Giorgis embracing challenge of reloading at Marist in wide-open MAAC

MAAC championship game loss and four transfers may drop Marist in the eyes of critics, but Brian Giorgis and Red Foxes are committed to not just competing, but still winning. (Photo courtesy of the New York Daily News)

Over the last twelve years, defeat has not been a regular word in the lexicon of Marist women's basketball.

So it was, then, that after a valiant effort against Quinnipiac in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship came up just short this past March, some may have wondered whether the loss signified the end of an era that saw the Red Foxes' nine-year championship streak, and ten in eleven years, come to an end. An opening round loss in the WNIT, coupled with the transfers of four student-athletes; highlighted by sharpshooter Madeline Blais, who figured to be the face of the team going into her senior season, served as even further speculation that the road reached its demise.

But after twelve years of authoring one of the nation's premier success stories at the mid-major level, Marist is not throwing in the towel just yet. In fact, the man in charge of the dynasty is eager to accept his latest; and arguably biggest, dose of adversity.

"I think it would be fair to say that it would be a big challenge," Brian Giorgis said when addressing his team's ability to contend once again. "Whether Tori (Jarosz) gets her sixth year or not, we'll have a lot of inexperience."

Should Jarosz, who battled injuries throughout her career before finally blossoming into a first team all-MAAC selection during a healthy 2014-15 season, be granted a final year of eligibility, her return will instantly bolster the Red Foxes' chances in a conference that features several formidable teams. If not, although Marist will be significantly younger, the experience is not grossly lacking, with six returning players joining five freshmen to form one of Giorgis' more diverse rosters since making the jump to the college ranks in 2002.

"Maura Fitzpatrick just really gives us an element that is really pretty special as far as both ends of the floor," Giorgis said of one of his quintet of freshmen, who arrives from Mercy High School in Connecticut. "The ability to defend, very athletic, she can do a lot of things well." Morgan Bartner, a 6-2 forward from New Jersey, is described by her new coach as "the epitome of what we want our stretch fours to do." North Dakota native Jordyn Jossart was lauded by Giorgis as "maybe the best three-point shooting point guard since I've been here," and the Poughkeepsie legend welcomes some international flavor to McCann Arena as well, in the form of Swedish guard Rebecka Garderyd and Icelandic forward Louisa Bjort Henningsdottir.

Leading the way will be senior guard Sydney Coffey, the Most Valuable Player of the MAAC Tournament as a sophomore in 2014, and still among the most versatile players on the roster, one who could play and defend four different positions at a given time over a stellar career that will go down in the annals along with some of the best Red Foxes of the last decade.

"She's going to have to take much more of a leadership role," her coach candidly suggested. "Whereas she has been a leader, but more of a quiet leader, she's going to have to be more of a vocal leader this year. She sometimes likes to blend, and we may have to ask her to do a little bit more, especially on the offensive end, but she's right on the line with Erica, (Allenspach) Julianne Viani, Corielle Yarde, et cetera."

Adamant that his team is still a force to be reckoned with, Giorgis made no bones of hiding that notion when scheduling this season, with Big East powers St. John's and Creighton on the ledger before league play begins, not to mention a potential showdown with a Dayton team that had eventual national champion Connecticut on the ropes in the Elite Eight during the Gulf Coast Classic in Florida. With a slate that will surely forge Marist into a battle-tested unit by January, when league play resumes, the Red Foxes will enter into a MAAC that is anybody's game, arguably ready for all comers based solely on what they will have endured just to get to that stage.

"I don't think there is one team," Giorgis said in contrast to last year, where Quinnipiac was head and shoulders above the rest of the league. "Fairfield may be one, but I think the conference is really going to be balanced top to bottom."

"Every year, we go in trying to, and expecting to, compete for a championship," he reiterated with regard to the infusion of additional youth. "It'll just be a harder means, and maybe a different way of trying to achieve that goal, but that goal's not going to change. We're not going to run away from it. We're going to face the challenge head on, and get after them."