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On Jan. 24, Liz Coyne of Rosemont College grabbed her 1,000th career rebound. Seven days later, she dropped in her 2,000th career point, becoming only the 14th player in the history of Division III women’s basketball to accomplish both. “People on campus call me 2k or 1k because of the records,” says Coyne, “I didn’t realize what I’d done until people around campus starting talking about it.”
This past Saturday, Feb. 14, Coyne scored point No. 2,078, becoming the all-time leading scorer for the Colonial States Athletic Conference (a record dating back to the old PAC era). Overshadowing that accomplishment, however, was the Ravens’ loss to Centenary. Despite the individual accolades, Coyne has always been a team player and her presence at Rosemont has helped the program take another step in its development.
Rayne Reber began as an assistant coach at Rosemont during Coyne’s senior year of high school. “The head coach at the time had me go see Liz play, as our No. 1 recruit, from the first game on, we made sure to have someone from the coaching staff at every one of her games.”
Reber is now the head coach. Not coincidentally, Coyne’s tenure at Rosemont has corresponded with growth and success on the court. Her freshman and sophomore seasons featured the first winning records for the program since 2005. The last two years have seen Rosemont qualify for the conference tournament. The squad needs wins in the two games remaining, at Cairn (3-17, 0-14) and Neumann (10-13, 7-7) to clinch a third consecutive playoff berth.
Regardless of the outcome, Coyne’s success has put the program on more solid footing for the future. Says Reber, “Our recruits see the accomplishments of Liz Coyne, and it opens their eyes to the possibilities.” This atmosphere of success is already translating, with a freshman class full of contributors, the future is bright for Rosemont. “I think this [upcoming] sophomore class will be a model for the program. They’ve learned so much from Liz and the seniors, they’ll be ready to lead next year.”
Outside of Coyne’s record-breaking accomplishments, perhaps the team highlight of the year was an overtime win at DeSales (third behind two ranked teams in the Freedom Conference). “We’ve never beaten DeSales before,” says Reber, “It was a huge win for us and it proves to everyone we can win out of conference.”
Often we see highlighted the teams at the top of the regional and national rankings, but Liz Coyne’s Rosemont experience highlights another great feature of D-III athletics. With just over 400 full-time undergraduate students, Rosemont is one of those places where everybody knows everybody else. It was the size, as well as geographic proximity to home that drew Coyne in the first place. “[I came for] the atmosphere. There’s such a family feel here and with the size of the school I knew I could get a lot of help academically.”
Family is important for Coyne, she credits her parents (and three brothers) as being her greatest inspiration and support. “My parents try to come to every single game, home and away. I love having them around.” This family support has taken on new meaning this season, Coyne’s last in college; her mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing treatment. “It’s hard,” says Coyne, “but it’s made me so much stronger – on the court, off the court, in the classroom.”
Coyne’s parents were in attendance for the Jan. 31 game against Cedar Crest, where Coyne dropped in a career-high 38 points, notching 2,000 on the nose on her final bucket in a 77-46 win. Reber said: “She had five assists in the first half of that game. She is always trying to get her teammates involved.”
Coyne isn’t focused on the past and she’s not taking time to revel in her accomplishments; there’s too much at stake in the future. “I just want to get all the records over with so we can come together as a team and make the playoffs.” Whatever happens, one thing’s for sure: Liz Coyne will always have a family at Rosemont College.
Regional ranking roundup
Things panned out pretty much as expected with the first week of regional rankings in the Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic. On the men’s side, things are already up in the air for next week, with Johns Hopkins, Dickinson, and Scranton losing in the Mid-Atlantic and Stockton, Paterson, Rutgers-Newark, Staten Island, and Misericordia all losing in the Atlantic.
On the women’s side, things, as usually, went by the book. The only Atlantic loss was by Rowan to Montclair. In the Mid-Atlantic, McDaniel lost to Muhlenberg and Mary Washington went down to Christopher Newport.
There are some major matchups to watch this week, though. Both the men’s and women’s teams from Brooklyn and Baruch play on the 17th, the Montclair women travel to Richard Stockton on the 18th, and for the men, Dickinson at Franklin and Marshall and Catholic at Scranton both happen on the 21st.
NJAC gauntlet claims more victims
Richard Stockton and William Paterson remain atop of the NJAC, but both suffered losses last week, two for Patterson. Third place Rutgers-Newark also went down in conference action. The two bye and six conference playoff teams are locked in, but with one day of conference play left, all six seeds are up for grabs.
Milestones
Lebanon Valley’s Kevin Agnew went over 1,500 points this week. Sheridan Taylor of Baruch got her 1,000th career rebound.
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If you have any feedback or story ideas (especially approaching milestones, which are sometimes hard to discover), please pass them along at ryan.scott@d3sports.com or @ryanalanscott on Twitter.
