On Saturday, January 30th,  senior point guard Nicole Sarcone became the school’s career assist leader. Going into our 72-58 win over Plattsburgh, Nicole needed 9 assists to break the record.  She assisted on Carly Minehan’s jumper to tie the record. Thirty seconds later Nicole’s pass to set-up Abbey DeRossi’s lay-up gave her the school’s all-time assist record with 430. “I don’t care about scoring. I care about the team scoring and if I’m playing with better scorers I’m going to get them the ball. It’s bitten me before. A lot of coaches will say if you can’t score, you can’t be out on the floor,” said Sarcone. “But I take pride in getting assists.” She finished the game with 6 points, a game high 10 assists and 4 rebounds. “I have to just give a lot of credit to my teammates because, if they don’t hit the shots, I wouldn’t be getting the assists.”

Nicole will be honored during our game against Brockport on Friday February 5th at 6:00pm.

Congratulations Nicole!

Entering my final season was a bittersweet feeling. Knowing that I was going to start playing basketball with the team again and being competitive in games was a great feeling.  However, pre-season workouts were never something to look forward to, especially since it seemed as though everyone except me had at least one free pass out of conditioning (including the entire sophomore class receiving 3 days off because they raised the most money for an annual charity event we fund raise for).  It was safe to say I was in the best shape out of everyone on the team.  Ok, so this may be debatable.  Regardless, scrimmages and games were soon underway as we made the trip to Utica resulting in domination.  Then there was our scrimmage versus St. Rose, a Division 2 school in the NE-10 conference, which did not result in total domination. However, we lead the entire game but couldn’t hold onto our lead in the end.  Coach Seward sang our praises the entire hour back to campus from St. Rose.  All of these praises must’ve gone straight to our heads because, according to Coach, we had two of the worst practices following the scrimmage.  In order to rebuild the team, Coach staged a Wii tournament, its weird how good some of us are at Wii tennis and bowling (maybe not so much me). This strategy was a great success.  We came in second place in our home opening tournament beating a top Division 3 team, Tufts University.  Conference play starts this weekend and everyone is extremely excited, even Coach reciting the same pre-practice speech, “We are the best team in the conference and are going to blow through the competition!!… We have unfinished business to take care of!”  Referring to the abrupt ending Potsdam gave to our season last year in the quarter-finals of the SUNYAC tournament, and they then went on to beat the number one seed in our conference.  Everyone is really excited for conference play to finally start and look forward to becoming the #1 team in the SUNYAC Conference!

– Carly Minehan #40

Senior guard Kristen Caban has been named SUNYAC Player of the Week. Excerpt is from our website:

Kristen Caban
Staten Island, NY/St. Joseph Hill Academy
Senior
Women’s Basketball

Senior guard Kristen Caban led the Hawks to a 73-53 win over Lehman College. She scored 18 points on 4-of-5 shooting from behind the arc and added six rebounds and two steals. On the season, the senior guard averages 10.8 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals.

SUNYAC Player of the Week

Of course, coming into college, there were many expectations, and many questions that flow through our minds. Will my roommates like me? Will I be able to keep time management under control? Will I be able to adjust to the college life? All of these questions became overwhelming but as time went by, it was not as difficult as it seemed. I have heard many college stories about how different it was from high school, but I have grown to learn that all it takes is hard work, time, sacrifice and dedication.

- Maliqua Fisher 2013

It’s been three weeks since we have began our journey as sophomores on the women’s basketball team. We are all taking new classes, some for our majors and some in subjects that we enjoy. While this year will be significantly different from last year, with new players and new goals, we are extremely excited for the season to begin. We have all been working hard in the off season in order to fulfill our goals as a team.

Sophomore Class 2012 – Zoe, Bridget, Irwin, Clifford, Stef , Sam

As seniors we are very excited to be starting our last year of playing basketball at New Paltz! It’s been a real journey to see how far our program has come in the last 3 years. We have helped build this program from the ground up and are looking to finally reap the benefits of all of our hard work and dedication up to this point. Individually our whole team has been preparing throughout the summer to make sure we have the most successful season yet. As our last season approaches, we plan on doing everything possible to make sure we leave the best legacy that New Paltz has seen.

Seniors 09 – Kristen, Nicole, Maggie, Abbey, Sitek and Carly

Coach Seward’s wisdom about the game of basketball and knowing what it takes to be a championship team is something extraordinary.  According to him, the season is broken up into three stages: conditioning first, executing second, and heart third.  Unfortunately for us, Coach didn’t mention the three stages to us until after the season was over.  So my freshman year, Coach would condition us so hard core everyday during the first stage of the season that I would get anxiety attacks before every practice.  I have never had anxiety attacks in my life.  Thinking that this hard core conditioning was going to last the whole season, the girls on the team began to question their happiness of being on the team.  After coming back from our trip to Hawaii (very nice bonus), our lives changed.  Conditioning was no longer the main focus of our practice plans.  Life was good.  Not only was everyone happy, but our skills as players improved.  We began executing and winning games.  Our heart came into play during the quarter finals of the SUNYAC post season against Geneseo.  In the last 45 seconds of the game we were down by 12 points.  We came back and beat Geneseo in overtime.  This was the biggest comeback in SUNYAC history.  Our heart was definitely evident during this game.  Conditioning, executing, and heart is the winning combination needed to have a championship team.  Since then however, Coach has toned down his conditioning strategies, so no more anxiety attacks and life is still good! 

- Carly Minehan #40

The transition from high school to college is much harder then you may imagine. Juggling between academics and athletics is something that takes much time to master, but eventually it is something that just becomes a ritual. When I first arrived I had no idea what to expect, especially with basketball. I come from a small high school where athletics are not a big deal. I knew it would be a hard transition, meeting new teammates, and learning a whole new way to play basketball. At the same time I was extremely excited to start new and finally play college basketball. So far, my first semester has gone very smoothly. I enjoy all my classes, and learned how to balance my time between academics and practice. Although college basketball is something new to me, I am finally playing the kind of basketball I have always wanted to; hard, intense, physical basketball. Hope everyone has a safe holiday and make sure to come see us play January 6th against Norwich @ 5pm.

- Zoe Cohen #12

The New Paltz women’s basketball team has had a strong first semester and is now 6-2 going into the Christmas break. We are also 3-0 in conference! We won our first annual New Paltz tip-off classic by beating William Smith in triple overtime. It was an exciting and competitive game from start to finish and our own Artie Williams was named the tournament Most Valuable Player. This team is a great group of girls who work hard every day and leave it all on the court. The girls are taking finals this week and then get a short break at home with their families for the holidays. We meet back here Jan 2 to get ready for 4 games in 6 days against top quality opponents. Our schedule gets tougher as we go into January and February but our team is focused and ready for the challenge. I hope everyone has a great holiday and come support us on January 6th vs Norwich at 5:00pm.

-  Coach Jenny D

basketball