SPARKILL, N.Y. (Oct. 27, 2019) – St. Thomas Aquinas College Head Coach Kristen Sullivan announced her 2020 softball schedule today that will feature games against some of the top programs in the Northeast.

STAC will march into the 2020 season riding plenty of momentum. Last spring, the Spartans registered the program’s most successful season ever when they set a single-single record of 25 wins and earned their first post-season NCAA Division II berth since 2006. They recently completed another productive fall season, winning seven of 11 games.

Sullivan will now challenge her club with one of the most demanding schedules in the 36-year history of the program. The Spartans will face a 46-game slate that will include a 12-game, 10-day road trip to Clermont, Florida that begins on March 5. Seven 2020 opponents won 30 games or more in 2019 and teams hail from eight states as far away as Iowa and Missouri.

“We reached a new level of success last year and I think it is important to play the best competition available as we continue our quest to establish ourselves as a top program,” said Sullivan. “Our NCAA East Region ranking last season was a direct result of our success against quality opponents. We grow a lot as a unit by playing against good teams.”

In Florida, STAC will face six teams from the highly regarded Northeast-10 Conference, including powerhouse St. Anselm College, which finished 41-10 last season on its way to a conference championship after it advanced all the way to the Division II National Championship game in 2018. Two-time national champion University of California at Pennsylvania is another Florida opponent.

“The Florida trip is always one of the highlights of the season,” said Sullivan. “We bond as a unit and play against teams with many different styles of play. It’s an ideal way to prepare for the all-important conference games.”

The Spartans will again compete in the East Coast Conference, which will be without perennial power LIU Post after the program was merged into LIU Brooklyn. STAC’s league competition will kick off on March 28 with a home doubleheader against Queens College. Defending conference champion University of Bridgeport and New York Institute of Technology are expected to field strong teams in 2020.

Other good non-conference foes in 2020 include Caldwell University, Adelphi University, rival Dominican College and the University of New Haven.