In the preceding two decades before the State University of New York at New Paltz women's basketball coach Jamie Seward took the reins of the Hawks in 2006, eight different coaches had managed to squeeze just 154 wins out of 514 total games, with just two seasons over .500. The Hawks' SUNYAC record was equally as dismal -- only 75 wins in 324 games with no single season even approaching the .500 mark. Fourteen seasons and 321 wins overall and 182 SUNYAC wins later, Seward has been named as the SUNYAC All-Decade Coach of the Year.
 
In the last 10 years, Seward has guided his teams to conference, regional and national recognition, ending the 2019-20 season ranked No. 1 in the East; his 2018-19 team was ranked by the WBCA at No. 20 and by D3hoops.com at No. 23 in the nation. He has led the Hawks to an outstanding 134-46 SUNYAC record and an equally impressive 250-88 overall mark. Seward's teams have finished the regular conference season in first place four times, second place twice and third place twice. His 2018-19 and 2019-20 teams finished the regular season with identical 17-1 conference records – both all-time bests in program history. 
 
With the exception of one season, Seward's teams have appeared in nine SUNYAC Tournaments, finishing as a semifinalist three times, a finalist once, and have been SUNYAC Tournament champions five times, including consecutive championships in 2015-16 and 2016-17 as well as 2018-19 and 2019-20.
 
Winning the SUNYAC tournament has led Seward and his program into the NCAA DIII tournament five times, with SUNY New Paltz reaching the NCAA Second Round three times and the NCAA DIII Sweet 16 twice.
 
In the decade that just ended, Seward has coached one SUNYAC Player of the Year, eight All-SUNYAC First Team players, nine All-SUNYAC Second Team players and four All SUNYAC Third Team/Honorable Mention selections. Five of his players have earned SUNYAC Tournament MVP honors, with 10 named as SUNYAC All-Tournament picks.
 
Three of Seward's players have been named as D3hoops.com All-East selections, one at First Team, two at Second Team. Five Seward proteges have earned All-American honors: one as a D3hoops.com Third Team pick and four as WBCA Honorable Mention selections.
 
As for Seward himself, he has been the SUNYAC Coach of the Year in 2012-13 and 2018-19, Russell Athletic/WBCA NCAA DIII Region 2 Coach of the Year for the 2012-13 season and D3hoops.com All-East Region Coach of the Year for 2018-19.
 
"Jamie is one of the best coaches I've ever come across in any sport," Interim SUNY New Paltz Athletics Director and Hawks women's volleyball coach Matt Guifre said about his longtime colleague. "His ability to recruit and mold the style of play to fit his personnel is remarkable. More importantly, Jamie understands basketball is a vehicle to mentor his student-athletes and help them grow as young people. Jamie's student-athletes carry themselves with confidence and class. Through Jamie's leadership, New Paltz women's basketball is truly a model program for our department."
 
The SUNYAC released its women's basketball All-Decade selections through a press release Wednesday with Seward honored, rightfully, winning half the championships over the 10-year span, as the Coach of the Decade, while coaching three Hawks onto the prestigious team which included 2019 alumnae Lindsay Bettke and Rachel Simon and 2017 alumna Kit Small, who joined 12 others. The All-Decade teams were voted on by all 10 Sports Information Directors from SUNYAC member institutions. To view the full SUNYAC press release, click here.
 
Read more about each of the Hawks' All-Decade selections below:

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What do Kit Small, Lindsay Bettke and Rachel Simon have in common? Well, besides being named to the SUNYAC All-Decade Women's Basketball, they were fierce competitors when they played for the New Paltz Hawks. And perhaps 'fierce competitor' is a statement as their biographies will attest.

 
Lindsay Bettke (2015-2019)
Guard
Pelham, NY/The Ursuline School

When SUNY New Paltz women's basketball fans think of who the toughest Hawks player ever was, their thoughts will go immediately to Lindsay Bettke. Although she came from Westchester basketball power The Ursuline School and did earn All-Section 1 Honorable Mention honors her senior year, it may have been her 5-foot, 4-inch stature that turned many college recruiters away from her. Yet SUNY New Paltz coach Jaimie Seward saw something beyond stats and figures, he saw the heart of a champion in the making.

"Lindsay was another lightly recruited player, but it didn't take long for everyone to realize how special she was. As a freshman, early on, she hadn't yet cracked the playing rotation, but I remember working her out with assistant coach Shanay Bradley and saying, 'this kid is going to score so many points here.' A few weeks later, a couple of player injuries and Lindsay's burgeoning play in practice gave her her first real opportunity and she didn't disappoint," Seward recalled. "She scored 20 points at Brockport and 12 more, including the game-winning 3-pointner at Geneseo the next day. From there she just continued to soar."

It wasn't too long in her freshman year that the Hawks coaching staff saw they had something special in Bettke. She out-worked and out-hustled everyone in practice and in her initial brief appearances in games. By the midpoint of her freshman season, after putting up a stellar, 4-for-4 3-point shooting performance in an away victory over arch-rival SUNY Geneseo, she had cracked the starting rotation and gave notice to everyone that she was a force to be dealt with for the next four years. She helped lead SUNY New Paltz to a SUNYAC Championship and a trip to the NCAA DIII Tournament during her first season, and as a sophomore built off a solid freshman campaign by aiding the program to a back-to-back SUNYAC Championship-winning season and the program's first trip to the NCAA Sweet 16. During her breakout 2015-16 campaign, Bettke scored 345 points, hitting double figures in 17 of 29 games, was named All-SUNYAC Second Team and SUNYAC Tournament MVP.

"In her first NCAA tournament appearance as a freshman she put the DIII world on notice by scoring 20 points. This was a harbinger of things to come because, above all else, Lindsay LIVED for the big games," Seward said. "The tougher the opponent, the bigger the game, the more hostile the crowd, the better she played. Her crowd silencing MVP performance her sophomore year in the SUNYAC Championship, followed up by a similar performance in front of a similarly rowdy crowd in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in a win over Ithaca were the first of many examples of her big-game persona. Any time the game got big, Lindsay, despite being only 5'4, got bigger. She had a swagger that carried over to her teammates and she made fans wherever she played."

Junior year, Bettke finished with 287 points and helped the Hawks to a SUNYAC Tournament semifinals appearance, while earning her first trip to the All-SUNYAC First-Team. She ended her career with her best season as a freshman, duplicating the team's success two years prior and guiding the Hawks to another SUNYAC Championship and its second trip into the NCAA Sweet 16. She was awarded a myriad of honors including, All-SUNYAC First Team, became the first player in program history to be named SUNYAC Player of the Year, D3hoops.com All-East Region First Team, D3hoops.com All American Third Team and WBCA All-American Honorable Mention and topped off her playing career by earning a spot on the first-ever Beyond Sports DIII Senior All-Star Game.

At SUNY New Paltz was named as the Carol Eckman Award recipient, as the top female student-athlete. She finished her career with 1,224 points for third in the all-time career scoring record, 214 assists (10th all-time in program history) and 271 rebounds (remember she is 5'4). Her 4590-point senior season put her at No. 2 on the single season points mark and for her career, she hit more than a third of her three-points shot (35.8%) to land her in the top-10 of SUNY New Paltz marksmen.

 
Rachel Simon (2017-2019)
Guard
Wallkill, NY/Wallkill Senior High School

Simon's varsity coach at Wallkill High school A.J. Higby described the 5'9 guard as a 'take charge leader' and that her teammates called her 'selfless.' She desperately wanted to play in the Panthers' 2015 intersectional tournament final despite tearing her ACL four days earlier. For the career 1,074-point scorer, it would be her first varsity game missed. Just prior to her knee surgery, she simply declared, 'I'll shoot again,' and for the two-time Hudson Valley's Girl's Basketball Player of the Year (among other accolades) that she did.

Fast forward to fall 2017. After a two-year collegiate sojourn to New Jersey, Simon came home, transferring to SUNY New Paltz. Her impact was immediate, she was back and with a vengeance. She started all 27 games in her first year with the Hawks and scored 386 points, shooting 40.1 percent from the 3-point line. She had six 20-plus point games and helped the team to the SUNYAC Tournament semifinals. She was named team MVP, was named to her first of two All-SUNYAC First-Team selections and was a D3Hoops.com All-East Region Third Team recipient. At the end of the year, she was named as the SUNY New Paltz Carol Eckman Award winner, as the College's top female student-athlete -- and Simon was only beginning.

The Wallkill, NY product started all 29 games her senior year. She totaled for 521 points, while shooting a staggering 40.6 percent from the 3-point line. Her 91 3-pointers were good for fourth in the nation. She hit 20-plust points in 10 games, including 30 against Buffalo State and landed in double figures in 28 of 29 games. She led the Hawks to a SUNYAC Championship title and a trip to the NCAA DIII Sweet 16, and was against named All SUNYAC First Team, while also earning SUNYAC All-Tournament team honors. Simon scooped up her second D3Hoops.com All-East Region nod, this time grabbing a spot on Second-Team and joined fellow teammate Bettke, as a WBCA All-American honorable mention selection.

Simon landed in nine different NCAA DIII season final categories and despite only playing two years at SUNY New Paltz, she hit for a career 907 points, good enough for 10th all-time. And in the meanwhile, the former four-time high school scholar-athlete repeated her academic achievement, also being named to the SUNYAC Commissioner's List.


 
Kit Small (2013-2017)
Guard/Forward
Slingerlands, NY/Academy of the Holy Names

KIt Small knew how to win. Her Academy of the Holy Names team won 55 games against just five losses in her three varsity years. The team won the Colonial Council title two of those years and during the 2012-13 season were listed as the No. 13 ranked team in New York State Class A after posting a 20-1 record. Small wasn't the leading scorer on the team but did aid in the successful run and did earn Second-Team Colonial Council honors as a senior. Once entering the Hawks program as a freshman in 2013, she built confidence in her nascent abilities by her college coach, Jaimie Seward and combined with her own determination to excel, she entered her next level of athletic excellence.

"Kit came in with what we felt was the best recruiting class we had ever put together, even if almost no one else recruited her... Nevertheless, Kit distinguished herself early and often by winning just about every competition put in front of her and before long, she was clearly not only the best player in that class but arguably the best player in program history," Seward said. "She did so because she is one of the most competitive and most driven people I have known. Kit wanted to win anything and everything, from shooting contests to board games... Every year she came back with another tool or two that she added to her game during the off-season. More Importantly, Kit left an indelible mark on the program and every player she played with and set the standard for what being a New Paltz women's basketball player means."

One more step... in her junior year, Small was the catalyst. She led her team in scoring and assists en route to bringing SUNY New Paltz a SUNYAC Championship title and a trip into the NCAA DIII tournament, all the while earning team MVP, All-SUNYAC First-Team and SUNYAC All-Tournament team honors. Then the culmination of her career fittingly came together during her final season as a Hawk. All of her determined dedication and hard work through four seasons ended with another SUNYAC Championship and the program's first trip to the NCAA Sweet 16. Small instigated the run and finished the year pacing the Hawks in points (371), points per game (12.8), rebounds (166), assists (82) and steals (58). She was named team MVP for the fourth time, All-SUNYAC First-Team and SUNYAC All-Tournament team for the second-straight season, earned her first trip to the D3Hoops.com All-East Region Second Team and became the first player in program history to notch All-America honors, named WBCA All-American honorable mention.

Small left her mark on New Paltz women's basketball history, standing first in career scoring with 1,344 points, fourth in rebounds with 622, eighth in assists with 221 and eighth in blocks with 58. To add to her athletic process, Small was a three-time SUNYAC Commissioner's Academic List honoree and was named the SUNYAC Co-Winter Scholar Athlete of the- Year. She was inducted into the Chi Alpha Sigma National Honor Society, earned the SUNY New Paltz Leadership Award, and capped off her New Paltz career being awarded the College's highest student-athletic honor as the Heinz Ahlmeyer, Jr. Award recipient.


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