For the sixth consecutive year, the NESCAC men's basketball championship was decided on Western Massachusetts soil. For the first time, the plaque was shipped elsewhere.
In a league historically dominated by its two Western Mass. powers - in the tournament's first seven years, Amherst won the title four times and Williams won three - the Trinity Bantams took the first step toward evening that score this past weekend. With a 74-55 win over Bowdoin Sunday afternoon, Trinity won its first NESCAC title, at long last ending the league's two-party rule.
"This was our year to win it," junior guard Paul Rowe said. "Most importantly, because of the seniors on our team - Russ Martin, and Pat Hasiuk and Robert Taylor ... If there was any time to do it, it should be now, so that our seniors could go out on top."
For the Bantams - who now head to the NCAA Tournament at 21-6 after their three-game run through the NESCAC Tournament past Conn. College, Middlebury and finally Bowdoin - it was their senior leadership that carried them all the way. All three senior leaders scored in double figures in all three games.
While it was tri-captains Martin and Taylor, the team's two big men, who led the team in scoring all season long, it was point guard Hasiuk who stepped up when it mattered most. The senior finished his final conference game 4-for-6 from the beyond the three-point arc and totaled a game-high 19 points, earning his second NESCAC Player of the Week and cementing his first team All-NESCAC selection.
"He was very good," said Martin, a second-teamer himself. "The threes he hit - they were deep, and they were off-balance. He was huge this weekend, besides just the three-point shooting, in every aspect of his game. It was probably the best I've seen him play in four years here."
For Hasiuk, the win brought sweet revenge on a Polar Bears team that had shut him down one month prior. Bowdoin pulled off a 67-62 double-overtime win in Hartford back on Feb. 1, and after a 3-for-18 shooting performance that night, Hasiuk was quick to take the blame. Redemption was in the cards this Sunday.
"My first game against them, I thought, was the worst game of college basketball I had ever played," Hasiuk said. "I couldn't do anything. I made some bad decisions; I took some bad shots, forced some shots that I shouldn't have ... So I didn't want to come out passive in the championship game. I wanted to come out aggressive but within our game plan."
In the rematch, the aggression showed. The Bantams buried the Polar Bears behind Hasiuk's 19 points, 13 from Taylor, 12 from Rowe and 11 from Martin. The lead changed hands often in the first half, but Trinity outlasted Bowdoin in the second, going on a 31-13 run after the break and sealing the decisive win.
The Polar Bears' leading scorer, senior tri-captain Andrew Hippert, was the anti-Hasiuk, shooting 1-of-8 from long range. His fellow tri-captain Andrew Sargeantson got off just two shots and never scored a point. As a team, the Polar Bears' 42 percent shooting was their third-worst effort of the year; the second-worst was last month in Hartford. In a battle of two of the NESCAC's best defenses, it was Trinity's that had the trump card.
"We try to put the focus on the defensive side," Rowe said. "With this team, on any given night we have guys that score. But if we defend well as a team and lock up their guards, we feel like we can pretty much beat anybody."
The Bantams, four days removed from celebrating their win in Amherst's LeFrak Gym, now head home for their NCAA Tournament opener. The Bantams tip off tonight against Coast Guard, the automatic qualifier out of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC), and if they win tonight, they're due for a showdown with national No. 10 UMass Dartmouth Saturday.
"We're just taking it one game at a time," Martin said. "We're definitely not looking past Coast Guard. Every team in the NCAA Tournament is very, very good."
As the Bantams open their fight to represent the NESCAC in the Div. III Final Four in Salem, Va. two weekends away, they won't be alone. Amherst was a no-brainer for a Pool C berth at 23-3 following a loss to Bowdoin in Saturday's conference semifinal; the Lord Jeffs open with a first-round bye, while Bowdoin opens against Curry and Middlebury takes on national No. 13 Rochester. All four NESCAC semifinal teams will have a chance to do some postseason damage.
"I think the NESCAC, more than any other year that I've been here, has been so wide open," Martin said. "Coming into the tournament this year, there were four or five teams that were strong contenders to win the tournament."
And the one team that did win it, Trinity, is ready for its next test. The Bantams head into tonight's 7 p.m. tip-off at Oosting Gym with confidence - the same confidence that brought them the NESCAC Tournament championship.
"We definitely thought we could win," Hasiuk said. "There was no doubt in my mind. We've always talked about our goal of winning the NESCAC ... I don't think we were intimidated by any team. We think we can beat any team in our conference - or in the nation."
Hasiuk might be right. One way or another, the truth will come out, starting tonight.
