Winners’ Circle

Conference champions. Automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Individual gold medal winners. All-Conference selections. Coaching milestone.

April 26-28 was a weekend to remember for the Suffolk Athletics program as a number of teams and student athletes, along with one head coach, raised their games to another level on the course, the track, and the field.

Leading this parade of athletic success is the Suffolk women’s golf team, which captured the 2024 Northeast Women’s Golf Conference (NWGC) championship on April 28 in Rexford, New York. In addition to winning the NWGC title for the second time in program history (first since capturing the inaugural title in 2019), the team earned its first-ever automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Women’s Gold Championship, to be held May 21-24 in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

“Winning the conference championship and qualifying for the NCAA tournament has always been our No. 1 goal,” said Head Coach Jay Parker, whose team is comprised of seniors Sophie Kiley, Isabel Smith, and Ellie Yarbrough, sophomore Ella Torsleff, and freshman Brooke Bugajewski. “Going into the weekend, we knew if we executed well, we could win this thing.”

Team captain Yarbrough—who Parker calls “the best golfer I’ve ever coached”—led the way for the Rams and secured individual medalist honors with a two-round score of 152. She credits her outstanding performance to being prepared, confident, and having the support of her teammates.

“We have a great team dynamic and are so authentic to one another,” says Yarbrough, a biology major from Lake Oswego, Oregon. “We’re united on and off the course and are always helping each other out. This weekend was the greatest team and individual accomplishment I’ve been a part of at Suffolk.”

Track & Field

For the second straight season, the Suffolk women’s outdoor track & field squad finished second at the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) championships, held April 26 -27 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

The Rams tied a program-best finish at the conference championship event with 130 points, finishing behind Endicott College’s total of 152. Suffolk student-athletes captured five gold medals in five events (4x100, 4x400, 400, pole vault, and long jump). The Rams’ student-athletes who finished in the top three were selected to the conference’s first, second, and third teams. The Suffolk men’s outdoor track & field team also competed at the CCC championships in Portsmouth, with three members of the squad collecting All-CCC honors.

Baseball

Switching gears from the track to the diamond, Suffolk Head Baseball Coach Anthony Del Prete, BS, ’05, MEd, ’09, won his 200th game in a Rams’ 8-5 nightcap victory over Curry College on April 27, securing a CCC doubleheader home sweep of the Colonels.

Del Prete, who is in his 10th year as the Suffolk skipper, is also associate director of athletics. He is the third coach in Suffolk baseball history to capture 200 wins, joining Director of Athletics Cary McConnell (479-275-4 over 19 seasons from 1996-2014) and the late Joe Walsh (222-84-1 over 15 years from 1981-95).