Coming off its fourth State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) title and its second trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 in three years, the State University of New York at New Paltz continues to set its goals toward another conference crown and a run at a national championship in 2020.
 
The Hawks had a historic 2019, led by its three seniors Taylor Howell, Rachel Simon and Lindsay Bettke, with the latter two earning All-American recognition, while Bettke also boasted the program's first SUNYAC Player of the Year honor. Despite the departure of three of the most successful Hawks to suit up for the program, SUNY New Paltz returns an experienced group, while adding eight talented freshmen to the mix.
 
Seniors Marion Dietz, Paige Niemeyer, Philesha Teape and Maddie Van Pelt will play a pivotal role throughout the season leading a young group. The quartet have a wealth of experience, especially in big games, as they combine for 192 starts with 12 playoff games played, including six in the NCAA Tournament. 
"We have four seniors who are just tremendous people. The kind of people that you want your daughter to be like. They are just as good of people across the board, one after another after another," said SUNY New Paltz coach Jamie Seward. "These seniors are so deserving to do well. That doesn't guarantee that they will, but they deserve to do well. It's easy as a coach when you have a big group of players that we have coming in when they have those four to look up to and model their behavior after. You can just say to the younger players, 'Do you see how they do things? Do you see how they carry themselves? That is how you are supposed to act.'"
 
Although they lost the majority of its offense with Simon and Bettke who combined for 980 points last season, making up for nearly 45 percent of the team's scoring, the Hawks still have a number of players who can put up points, and are a more well-rounded group on the offensive end. However, Seward stressed the importance of being better on the defensive side of the ball. 
 
"I think we are going to have to be a lot better defensively. We don't have that ability to break open a game as quickly as we did with [Bettke and Simon]." Seward said. "I think everybody can score. Everybody can shoot the ball, so I think that will help in terms of being a difficult team to prepare for. It's not just shut down these two, as hard as it was to shut down those two. It will be a little bit different of a game plan for teams trying to stop us this year, but you don't replace that kind of scoring and it is a different team. I think we should be better defensively, but we will have to be."
 
SUNY New Paltz will lean on an athletic and deep front court, which give the Hawks the flexibility defensively to play with bigger lineups than they have in year's past.  Led by Niemeyer, Teape and Van Pelt, along with the addition of freshman Maddie Gillis, the team has a group that can be strong on the block and defend on the perimeter.
 
"We are going to be able to put a lot of big lineups out there and not lose anything in terms of perimeter defense and I think that is pretty unique," Seward said. "We have the potential of being an interesting team. I don't know how good we're going to be yet, that still remains to be seen, but I think we are going to be an interesting team. We aren't going to be a typical team that you generally see in the SUNYAC or in Division III. I think we have a different way of playing this year and it is exciting because of that." 
  SUNY New Paltz will see where it stands early on, as its non-conference schedule is against some of the best team's in the country a season ago. The Hawks open up with RIT on the road Saturday, which defeated them last season in the Hawk Center and earned an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament after finishing second in the Liberty League. They then take on MIT and Tufts in the Tufts Tournament Nov. 15 and Nov. 16. The Engineers won the NEWMAC Championship last season to earn an automatic bid into NCAA's, while Tufts were NESCAC champs and made it to the Elite 8. SUNY New Paltz then will have its home opener against Vassar College Nov. 26, which also earned a trip to the national tournament in 2019. 
 
"I prefer to know what we have and if that means being 0-4 heading into conference play, we know what 0-4 means against the people that we are going to be 0-4 against, as opposed to being 4-0 against teams that we should beat, and not really know what we have," Seward explained. "It is definitely going to be challenging. I don't know if we will be ready for it, but it is going to be able to put us in a position to see what we do have going forward as we go into conference play."
 
As far as SUNYAC action, the dynamic has shifted slightly as the typical top teams in the conference: SUNY New Paltz, SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Oneonta, The College at Brockport, all graduated All-SUNYAC players, with the middle and bottom half returning the bulk of their rosters. For the last seven years, either the Knights or Hawks have played in the conference finals with the two teams meeting four times in that span, combining for six of the last seven SUNYAC championships.
  
SUNY New Paltz lost just one game in-conference last season, an early-season matchup with Catskill Cup rival SUNY Oneonta on Dec. 8. However, once the calendar flipped last season, the Hawks went on a 20-0 tear en route to their best season in program history. The team's 2019 ended at the hands of Bowdoin College, but SUNY New Paltz is looking forward to another run with the upperclassmen making sure to keep expectations high.
 
"Those four seniors they did a really good job of making the new players understand what our standards are and that those standards don't change because we lose players or it's a different year," Seward said. "We are still figuring a lot of those things out, but I think having those four on your side is really comforting."
 
The Hawks kick off their 2019-2020 season Saturday when the travel to face the Tigers of RIT. Tip-off is scheduled for 8:30 p.m.

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