This story was updated Feb. 26 to reflect the results of the Little East Tournament and the selection of the NCAA Division III tournament field.
What a basketball season for the 14 young women wearing the maroon, gold and white of Rhode Island College. They are 27-0, the Little East Conference tournament champions for the fourth consecutive season and one of three undefeated teams in the NCAA Division III tournament.
They also are:
- The first team in the Little East Conference’s 37-year history to go 25-0 in a full regular season. In the COVID-shortened 2021 season RIC was also undefeated, but only 11-0.
- The 10th LEC team to go undefeated in conference play and the first to win 16 games.
- Ranked No. 3 in the current D3hoops.com poll, trailing only 25-0 NYU and 27-0 Transylvania, the 2023 champion.
- 88-10 overall since the start of the 2020-21 season.
Best of all, perhaps, the coach guiding this record-breaking team on its quest for a national title is eight months pregnant. Jenna Cosgrove is due March 28, 12 days after the NCAA Division III championship game.
“You can’t make it up,” she said with a laugh when we spoke Tuesday morning.
Winning that championship game next month is the goal of everyone in the program. RIC came close last year. After securing the LEC regular season and tournament titles for the third consecutive season, the Anchorwomen upset No. 3 Scranton, No. 12 Chicago and No. 10 Babson en route to the NCAA semifinals. They lost to Christopher Newport, 56-51, because they were a few bench players short.
This year is different. RIC launched its postseason mission Thursday night with a 67-40 victory over Eastern Connecticut (12-16) in the LEC semifinals. RIC had rolled over Eastern Connecticut, 83-30, on Valentine’s Day.
The Anchorwomen defeated second-seeded UMass Dartmouth, 67-52, Saturday at the Murray Center for the conference championship. RIC’s fifth consecutive trip to the LEC final wasn’t pretty, and the Anchorwomen will have to handle the ball better if they hope to make a title run.
The Anchorwomen will play St. Joseph’s of Maine (21-7) Friday night at 8 at the Murray Center. Gettysburg and St. John Fisher will play the first game at 5:30. The winners will play Saturday night at 7:30.
UMass Dartmouth (23-4) received an at-large bid and will play New Jersey City (19-8) Friday at 5 for the chance to meet host Bowdoin (25-2) or Western New England (22-5) in the second round.
Cosgrove’s roster is so balanced that no starter averages more than 29 minutes per game. Her leading scorer, Sophia Guerrier, averages only 12 points per game. The starting five is averaging 27 rebounds per game.
The combination of consistent offense and relentless defense produced an average margin of victory of 28 points. They are scoring 73 and holding opponents to 45. They won their last four regular-season games by an average of 43 points.
Cosgrove could not have dreamed of a more experienced roster, “a veteran team that knows me, knows our system and knows our culture inside and out,” she said. Forward Izzy Booth, guards Jeniyah Jones and Olivia Middleton, and center Neleesha Meunier are in their fifth year, thanks to COVID. Guerrier is a graduate student. She and Middleton could be the difference between the semifinals and finals this year.
Guerrier, the LEC MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and third-team All-America as a senior in 2021, is still RIC’s best player despite two years working for a marketing and communications company. She is weighing law school offers from St. John’s, Boston University and Fordham, among others.
“She is a very good student,” Cosgrove said.
A member of Cosgrove’s first recruiting class in 2017-18, Guerrier returned because “she saw what we did last year. She has unfinished business.”
Middleton, from Barrington, played at Saint Lawrence University for four years and was a top scorer. She returned home to study nursing at RIC.
“She chose us. She had to adapt her role [coming off the bench] for us. She is one of the best guards in the league,” her coach said.
They joined Booth, the former All-State player from Rogers High School in Newport, an All-Conference, All-Region and pre-season All-America at RIC. Said Cosgrove: “She leads us in a lot of ways on the court.”
And Jones, a Massachusetts state champion at Braintree High who has enjoyed a stellar college career. A demon on defense, she has a knack for deflecting the ball, Cosgrove told me. Her story is all the more remarkable because after her senior season in high school she was hit by a car while walking with her family Easter Sunday and tore her right ACL. She did not play her first year at RIC.
“Jeniyah is one of the most remarkable kids I have ever coached,” Cosgrove said.
And Meunier from Leominster, Mass., a force off the bench despite playing only 12 minutes a game.
And Jayda Bing from Hamilton, N.J.,, a scorer at Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham who transferred to RIC last season.
“We kind of got lucky with her. A lot of times it’s luck. We aren’t who we are without her,” Cosgrove said.
Point guard Madison Medbury from Scituate makes the Anchorwomen go. She was the LEC Tournament MVP. Forward Angelina Nardolillo from Hinsdale, N.H., is third in scoring (10.4) and second in rebounding (5.5). They are juniors and captains.
Sophomore Claire Greene from Storrs. Conn., moved from guard to stretch forward and grew in confidence.
Cosgrove knows how fortunate she is to coach this group this season.
“I am blessed with a happy coincidence. It’s rare I’ll ever get a team of this caliber. We have five fifth year players, two doing grad work, due to the COVID year. Three of the five from the Final Four team return with a ‘hate to lose’ mentality, with a bigger picture in mind. You can’t teach experience, and that I am very blessed with. I have four kids coming off the bench who would start for most Division III teams. We’re definitely nine deep,” she said.
She also knows that RIC is riding high while the rest of the conference is down. In other words, if Rhode Island College is ever going to challenge for a national championship, this is the year.
Cosgrove, 36, took over in 2017 after seven years as an assistant at Fordham. Her first team was 9-17 with only two LEC victories. That was her only losing season. Her seven-year record is 137-41. She has been the LEC coach of the year three times and last season was the Region II Coach of the year and a finalist for the National Coach of the Year.
Cosgrove shared the pregnancy news with her team last fall.
“It’s been really cool to be able to be pregnant the whole season, telling my kids in the fall and then really just kind of be on a journey with them because they’re a part of my every day and my family,” she said.
“To be this pregnant and to have the team I have, the staff I have, it’s allowed me to not get too overwhelmed with everything going on. I’ve had a few moments I haven’t felt well. I never miss a practice. This year I stepped away in the middle of a practice and I missed one practice.”
Cosgrove added this gem: “I’m still not calm on the sideline. I’m definitely intense. Over my time coaching I’ve tried to tailor it down. However, I do think the kids feed off it. I’m not a coach that really sits. I don’t sit. I’ve tried to tailor my emotions a little bit over the course of my pregnancy.”
So the championship quest for Rhode Island College continues. No matter how it ends, the 14 players wearing maroon, gold and white will always remember 2023-2024.
