By Tom DiCamillo, Commissioner
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – April 1 has been circled for more than a month as the day softball returns to the State University of New York Athletic Conference; so, why not throw in a little spring snow across New York on the one day where trickery and clichés reign supreme.
After the pandemic wiped out the 2020 softball season, the SUNYAC decided to play its own April Fool's Day joke on Mother Nature by officially moving up the return of softball to Tuesday, March 30, when Buffalo State will host Brockport and Plattsburgh will welcome Potsdam.
The relentless planning that began in November was a team effort that will culminate in opening day.
"The SUNYAC continues to be on the forefront of collaboration amongst its leaders and institutional colleagues," George Gagnier, the assistant director of athletics at Geneseo said. "As the chair of the SUNYAC Softball Operational Planning Committee, I witnessed firsthand a group of talented athletic administrators and support personnel focused collectively on providing this opportunity to the student-athletes of not just their particular institutions, but the entire conference, through a process of creative, critical thinking and problem solving."
SUNYAC softball will have an interesting look to its structure for the 2021 season with the conference divided into two divisions. The 16-game schedule will feature eight doubleheaders in a divisional round-robin format to reduce travel with no countable interdivisional league crossover games. Teams may schedule non-conference contests with the opposite division at their discretion.
The East features Cortland, New Paltz, Oneonta, Plattsburgh and Potsdam, while the West consists of Brockport, Buffalo State, Fredonia, Geneseo and Oswego.
"COVID has brought so many changes to our lives, but one thing that hasn't changed is our love for the game," New Paltz junior SS Julia Mastrup (Shirley, NY/William Floyd) said. "I am beyond excited to have a season and compete with my teammates for a SUNYAC championship."
Mastrup's Hawks will open their conference schedule on Wednesday, April 7, at Cortland.
The post-season will consist of the top two teams in each division with the number one seeds hosting the number two seeds from the opposite division on Saturday, May 8, in a best-of-three, single-day semifinal series.
The best-of-three championship series will be held on Saturday, May 15, at the highest remaining seed. If the seeds are equal then the East will host the championship series based on a five-year formula of past conference champions that gives the division a 4-1 edge.
The SUNYAC has built-in additional tiebreakers, as well as plans to address scenarios where teams have played an inequitable number of games.
Unfortunately, there are no spectators at SUNYAC contests this spring as visitors are not permitted on campuses; however, all baseball games are being streamed live by conference member institutions.
"Coming into this season, no one knew what to expect and I was fearful that my second season of softball would be cancelled," New Paltz sophomore OF/C Jessica Graepel (Woodmere, NY/Lynbrook) explained. "Now knowing that we are able to play, I am more than excited. I am just so happy that I can step on the field with my teammates and be able to perform because it is finally a sense of normalcy."