Peahens, Granelli truly dancing to Big Dance
St. Peter’s earns third NCAA trip in four years with MAAC tourney title
It’s become a rite of spring, like the temperature rising, baseball players heading to Florida and St. Patrick’s Day parades. St. Peter’s College’s women’s basketball team, affectionately known as the Peahens, makes plans to go to the NCAA Tournament. It seems like it happens every year.
The Peahens brought the total to three trips to the Grand Dance in the last four years by soundly defeating Fairfield, 61-46, Sunday afternoon. The victory gave the Peahens the school’s eighth Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship at the Pepsi Arena in Albany – with a defensive effort not readily seen on any basketball level anywhere, male or female.
In three victories over the weekend, the Peahens held good scoring teams like Manhattan, Loyola and Fairfield in the finals to abysmal shooting performances. Manhattan connected on just 26 percent from the floor. In the semifinals, Loyola clicked on 30 percent. And in the title game, Fairfield also misfired, making just 26 percent. That’s not just good defense. That’s downright stifling.
"That’s our motto," said senior center Mercy Aghedo, who set a new MAAC Tourney record by collecting 41 rebounds in the three wins over the weekend. "We pride ourselves on defense. It’s not about numbers. It’s about playing defense better than anyone else."
Aghedo should know her fair share about playing defense. She was given the task of defending Fairfield’s talented senior Gail Strumpf, who was earlier named as the MAAC’s Player of the Year. Just two weeks ago, Strumpf lit up Aghedo to the tune of 28 points in a blowout Fairfield win.
"I wanted to redeem myself," Aghedo said. "I had a horrible game the last time and I took it personally. Good players seem to bring out the best in me. I just wanted to stop her."
Aghedo did exactly that, holding Strumpf to an unthinkable five points.
Senior point guard Nicole Dames was also instrumental in the defensive effort. Dames, fellow senior Yolanda Daniels and junior Courtney Wicks were all over the floor like gnats at the family summer picnic, totally annoying the top-seeded Stags – a team that had trashed St. Peter’s just two weeks ago.
"I think this was our best defensive effort," said Dames, who scored four points, dished off for four assists and collected four steals. "We’re the best when we play at that level. Since I’ve been here, defense has been our forte, the glue to the team. And it’s why we win."
And senior Lawanda Greene was more than influential, scoring in double figures in all three Peahen victories over the weekend, earning the Most Valuable Player award for the tourney.
"The focus was for us to get our championship back," Greene said. "We came into the game with a vengeance. Defensively, we didn’t want to let them get the passing lanes and try to push them back and back to half court, further and further. We always stress defense first."
The architect of it all, namely veteran coach Mike Granelli, had to be proud of his team’s stellar defensive effort.
"I was told a long time ago that offense wins games, but defense wins championships," said Granelli, who has won 530 games and six trips to the NCAA Tournament during his 28 years at Harvard on the Boulevard. "Our team defense was the best it’s been in many, many years. We were able to maintain the intensity throughout."
The Peahens will learn their fate Sunday afternoon when they gather in Dineen Hall, watch the NCAA Tournament selection show and wait for the announcers to say the magic words, "The Peahens of St. Peter’s College will go to…"
But this year, the Peahens aren’t looking at the NCAAs as a vacation. They have aspirations of winning.
"We realize we’re going back and we want to make the most of it," Greene said.
"In the past, we’ve gone to Louisiana Tech and Virginia Tech and those weren’t exactly scenic spots," Aghedo said. "We’ve proven that we have a good team and we want to establish to the rest of the NCAA Tournament that we have a good team."
Still, for people like Aghedo, Dames and Daniels, they’re making plans for their third trip to the Grand Dance in four years and they were doing their share of dancing on the Pepsi Arena floor after the win. The team lined up and did their impersonation of the "Soul Train" dance line, motoring to the tune of "Celebration," performed by Jersey City natives Kool and the Gang. All of the Peahens shook and grooved their way through the line, including the head coach, who let his guard down and did some impromptu celebrating of his own.
"It was cool to see Granelli dance his way through the whole line, but he’s awful," Aghedo said. "But he had fun."
"He thinks he’s a good dancer," Greene said. "But he better stick to coaching. He still thinks he’s in his younger days."
It was all in fun – and they have a reason. They’re going to the tourney again. Three times in four years. Truly amazing.
"It still hasn’t sunk in yet," Dames said. "I told people when I came here that I was going to get four (MAAC) championship rings and I got three. That’s the special part. No one ever did that before."
"There’s nothing like winning," Aghedo said. "When I first came here, I always hoped to go to the NCAAs and now, I’m going for my third time. It is amazing. I’m glad to have been a part of a great program."
Granelli recalled the first time that he introduced the seniors to making history.
"We definitely point out our tradition," Granelli said. "I said to them during the first meeting we had before the season started that we never had a team to go to the NCAAs three times. That they had a chance to establish a history."
And the winning just continues, with the one constant guiding them along.
"I don’t think we marvel at what we’ve been able to do," Granelli said. "That would be too self serving. We’re very proud of what we’ve done, but the credit has to go to the kids. We’ve also had a lot of things go right."
Like the one thing which allowed the Hoboken native Granelli to become associated with St. Peter’s College nearly three decades ago. Since he stumbled upon the school, the winning has been a constant, much like Sunday in Albany, when the Peahens were the ones doing the dancing once again.