News at St. Catherine's
New York Times: At Amherst, Division III Team With No. 1 Ambition
St. Catherine's alumnae Ali and Meredith Doswell '13 are starters for the Amherst basketball team.
AMHERST, Mass. — Coach G. P. Gromacki gathered the women’s basketball team at Amherst College and made his usual pregame declaration: “No one gets us at home.”
As Saturday’s game approached against its archrival, Williams College, Amherst’s winning streak at LeFrak Gymnasium had swelled to 105 games over nearly six years — a women’s N.C.A.A. record surpassed only by the Kentucky men’s team that won 129 straight at home from 1943 to 1955.
Amherst carries the same ambition in Division III as the powerhouse Connecticut women do in Division I — to win every game, to end every season with a national championship.
“I’ll tell someone we didn’t play well and they’ll say, ‘Did you lose?’ and I’ll say, ‘Of course not,’ ” said Ali Doswell, a sophomore guard and Amherst’s leading scorer. “The mind-set is, this program does not lose.”
Purple banners hanging in LeFrak Gym signal voracious aspiration and achievement: trips to the Final Four in five of the last six seasons, a national title in 2011. The gym is all blond wood, from the court to the pullout bleachers to the pine ceiling. The vaulting, geometric roof has evoked comparisons to the movie “Hoosiers,” a wigwam, a ski chalet, a church.
“It sounds really cheesy, but the lighting is like lighting at home,” said Cheyenne Pritchard, a junior guard and co-captain. “You feel territorial, possessive, like it’s mine.”
As Williams arrived on a frigid afternoon, Amherst had not lost at LeFrak Gym since a buzzer-beater defeat to Bowdoin on Jan. 30, 2009. Last November, Amherst surpassed the previous women’s record of 99 consecutive home wins, established by UConn in 2012.
Still, the gym did not throb on Saturday as it usually did for a game against Williams, with which Amherst has shared a history and rivalry dating to the 1820s. Students were away on holiday break. And the Amherst men were playing at Williams. Usually, the men and women play a pulsing doubleheader. For some reason, it was not scheduled this season.
“That sort of stinks,” Pat Manning, who has coached the Williams women for 25 years, said as she arrived with her team.
Yet no Amherst-Williams game needs artificial sweetener. In 1821, the president of Williams College, the Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore, citing divine providence, led professors and students over the Berkshire Mountains from Williamstown, Mass., to found Amherst College, according to the historian Michael Beschloss.
Legend says that Amherst’s nascent scholarship emanated from books stolen out of the Williams library. The story is apparently untrue, but it does sustain a rivalry. The first intercollegiate baseball game was played between Amherst and Williams in 1859. The football teams have been jousting since 1884.
“We refer to them as the Defectors to this day,” Manning said.
The antipathy is mutual, if also highly theatrical.
Minutes after defeating Hamilton College on Friday night, the Amherst women gathered in their locker room. Victory was quickly forgotten in anticipation of the next game in 18 hours. Kevin Callahan, an assistant basketball coach and former football player at Amherst, had only three words to say, accompanied by applause: “I hate Williams.”
Of course, the colleges are far more alike than different. They recruit the same players, wear similar purple-themed uniforms and possess the same elite, liberal arts aspirations in academics and athletics.
“My pitch is, go to the Ivies for grad school,” said Manning, echoing the recruiting pitch of Amherst. “Here you have a chance to win a national championship. That’s saying something.”
Amherst was 12-0 entering Saturday’s game. Williams was 12-1 and probably the last threat to Amherst’s home streak this season. “If we don’t knock them off, I don’t know if anybody will,” Manning said.
She remembered taut games over the last quarter-century, one of her players stealing the ball for a winning layup, a defeat of Amherst in the consolation game of the 2013 Final Four. But there would be no room for error Saturday. Amherst was tall, deep, relentless on the boards, threatening with 3-pointers, meticulous in its passing and cutting.
“They usually get off to a really fast start,” Manning said. “Our transition defense has to be strong.”
Her worst fears were immediately confirmed. Williams appeared hurried. Amherst stabbed inside. Marley Giddins, a gritty and fearless swingman, would make all six of her shots during the game, scoring 14 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. By halftime, Amherst led, 44-23.
Gromacki, 43, tall and graying and determined, grew up nearby in South Deerfield, Mass. He considered taking over his father’s insurance and real estate business but gravitated toward the competition of basketball and the Division III lifestyle that allows him to coach youth soccer in the off-season.
“I don’t view it as a job,” Gromacki said. “As soon as I do, I’ll be done.”
Perhaps, but he is a man of precision and detail and expectation, impatient with failure. His players eat their pregame meals exactly 3 hours 45 minutes before tipoff. They rehearse plays until each pass, each screen, is diagram perfect. On Friday, the senior forward Megan Robertson, a co-captain and Amherst’s career leader in blocked shots, played exactly one minute of the first half against Hamilton after two quick fouls and a defensive lapse.
Gromacki guided St. Lawrence to the Division III title game in 2002 and reached the Final Four five times in his first seven seasons at Amherst. His career record is 383-56, a winning percentage of .872, which ranks among the highest at any level of women’s basketball.
“When you play at a consistently high level, a lot of that is culture,” said Geno Auriemma, who has coached UConn to nine N.C.A.A. women’s titles. “It’s further proof that when your expectations are really high, you tend to meet them. I’m sure their mind-set is, ‘We’re better prepared, we going to work harder, we’re more committed, than you are.’ ”
Not that there isn’t any room for goofy fun on a close-knit Amherst team. At Saturday’s pregame meal, Ali Doswell called the name of Rachel Boyette, a sophomore center. As soon as Boyette made eye contact, Doswell blew an imaginary dart into her neck.
Under the rules of the Dart Game, Boyette had to fall to the floor, which happened to be near the waffle machine in the dining hall. Her teammate Taylor Smith removed the pretend dart and Boyette made a waffle that the players shared in a bonding exercise.
“That’s why we won — team waffles,” Giddins said later.
Early in the second half, though, there was brief suspense. Williams made a quick, inevitable run, closing to within 46-29. Gromacki called on Robertson, his defensive stopper.
She is 6 feet 2 inches, elegant and mobile. Robertson would very likely be Amherst’s career leading scorer and rebounder, as well as shot-blocker, if her left knee had not buckled midway through last season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and ruptured medial collateral ligament.
“I thought she would be more emotionally upset,” said Dave Robertson, Megan’s father. “She was like, ‘That’s part of life.’ ”
A math and statistics major, Robertson soberly calculated her return. At least she would have rehab technology unavailable in the 1970s to Pat Summitt, the celebrated former Tennessee coach, who had a severe knee injury during her own playing career.
“I read that her rehab was lifting bricks attached to her heel,” Robertson said. “We’ve come a long way.”
Actually, Robertson said, her dream was to play for the Red Sox, at least until she was 11 or 12 and her parents moved her from pitching in Little League to softball in Tewksbury, Mass.
“I’m still a little bitter,” Robertson said with dry wit. Basketball, she added, “is one sport I was better at after my parents crushed my baseball dream.”
Entering about three minutes into the second half Saturday, Robertson blocked one shot, then another, in eight seconds. She grabbed a defensive rebound that led to a driving layup and tipped missed free throws to her teammates. Williams began to succumb.
Earlier in her career against Williams, Robertson made one of the two or three greatest plays he had seen at Amherst, Gromacki told the team at a pregame video session. On an inbounds play, she had run 15 or 20 feet to block a shot.
“Not many people do that,” Gromacki said.
Again on Saturday, Robertson smothered Williams’s ambition.
“Anytime she comes in the game, I think players know they have a security blanket,” Gromacki said.
Two layups, a jumper and a 3-point shot by the sophomore forward Meredith Doswell, Ali’s twin, pushed Amherst’s lead beyond 20 points. The final score was 77-51.
Afterward, the Doswell sisters joked about ignoring three or four phone calls from Gromacki as he sought to recruit them out of Richmond, Va.
“We were like, Oh, Amherst is too far away,” said Meredith Doswell, who led Amherst on Saturday with 15 points.
On their mother’s advice, the twins reconsidered. Both are now starters. Ali Doswell leads the team with a scoring average of 14.2 points.
“Thank goodness we finally answered,” Ali said of Gromacki’s phone calls.
Saturday’s victory extended Amherst’s home streak to 106 games. The streak will be “something you can tell people as a fun fact on a job interview,” Robertson said, but it was not the team’s ultimate goal this season.
“Our goal is to win it all,” she said.
“We’re not losing to Williams at home,” Giddins, a junior, had admonished her teammates the night before. “They’re so annoying.”
Shortly after defeating Hamilton on Friday, Amherst spent a half-hour watching video of Williams. Heidi Banks, an assistant coach, worked until 2 a.m. Saturday devising a game plan. She and Gromacki, the head coach, were back in the office for a meeting at 9 a.m., a shooting practice at 10 and another team video session before lunch.
Gromacki, 43, tall and graying and determined, grew up nearby in South Deerfield, Mass. He considered taking over his father’s insurance and real estate business but gravitated toward the competition of basketball and the Division III lifestyle that allows him to coach youth soccer in the off-season.
“I don’t view it as a job,” Gromacki said. “As soon as I do, I’ll be done.”
Perhaps, but he is a man of precision and detail and expectation, impatient with failure. His players eat their pregame meals exactly 3 hours 45 minutes before tipoff. They rehearse plays until each pass, each screen, is diagram perfect. On Friday, the senior forward Megan Robertson, a co-captain and Amherst’s career leader in blocked shots, played exactly one minute of the first half against Hamilton after two quick fouls and a defensive lapse.
Gromacki guided St. Lawrence to the Division III title game in 2002 and reached the Final Four five times in his first seven seasons at Amherst. His career record is 383-56, a winning percentage of .872, which ranks among the highest at any level of women’s basketball.
“When you play at a consistently high level, a lot of that is culture,” said Geno Auriemma, who has coached UConn to nine N.C.A.A. women’s titles. “It’s further proof that when your expectations are really high, you tend to meet them. I’m sure their mind-set is, ‘We’re better prepared, we going to work harder, we’re more committed, than you are.’ ”
Not that there isn’t any room for goofy fun on a close-knit Amherst team. At Saturday’s pregame meal, Ali Doswell called the name of Rachel Boyette, a sophomore center. As soon as Boyette made eye contact, Doswell blew an imaginary dart into her neck.
Under the rules of the Dart Game, Boyette had to fall to the floor, which happened to be near the waffle machine in the dining hall. Her teammate Taylor Smith removed the pretend dart and Boyette made a waffle that the players shared in a bonding exercise.
“That’s why we won — team waffles,” Giddins said later.
Early in the second half, though, there was brief suspense. Williams made a quick, inevitable run, closing to within 46-29. Gromacki called on Robertson, his defensive stopper.
She is 6 feet 2 inches, elegant and mobile. Robertson would very likely be Amherst’s career leading scorer and rebounder, as well as shot-blocker, if her left knee had not buckled midway through last season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and ruptured medial collateral ligament.
“I thought she would be more emotionally upset,” said Dave Robertson, Megan’s father. “She was like, ‘That’s part of life.’ ”
A math and statistics major, Robertson soberly calculated her return. At least she would have rehab technology unavailable in the 1970s to Pat Summitt, the celebrated former Tennessee coach, who had a severe knee injury during her own playing career.
“I read that her rehab was lifting bricks attached to her heel,” Robertson said. “We’ve come a long way.”
As her knee healed, Robertson resumed her campus job, taking video of football games and photographs of other sporting events for the Amherst communications department.
“I think her dream is to be a statistician for the Red Sox,” said Rob Mattson, an Amherst photographer.
Actually, Robertson said, her dream was to play for the Red Sox, at least until she was 11 or 12 and her parents moved her from pitching in Little League to softball in Tewksbury, Mass.
“I’m still a little bitter,” Robertson said with dry wit. Basketball, she added, “is one sport I was better at after my parents crushed my baseball dream.”
Entering about three minutes into the second half Saturday, Robertson blocked one shot, then another, in eight seconds. She grabbed a defensive rebound that led to a driving layup and tipped missed free throws to her teammates. Williams began to succumb.
Earlier in her career against Williams, Robertson made one of the two or three greatest plays he had seen at Amherst, Gromacki told the team at a pregame video session. On an inbounds play, she had run 15 or 20 feet to block a shot.
“Not many people do that,” Gromacki said.
Again on Saturday, Robertson smothered Williams’s ambition.
“Anytime she comes in the game, I think players know they have a security blanket,” Gromacki said.
Two layups, a jumper and a 3-point shot by the sophomore forward Meredith Doswell, Ali’s twin, pushed Amherst’s lead beyond 20 points. The final score was 77-51.
Afterward, the Doswell sisters joked about ignoring three or four phone calls from Gromacki as he sought to recruit them out of Richmond, Va.
“We were like, Oh, Amherst is too far away,” said Meredith Doswell, who led Amherst on Saturday with 15 points.
On their mother’s advice, the twins reconsidered. Both are now starters. Ali Doswell leads the team with a scoring average of 14.2 points.
“Thank goodness we finally answered,” Ali said of Gromacki’s phone calls.
Saturday’s victory extended Amherst’s home streak to 106 games. The streak will be “something you can tell people as a fun fact on a job interview,” Robertson said, but it was not the team’s ultimate goal this season.
“Our goal is to win it all,” she said.
Located in the heart of Richmond, Virginia, St. Catherine’s School is a private, all-girls pre-K, kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. We provide a well-rounded educational experience for girls from communities across Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and all of central Virginia. St.Catherine’s all-girls educational experience is rooted in more than a century of history and tradition. From our revolutionary past to our dynamic present, St. Catherine’s has always focused on preparing students for a boundless future.
