MSMC Knights

Knights snag second place at Skyline Conference Championship

It was a classic David and Goliathstyle contest when the Knights Women’s Soccer team took on the top seeded Farmingdale State Rams in the 2021 Skyline Conference Championship Final.

The Knights fought hard, but suffered a 2-0 loss as Farmingdale State won its fifth straight conference championship and its 12th in the last 13 seasons. The Knights came home with second in the Skyline Conference Championship.

The game marked the Knights’ 10th trip to the conference championship final in the last 11 seasons, and the ninth time the two sides have met with the conference crown on the line.

Neither team made a goal in the first 70 minutes of the game, then Farmingdale State broke the ice with the game-winning goal. They added an insurance goal with less than three minutes left in regulation time.

For the Knights, Christina Kakavas of Hopewell Junction, N.Y. finished the afternoon with five saves in goal. Meanwhile, Lauren Engel of Red Hook, N.Y. took half of the Mount’s four shots in the game, with both attempts on target.

After producing a 2-0 win over Sarah Lawrence in the first round and a tight 1-0 win over Manhattanville in the Semifinal Round of the 2021 Skyline Conference Championship, the loss brought the team’s record to 11-7-2 overall for the season.

Volleyball duo earn Skyline accolades

A pair of players on the Women’s Volleyball team were honored with All-Skyline Conference recognition: Grace Riddle of Wantagh, N.Y., a junior, earned First Team All-Conference honors and was voted the league’s Player of the Year by the head coaches, while Francesca Cammarata of Carmel, N.Y. was named Second Team All-Skyline Conference.

Riddle had one of the most productive seasons in program history in 2021, finishing the year with 451 kills, 72 service aces, 324 digs, and 27 total blocks. Riddle closed the season as the Skyline Conference leader in both total kills and kills per set (4.25) while ranking second in total service aces and fifth in digs. On the national stage, Riddle ranks sixth in points per set (5.08) and total kills, seventh in service aces, and 11th in kills per set.

Riddle established the three set, single match record for kills with 24 against St. Joseph’s-Brooklyn. In a tight 3-2 loss to Mount Saint Vincent in the First Round of the Skyline Conference Championship, Riddle put away 19 kills and added nine digs, setting a new single season record for winners, breaking the previous mark for 2007 by a single kill. In addition to her Player of the Year citation, Riddle was also named to the league’s All-Sportsmanship Team.

Cammarata rounded out the season with 740 assists for the Knights, averaging 7.71 helpers per set. Cammarata finished off a solid allaround season tied for fourth on the team in service aces with 31 and fifth on the team with 227 digs.

She closed the year ranked first in the Skyline Conference in total assists and second in assists per set. Cammarata handed out at least 20 assists in 22 matches in 2021, including a career-high 49 helpers against Russell Sage College in September.

The Mount closed the 2021 season with a 14-15 overall record and a 7-4 mark in Skyline Conference play, earning a berth in the Skyline Conference Championship for the 14th straight season.

Riddle Cammarata

Barrett runs to program best at ECAC Championship

Kenneth Barrett of Wantagh, N.Y., a senior, closed out his Mount athletics career strong, posting the best individual performance in program history at the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship with a ninth-place finish.

The finish garnered Barrett AllECAC accolades for the second time in his career.

Barrett completed the 8K course at the Hudson Valley SportsDome in a time of 28:58.7 to collect the top 10 finish in a field of 71 runners. In doing so, he broke the previous program mark of 14th place, which he set as a freshman in 2018 with a time of 31:21.7.

In the final race of his Mount career, Barrett finished one of the finest three-year stretches in Men’s Cross Country program history after earning First Team All-Skyline Conference accolades three times and All-ECAC honors twice. Barrett holds the program’s best individual finishes at both championships, placing third at the Skyline meet in 2018 and ninth at the ECAC meet.

The Mount also received a strong run from Christian Pangione of Edgewater, N.J., who ran to a time of 36:21.4. The run was good for the 55th position overall. Five outstanding athletes were inducted into the Mount’s 2021 Athletic Hall of Fame. Vinnie Carminati ’14 MBA ’15 hit .377 over 451 at-bats during his career as a Knight, and totaled 170 hits. After graduating, he began working at Essensys, a software company. Carminati and his fiancé are set to be married in May of 2022.

Chelsea Dexter ’16 led the softball program to the top of the Skyline Conference and drove in the game-winning run in the Mount’s first NCAA Tournament victory. She was named All-Skyline Conference twice. Dexter is currently an RN at Garnet Medical Center in Middletown, N.Y.

Donte Howell ’14 matched the basketball program record for wins in a season with 23 and claimed the ECAC Championship title. He scored a total of 1,235 points in his career. Howell teaches physical education at Democracy Prep Endurance High School in NYC and coaches the school’s basketball team.

Sean Lockwood ’14 MBA ’15 turned the Men’s Soccer program into a Skyline Conference contender and led the team to its first Skyline Conference title. Lockwood, an associate at Goldman Sachs, resides in Jersey City with his fiancé Tara McDermott, a 2019 Mount Hall of Fame inductee.

Kaileen Spadaro ’13 was on the Mount’s first Women’s Lacrosse team. She helped lead the Knights to the Skyline Conference Tournament in their first season and she finished the year ranked 50th nationally in goals per game. Spadaro teaches third grade and coaches youth lacrosse in her home town of Islip, N.Y.

Mount Athletic Director Drew Brown, left, helped induct the college’s newest Hall of Fame class (left to right) Vinnie Carminati, Kaileen Spadaro, Chelsea Dexter, Donte Howell, and Sean Lockwood.