Bears Assemble Most Successful Skyline Campaign in 2018-19
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — With eight teams competing in the conference playoffs and several teams producing their best league seasons, St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) recorded its highest finish in the Skyline Conference Presidents Cup as the 2018-19 final standings were recently announced by the conference office.
St. Joseph's earned a tenth-place finish in the Presidents Cup race, which measures all-sports excellence in conference competition. Totaling a combined 50 conference victories, the Bears compiled a rating of .354—its highest rating since joining the league in the 2015-16 season.
A school earns points toward the Presidents Cup based upon the conference finish in each sport in which it competes. An overall rating is generated for each school which is a percentage of total points earned divided by total possible points for that institution.
Buoyed by five conference titles, United States Merchant Marine Academy captured the Presidents Cup for the second-straight year.
The Bears earned five post-season berths this past season with women's soccer, women's basketball, and softball making return trips in back-to-back seasons and men's and women's volleyball getting a taste of the playoffs for the first time in program history. Men's and women's cross country and women's swimming also competed in their respective championships.
By virtue of their women's basketball's fourth-place finish, the first playoff game ever to be hosted at The Hill Center took place in front of an electric crowd this past February.
Collectively Bears teams amassed 50 league wins, nearly a 20 percent improvement over 2017-18 and overall totaled 92 wins, a 24-win improvement and their winningest season in four years.
Individually, SJC Brooklyn student-athletes garnered 17 All-Conference selections. Eight of the honorees were first-team selections after producing just eight honorees in total last season. Freshman Ashleigh Hartwig also was named Player of the Year in softball, just the second time any Bear has received the honor in any sport.
Losing just 20 seniors to graduation and with another strong recruiting class set to come to Clinton Hill, the Bears look forward to the start of the 2019-20 season this fall.
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2018-19 Skyline Conference Presidents Cup - Final Standings
Pl. School (Total Pts. / Poss. Pts. = Rating)
1. USMMA (103.25/121 = .853)
2. Farmingdale State (110/140 = .786)
3. Mount Saint Mary (103.25/153 = .675)
4. St. Joseph's-Long Island (94.5/153 = .618)
5. Maritime (61.5/103 = .597)
6. Old Westbury (52.75/114 = .463)
7. Sarah Lawrence (54.5/118 = .462)
8. Purchase (68/149 = .456)
9. Mount Saint Vincent (52.5/125 = .420)
10. St. Joseph's-Brooklyn (45.25/128 = .354)
11. Yeshiva (42.5/121 = .351)