I don’t know about you, sports fans, but after a week of shoveling through thigh-high drifts in front of my garage, clearing two sets of steps and then muscling through three feet of snow on front, side and long rear decks, I’m ready for golf.
And I stink at golf!
But at least I can get out and about. I feel for those of you who still have to navigate city streets as narrow as a bowling lane after the Blizzard of ’26.
Much has happened here in the Snocean State in the last 11 days, so let’s get to it.
Those University of Rhode Island basketball women are CHAMPIONS!
URI earned a share of the Atlantic-10 regular-season championship for the second time with a 72-48 romp over George Washington in the regular-season finale. Rhody finished 25-4 and tied George Mason with a 16-2 conference record. The Rams earned the top seed in the A-10 tournament thanks to their 79-63 victory over George Mason on Valentine’s Day.
Rhody shared the 2023 regular-season title with UMass but lost in the semifinals of the A-10 Tournament. That team reached the Sweet 16 of the WNIT.
This team is special: 25 victories is one shy of the school record; 16 A-10 victories, a 17-game winning streak and a Ram on each of the A-10’s post-season teams are school records. Tammi Reiss won her third Coach of the Year award.
True freshman Vanessa Harris is the Sixth Woman of the Year, a first for URI. Brooklyn Gray is first-team All-Conference, Sophia Vital is second team, Palmire Mbu is third team, and Ines Debroise is All-Defensive Team. Harris made the All-Rookie team and Gray All-Academic.
“I’ve never been prouder of a team than I am of this one,” Reiss said after the GW win, “because whether we win or whether we lose, we do it together. There is no jealousy, no envy, no blaming . . . No matter what, they have stuck together.”
URI will play its quarterfinal game Friday morning at the Henrico Sports & Events Center near Richmond, Va., against Loyola Chicago. The Rams defeated Loyola Chicago by 12 in January. Win the conference tournament and they’re in the Big Dance. They don’t want to leave an NCAA berth to chance after getting stung last year.
Those skating Friars are Hockey East CHAMPIONS!
Providence College is a charter member of Hockey East, one of five colleges PC athletics director Lou Lamoriello pulled together in 1983. In the ensuing decades, though, Providence never won a Hockey East regular-season title. Until now.
The Friars, ranked sixth nationally, will be the No. 1 seed in the Hockey East Tournament that starts March 11. PC has never held that position, not even in the 2015 national championship season.
The Friars are 22-9-2 overall, 9-6-1 at home and a stunning 13-3-1 away. They have won nine in a row on the road, a school record. Their ninth, a 3-2 decision at New Hampshire on Feb. 28, clinched the HE title. They are 17-5-1 in Hockey East, the 17 victories a PC record.
PC will take the ice at Schneider Arena for the HE quarterfinal round on March 14. The semifinals and final are set for TD Garden in Boston March 20-21. That’s where the 2015 Friars won the NCAA championship with a 4-3 victory over Boston University. Will history repeat? We shall see.
The Friars will close the regular season at Schneider Arena against No. 15/16 UConn Saturday at 4 p.m.
This is Nate Leaman’s 15th season behind the Providence bench. His teams have posted 14 consecutive winning seasons and nine seasons with at least 20 victories. In addition to the 2015 national championship, Leaman coached the 2019 Friars to the Frozen Four.
Those Brown basketball women are heading to IVY MADNESS!
Brown’s seven seniors will end their college careers where only one other senior class has gone: Ivy Madness, the league’s four-team tournament to determine its representative to the NCAA tournament. The Bears clinched a berth in the Ivies with their victory over Cornell last week.
Brown qualified for the inaugural Ivy Madness in 2017 and lost to Penn, the eventual champion. Of course, if the Bears win Ivy Madness this time, they will be the second Brown women’s team to play in the NCAA Tournament. The 1994 Bears lost to Connecticut in the first round.
Columbia, Princeton and Harvard are the other Ivy Madness participants this time, with one regular-season game remaining. Brown will finish in fifth place at Penn Saturday afternoon. Ivy Madness is scheduled for March 13-14 at Cornell.
Brown is 16-9 overall, 8-5 in the Ivy League. The 16 victories match the best in coach Monique Leblanc’s six-year tenure, and the 8 Ivy wins are the most under her leadership.
Those Johnson & Wales basketball women are CHAMPIONS!
Sparked by the Conference of New England player of the year, sophomore Grace Jaffray, Johnson & Wales won the CNE championship on Sunday and a berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament. The Wildcats defeated Western New England, 77-66, in the final.
JWU is 23-4 and riding a 14-game winning streak. They were 15-1 in the conference, and in the tournament semifinals, avenged their only CNE loss by beating Hartford by 20 points. They will play the Little East Conference champion, Southern Maine, in an NCAA DIII first-round game Friday at Bowdoin College. Southern Maine defeated Rhode Island College in the Little East final.
Jaffray scored 30 points in the CNE final and ranks third in the nation with a 23.7 scoring average. She and sophomore Brianne Foley made the CNE first team. Sophomore Isabella Suero was named to the third team and senior Mikayla Caruso to the Community Service Team. Dino Porcic is the CNE coach of the year.
Those skating Salve Regina Seahawks deserve to be CHAMPIONS!
Salve Regina is a 20-4-0 hockey team without a home. A member of the former Commonwealth Coast Conference — now the Conference of New England — until 2024, Salve skated in the now-defunct New England Hockey Conference in 2024-2025. Last September, Salve went back to the CNE, effective for the 2026-2027 season. The Seahawks played an independent schedule this season and must wait for the NCAA Division III selections of March 9 to learn if they received an at-large bid.
Jay Punsky, a 2007 SRU graduate and head coach at Worcester State the last two years, returned to Newport and produced a 20-game winner. If only they had had a league to call their own.
Ponaganset wrestling, Hendricken and North Kingstown swimming, La Salle track, Mt. Hope and Cranston West gymnastics are CHAMPIONS.
Ponaganset is the wrestling capital of Rhode Island. The boys won their fourth consecutive state title and the girls their first. Bishop Hendricken has been the boys’ swimming capital for years. The Hawks have won 35 state championships and every state title since 1990 except for 2014 (Smithfield) and 2022 and 2023 (Barrington). NK ended the Barrington girls’ title run from 2015. La Salle defended its state championship in boys’ track. The La Salle girls won their 17th state title after a three-year absence.
Undefeated Mt. Hope in Division I and Cranston West in Division II are gymnastics champs.
Ice hockey and basketball tournaments are ongoing as a result of postponements in the wake of the Pawtucket hockey rink shooting and the Blizzard of ’26.
There you have it, sports fans, but don’t get too comfortable. A lot of snow remains to melt, for sure, but spring sports at the collegiate level have started. Imagine sailing in the snow?
