Written by Tyler Neville '17
Tyler Neville, a junior Communications/Journalism major at Saint Joseph's, will be a regular contributor to the SJC Athletics website. Stay tuned to www.gomonks.com to read more of his special interest features!
For his third installment, Neville followed the Saint Joseph's Women's Basketball team, the 2016 GNAC Champions, from NCAA Selection Monday through the week of practices, the NCAA DIII Tournament game versus Christopher-Newport, and the trip home. The junior intern received special access to the team's practices and traveled with the team to Allentown, Pennsylvania to chronicle the program's second NCAA Tournament berth in the last three years.
Monday, February 29th – Selection Monday (VIDEO)
It's 2:30 on a Monday afternoon, but the energy of the Saint Joseph's Women's basketball team is still at an all-time level. Still riding the high of their 66-62 GNAC Championship Game win over Emmanuel College, the women's squad eagerly awaits the start of the NCAA Bracket Selection Show. This will be Saint Joseph's second trip to the NCAA tournament in three years as they begin to build a truly winning program. Almost the entire team is in the room, and they're all huddled together at the end of the table, bunched into a space that would comfortably fit five people, but which they have somehow made close to fifteen girls fit into. The team counts down in unison, as the show gets closer. Once the selection start rattling off, the whole team discusses matchups, who should make the tournament field and who shouldn't, and generally try to vent their nervous energy together
The Selection Show fills up four brackets before placing Saint John-Fisher in the Muhlenberg, Pennsylvania Regional, which caused a rush of energy at the sound of "Saint." Caught up in laughter and conversation after the false alarm, the team is having too much fun together to even realize that they're the next team called immediately after Saint John-Fisher. In fact, it takes about a full minute before one of the girls pipes up, "hey that's us!" The team busts out in laughter at their own lack of awareness, and begin discussing who's been to Pennsylvania and who hasn't, immediately back to being wrapped up with each other. The coaching staff is already discussing the matchup together, but the girls, for now, are having too much fun together for that.
That's a common theme with this Saint Joseph's team: togetherness. There's no evidence of cliques or social divides within the team. Whether they're on the court or on the team bus, or just around campus, you can see the family-like bond of this team. In fact, every practice and team meeting is concluded with a unified exclamation of "team" after a three count, usually led by senior captain Morgan Cahill or Head Coach Mike McDevitt.
A team whose two premier players are a 6'0 senior center and a 5'6 freshman point guard, and features a bench that contributes an average of 24 points per game, these Monks feature a wide and deep array of talents and contributors. In fact, ten different players have contributed double-digit averages in minutes per game.
They're led by Captain Morgan Cahill, a senior center from Yarmouth, Maine, who leads the team with 15 points per game along with 8.2 rebounds per game, and managed to break the Saint Joseph's career blocks record this year as well. A second-year captain, Cahill has collected over 50 accolades in her four-year career, including three Second Team All-Conference honors.
On the other side of the coin is freshman guard Kelsi McNamara. Pacing the team in a number of statistical categories, McNamara has been the Monks' starting point guard all season, leading the offense with the poise of a veteran from game one. She's already garnered 17 accolades in her young career, including a spectacular seven GNAC Rookie of the Week awards.
Although Cahill and McNamara have been getting a lot of the attention, the reason this Monks team is so successful is due entirely to their depth and selflessness. There are no egos on this team, nobody gets bent out of shape about playing time, and everyone is legitimately about what's best for the team.
An example of this is freshman forward Emily Benway. Benway hasn't received the headlines or accolades like Cahill and McNamara, but has quietly been one of the main reasons that Saint Joseph's made it this far. She leads the team in field goal percentage, and chips in a dependable 8 points and 5 rebounds a game, all while playing excellent defense.
Another example would be freshman Brianne Maloney, who caused three key offensive fouls in the GNAC championship, laying her body on the line the whole game and spinning the momentum of the game every time by taking charges.
Or junior guards Emily Kehoe and Abbie Eastman, who have selfishly sacrificed their own minutes to let McNamara on the floor, all in without causing a fuss, because they have the best interests of the team in mind.
The list goes on and on, with everyone on the roster doing exactly what they're needed to do in order to produce a winning team.
Only an hour and a half after the selection show, it's 4:15 in the afternoon and it's time for practice. Well, the practice actually starts thirty minutes from now. But the gym is already a hive of activity, as nearly the whole team is already in the gym getting shots off. The girls pair off, and each pair takes one of the hoops in Alfond Arena, and they start shooting. Five shots, then switch. Conversation rings throughout the Arena, centered around anything you can imagine. There's no evidence that the team is at all nervous about their matchup with Christopher-Newport University, the 21st ranked team in the nation. Confident in each other and in their team, the girls are just playing basketball.
Thursday, March 3rd
Two days later, after consecutive days of travel to trek from Standish to Allentown, Pennsylvania, the team walks into the Muhlenberg College arena and starts practice. Absolutely nothing has changed from the practice two days prior in Standish. In an arena twice as large as their home court, with a matchup against one of the better teams in Division III women's basketball looming tomorrow, the girls are still singing and dancing through warm-ups, still laughing while going through drill work, and putting in the work needed to compete against Christopher-Newport tomorrow. You would think it's just another day of practice in Standish, Maine if it wasn't for the NCAA officials hanging around making sure all the rules are followed, or the clock running to make sure no team goes over their 90-minute practice allocation for the day. The girls are as loose as ever, as they finish practice and head back to the hotel for the night.
Friday, March 4th – Game Day (PHOTO GALLERY)
The next morning, after a 7:30 wakeup call, you'd expect there to be some drop-off in energy at the morning's 75-minute shoot-around. But even after two days of travel and a grinding practice the day before, the girls are still themselves. The same energy, the same obvious camaraderie, the same relaxed focus. Coach McDevitt pushed the girls yesterday, with full speed drills and sprints sprinkled periodically among the drill work, so this morning's shoot-around is mostly a walk through. A review of strategy, matchups, and the game plan.
At 4pm later that day, the team arrives back at Muhlenberg College to get ready for a 5pm tip-off against Christopher-Newport University. If you thought the jitters would start now, you'd be very wrong. All through warm-ups, the same attitude remains. At the start of the game, you'd never be able to tell that this is one of the biggest games in the program's history. It might as well be a Sunday pickup league game. The game tips off and the Monks are off running.
This team sticks together. They've stuck together all year long, on the court and off, and have successfully set the groundwork for a very successful program for years to come. The Monks dropped this game to Christopher-Newport, and their season came to an abrupt halt. However, the best is yet to come for this exceptionally young squad. The experience and lessons they've learned this year will carry over into next year, and the year after that, and many years into the future as Coach McDevitt builds a perennial powerhouse in Standish.
Anyone who watched Kelsi McNamara sink a forty foot shot to beat the shot clock, or watched Brianne Maloney take a charge to swing the momentum, or any other of the countless selfless actions in the name of ""team" will tell you that this season has already upped the ante for next year's team. And they'll probably tell you that they bet the Monks will exceed those expectations next year. And that's probably a safe bet. Because they'll stick together as a team. And they'll keep winning. As a team.
Saturday, March 5th – Heading Home
For now, it's a long ride back to Standish, Maine for the girls. Sitting on the bus rattling along the interstate, having just had their season ended, this has to be the time where spirits are low, right? Wrong again. A quiet conversation starts in the back. Like a pebble being thrown into a lake, the ripples start spreading. Before you know it, the conversation on the bus is roaring, as laughter and singing rings up and down the aisle of the bus. Jokes about the game that just happened, the season, memories being looked back on from a great year. And just like that, it's the same old family we've seen all year.
At this point, what else would you expect?
OTHER RELEASES FROM TYLER NEVILLE:
2/12/16 - Winding Soccer Career Leads Swarup to Saint Joseph's
3/1/16 - Coyne Ready to Play the 'Game of Life'
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Saint Joseph's College is Maine's only Catholic liberal arts college, providing a supportive, personalized and career-focused education for more than 100 years. From its 474-acre campus on the shores of Sebago Lake, the College offers more than 40 undergraduate programs to a population of approximately 1,000 students. Saint Joseph's College Online provides certificates, undergraduate and advanced degrees for working adults through an online learning program. For more, visit www.sjcme.edu.
