Author Thomas Shea

If someone had asked Head Coach Joe Frager at the beginning of the season where he thought his team would finish in the standings for the regular season, there are a lot of different things he could have said.

No player currently on the roster for Fairfield’s women’s basketball team had ever known what it was like to defeat Marist, the team that has unequivocally dominated the MAAC Conference for the past decade.

Unless harsher words than ‘disappointing’ and ‘frustrating’ are being used, no other term could be used to describe the first 21 games of the season for Fairfield men’s basketball.

The Fairfield women’s basketball team defeated the Maine Black Bears on Sunday 80-59 to win the Brown Bear Classic in Providence, R.I. It is the second tournament that the Stags have won this season, following their win in the Emerald Beach Hotel Islander Classic in November.

After four years of blood, sweat, tears and two trips to the NCAA Tournament, Rachel Romansky ‘14 felt “like I ran into a wall” when their tournament game against eighth-ranked Nebraska ended with a 3-0 loss.

The only thing harder than winning a title is repeating as champion, as the old adage goes. But the Fairfield volleyball team certainly did its best to make it look easy last Sunday, defeating Marist in straight sets to give them consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since 2001.

Over the past 18 seasons, they have won the conference regular season title 13 times. They have made the MAAC Championship Tournament in every single one of those seasons, making it to the Championship’s finale 13 times.

Experience is one team component that all coaches, in any sport, would like their team to have. For Fairfield’s Joe Frager, his team features five players who have as much experience as any group in the conference.

With women’s basketball under way, this season should prove to be up to the standards that have been established since Joe Frager became the head coach.

All players look to improve their play from one season to the next, to take their game to the next level in order to perhaps lead their team as a whole to that ultimate level that comes around each and every March.