University St. Francis College NCAA Division I Location Brooklyn, New York | Conference Northeast Conference Athletic director Irma Garcia Varsity teams 19 | |
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The St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers are the 19 teams that represent St. Francis College in athletics. The Terriers are members of the NCAA Division I and participate in the Northeast Conference, with the exception of the men's and women's water polo teams which compete in the CWPA and the MAAC, respectively. In 2006, St. Francis College added women's bowling, while dropping baseball and softball. St. Francis College previously sponsored a football team, but the program was dropped in 1935.
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In 2007, Irma Garcia, '88, became the athletic director of the Terriers replacing longtime director Edward Aquilone, '60. As of 2010, she is the country's only female Latina athletic director in Division I sports. For the 2014–15 academic year, Garcia was named NACWAA D1 (FCS) Administrator of the Year. The award was in part because of the Terriers success in Men's Soccer (NEC Champions and NCAA Tournament Participants), Men's Basketball (NEC Regular Season Champions and NIT Participants) and Women's Basketball (NEC Champions and NCAA Tournament Participants).
Beginning on November 27, 2012, St. Francis College rebranded its Athletics programs from St. Francis (NY) to St. Francis Brooklyn. The College previously came to be known as St. Francis (NY) when the athletics program joined the Division I Northeast Conference in 1981.
Teams
A member of the Northeast Conference, St. Francis Brooklyn sponsors teams in nine men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports:
Basketball
The men's team was founded in 1896 making it the oldest collegiate program in New York City and the women's program was founded in 1973. Both teams host their home games at The Pope and are members of the Northeast Conference. The fiercest rival of the Terriers are the Long Island University Blackbirds, the men's teams have competed since 1928 and the women's teams since 1973. Both the Men's and Women's Terrier teams play in the Battle of Brooklyn tournament against the Blackbirds, which has been played annually since 1974–75. The Terriers also compete against Wagner College Seahawks, and it is referred to as Battle of the Verrazano due to St. Francis College in Brooklyn being separated from Wagner College in Staten Island by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Battle of the Verrazano dates back to the 1973–74 season.
Men's
The St. Francis College’s men's basketball program, founded in 1896, is the oldest collegiate program in New York City. The team plays its home games on the Peter Aquilone Court at the Generoso Pope Athletic Complex. The Terriers have an overall record of 1176–1216, 49.1 W–L%, over a 96 year span from the 1920–1921 to the 2015–2016 season. The Terriers best finish was the 1955–1956 season, with a 21–4 record that ranked them at 13th nationally in the AP polls. Throughout their history the Terriers have played as NCAA Division I independents, in the Metropolitan New York Conference (1946–1963), in the Metropolitan Collegiate Conference (1966–1968) and since 1981 in the NEC. In that time span, the Terriers were regular season conference champions 6 times and have had 17 different head coaches, the latest of which is Glenn Braica. Braica was an assistant under Norm Roberts at St. John's University Glenn Braica replaced Brian Nash whom resigned after five seasons, 3 of which his team did not make the postseason.
The Terriers coach with the most wins is Daniel Lynch who from 1948–1969 accumulated a 283–237 record and won 3 regular season conference championships. Lynch also led the Terriers to 3 NIT bids, reaching the first-round in 1963, the quarter-finals in 1954 and the semi-finals in 1956. Second is Ron Ganulin, who over 14 seasons, from 1991–2005, accumulated a 187–206 record along with 2 regular season conference championships.
See Also: SFC Terriers Home Page
Women's
The women's team kicked off intercollegiate athletics at St. Francis College in 1973. Since the 1988–89 season the women's basketball team has been a part of the Northeast Conference. From 1973–74 to 2014–15 the Terriers have compiled a 334–818 overall record and since joining the NEC in 1988 a 116–373 conference record.
As of 2012, John Thurston is the head coach of the St. Francis College Terriers. Thurston replaced Brenda Milano, who coached the Terriers for 9 seasons leading them to the NEC playoffs 3 times. After not making the NEC Tournament for four consecutive seasons, 2008–11, first-year head coach Thurston was able to secure the 7th seed in 2012. The Terriers also won more than 10 games for the first time in 5 years. In the 2012–13 season, after going 11–2 by winning 5 straight games, the Terriers for the first time in program history were ranked inside the top 25 of a national basketball poll at 25th in the CollegeInsider.com Top 25 Mid-Major Poll. The 2013–14 squad set the single-season school record with 19 wins during the year and the Terriers notched 10 conference wins, the most in St. Francis Brooklyn women's basketball history.
The 2014–15 team was invited to participate in the 2014 Preseason WNIT, the first in the program's history. They are also the 2014–15 Northeast Conference Women's Basketball Champions after defeating Robert Morris 77–62 in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. St. Francis Brooklyn is the first team to go on the road and win all three tournament games to be crowned Northeast Conference Champions. They are also the first number 5 seed to take home the championship trophy. This is the first championship for St. Francis women's basketball in program history. The women's basketball team made its first NCAA Tournament appearance and faced eventual champions Connecticut.
See also: SFC Terriers Home Page
Water polo
Both the men's and women's water polo teams play at the St. Francis College Aquatics Center, located at the College in Brooklyn Heights. The men's team competes in the CWPA and ECAC and the women's team in the MAAC, both participate in Division I leagues.
Men's
The St. Francis College Men's Water Polo club began its program in 1952. In the 1970s, St. Francis helped to form the association of East Coast schools that eventually became the Collegiate Water Polo Association. The Terriers have enjoyed much success in the past 10 years and is one of the better teams on the east coast. In consecutive years from 2004–2008, they've won the ECAC Championships and the CWPA Northern Division Championships. The Terriers have finished between 1st and 4th in the Eastern Championships from 1999–2007. In 2005 they finished first and qualified for the NCAA National Championships and finished 4th at the Final Four.
The team was headed by coach Carl Quigley, whom in 1999 was the coach of the year for the CWPA Northern Division. Coach Quigley headed the Terriers for 34 years, 1974–2008, and for many years had compiled a successful and diverse team, composed of Americans, Serbians, Hungarians and Israelis. From 2005–2008 under coach Quigley, the Terriers had a combined 82–25 record with 4 ECAC Championships, 4 CWPA Northern Division Championships, 1 NCAA Final Four berth and have been ranked as high as 11th by the NCAA.
From 2009 to 2012, Igor Samardzija was the head coach; he finished his inaugural season at 12–6. At the end of the 2009 season, the Terriers were ranked in the NCAA Top 20 of the nation at #18. In 2010, the Terriers, under Igor Samardzija, finished the season having been ranked as high as No. 10 in the nation and made their second trip to the NCAA Final Four, finishing in fourth place. Also in 2010, the Terriers won the ECAC Championships, the Northern Division Championship tournament and the CWPA Eastern Championship. In the 2011 season, the Terriers won the CWPA Northern Division Championships, finished third in the Eastern Championships and ended the season ranked at 16th in the nation. For the third time in the programs history, the 2012 Terriers won the Eastern Championships and earned a NCAA final four birth. The Terriers also went on to defeat Air Force to win their first national tournament match for a third-place finish.
From 2013 to 2014, Srdjan Mihaljevic an alumnus of St. Francis College and former water polo player was the head coach. Mihaljevic inherited a team that placed 3rd in the 2012 NCAA Final Four and was ranked 10th in preseason polls. In 2013, the Terriers went on to a 23–12 record and won the Northern Division and Eastern Championships, in the process qualifying for an NCAA National Championship berth. In winning back-to-back Eastern Championships, St. Francis joins Yale University (1972–74), Bucknell (1977–80), Brown (1983–85), the United States Naval Academy (1986–88, 2006–08) and the University of Massachusetts (1993–96, 1998–99) as the only programs in league history to claim back-to-back crowns. The championship marks the first in the career of first-year head coach Srdjan Mihaljevic as the former SFC assistant coach claimed the Dick Russell Coach of the Tournament award for guiding the Terriers to the program's fourth championship in eight appearances in the Championship Game. The Terriers defeated UC San Diego in the NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship play-in game. The Terriers then lost in the semi-finals to top seeded USC and in the consolation game to Stanford, to finish 4th in the NCAA Tournament. During the 2014 season, the Terriers under-performed and finished at 16–13. After the season head coach Srdjan Mihaljevic announced that he was resigning.
Former Olympian Igor Zagoruiko was named Head Coach for the 2015 season. At the beginning of the 2016 season, the Terriers were ranked at 20th in the CWPA's preseason poll.
See also: SFC Water Polo Accolades
Soccer
The St. Francis College Men's Soccer team has an overall record of 427–344–85 spanning from 1968 to 2016. In that time, the Terriers have made eight NCAA Tournament appearances and have won four NEC regular season championships and seven NEC Tournament Championships. Since joing the NEC in 1985, the team has posted a 124–108–24 record against conference teams. The Soccer team plays its home matches at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 5, located on the East River in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn.
The current head coach, Tom Giovatto, joined the Terriers in 2007 and has led the team to a 102–64–29 record. In 2009, Giovatto secured a NEC Tournament berth with the second seed and in 2013 he won the NEC Championship with the 4th seed. With the 2013 NEC Tournament Championship the Terriers received an automatic NCAA Tournament bid, where they lost in the first round. In 2014, the Terriers repeated as NEC Tournament Champions and participated in the NCAA Tournament again losing in the first round. In 2016, Giovatto won NEC Coach of the Year, after leading his team to an NEC Regular Season Championship, he then proceeded to win the 2016 NEC Tournament and participate in the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship.
See Also: SFC NEC Soccer History SFC Soccer Record Book
Rocky the Terrier
The mascot of St. Francis Brooklyn is Rocky the Terrier. The mascot was officially adopted in 1933 by the College's athletic association.