they used to sponsor this?) All-Region first team included Davison and Dwyer along with Zulmary Andino (Dowling), Jean-Marie Reilly (Philadelphia) and Nina Smith (Holy Family), and the respective conference Players of the Year were Dwyer (NE10), Andino and Reilly (NYCAC) and Leah Shumoski (CACC/Sciences).
There are several players that we chose (ok, I chose) for the seminal Super 75 series back in 2021 who were in action during the 2003-’04 season. Andino, Davison, Martin, Selmon and Shumoski were all Super 75ers, as were Keri Flynn (Bentley), an NE10 first team all-star that winter, and Shelby Rance (Sciences), a rising freshman star.
Ten regional statistical categories produced eleven different leaders (one was shared), as the accolades were dotted nicely around the leagues. Here they are…
Scoring – Lauren Meyer, Georgian Court (19.7 ppg)
Rebounding – Shonda Holder, Queens (10.7 rpg)
Assists – Zulmary Andino, Dowling (6.97 apg)
Steals – Erika Kinsey, St. Michael’s (4.08 spg)
Blocks (tie) – Jen Carson, Saint Anselm & Nicola Mignott, Pace (2.54 bpg)
Three-pointers – Jillian Younghans, Dominican (2.79 per game)
Assist/turnover ratio – Roni Dicicco, Sciences (2.9)
Field goal percentage – Nina Smith, Holy Family (68.5%)
Three-point percentage – Donna Lohrey, Molloy (47.7%)
Free throw percentage – Shelby Rance, Sciences (87.4%)
What can we make of all this? The one undisputed fact is that change is inevitable and can be a positive if used correctly. For sure, the addition of new programs to the region is a big plus, but the reduced number of teams (from 41 down to 35) is a concern. More new programs need to be added, as others will surely migrate to Division 1 if given half a chance, and still others could disappear in any number of ways.
It’s anyone’s guess where we will be in twenty years. Whether the NCAA finally does reorganize is an open question but if so, what will that mean for the region? Turnover is a certainty, and how many conferences will be left? Will there be a ‘super-conference created for some reason, either forced or by choice? It’s all open to question; let your imagination run wild.
More history next week!
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That’s it for now - until next time, enjoy the games!