NEW YORK | Top-seeded Manhattanville ended Farmingdale State’s three-year championship run last spring on the softball diamond.
The defending champion Valiants also end FSC’s run atop the preseason polls. The Rams were projected first in 2023. Manhattanville gets that honor heading into 2024 in voting conducted by the 10 conference head coaches.
Dale Martins’s Valiants received all nine possible first-place votes (institutions were not permitted to vote for their own teams) in the overall tally for 81 points following a season in which they went 38-5 overall and 18-0 in Skyline play.
Last spring, the Valiants (below) defeated No. 2 FSC in a pair of do-or-die Skyline Championship finals games. In the process, the Valiants earned their first Skyline Tournament title since 2007 after making runs to the finals each of the previous two seasons before falling just short.
St. Joseph’s-Brooklyn (52), Mount Saint Vincent (51) and Old Westbury (47) round out the top six.
The six-team 2024 Skyline Conference Softball Championship gets underway with first-round action on Tuesday, May 7, before the four-team, double-elimination portion of the tourney is contested from May 9-11.
The winner of the Skyline title earns automatic qualification to the following week's 2024 NCAA Division III Softball Championship.
2024 Skyline Conference Softball Preseason Coaches Poll
Pl., Team (2023 record, 2023 conference record), Pts. (first-place votes)
1. Manhattanville (38-5, 18-0 Skyline), 81 (9 first-place votes)
2. Farmingdale State (25-12, 15-3), 71
3. Mount Saint Mary (22-19, 12-6), 62 (1)
4. St. Joseph’s-Brooklyn (25-14, 13-5), 52
5. Mount Saint Vincent (21-15, 10-8), 51
6. Old Westbury (12-17, 10-8), 47
7. St. Joseph's-Long Island (7-23, 6-12), 34
8. Purchase (6-23, 4-14), 26
9. Sarah Lawrence (2-20, 2-16), 17
10. Yeshiva (2-29, 0-18), 9