The Vision.

Saturday was just another example of that vision that over the last three decades many have had for the Rivier University athletic program.

At Raider Diamond, the Great Northeast Athletic Conference Softball Tourney Pod Play A was taking place, thanks to the fact the Raiders were the North Division’s top seed. Look just down below, still at the Linda Robinson Pavilion high above Nashua, and Raider men’s lacrosse was playing in its first ever GNAC championship game.

Clearly, Rivier was the place to be on a warm, humid, tropical Saturday. Unfortunately softball was eliminated, but the Raiders captured their first ever lacrosse title in front of an incredible packed crowd at Joanne Merrill Field, the facility named after its former longtime athletic director, one of those who had that vision. The Vision.

Men’s lacrosse used to be played before a handful of fans siting on small bleaches or in lawnchairs. Now they play at a proverbial place, a fitting place to win a title.

“Build it, and they will come,” 14-year Raiders coach Jay DeLanoy said.

And they will win, because DeLanoy built a program, turning men’s lacrosse into a much more serious deal when he first took over in 2010.

“It’s a culmination of everything the University’s doing, the positive direction the University’s been going (in),” DeLanoy said. “Since the day I got here, everything in some way every year has improved at this university.”

His team won the school’s first GNAC title since men’s volleyball in 2019. Before that, softball won in 2010, and probably the most celebrated crown was men’s hoop in 2007, also won at home in a packed Muldoon Center.

In these eyes, Saturday was the next most memorable day on campus since. A day – crazy as it was with two lightning delays and a medical emergency on runnerup Lasell’s sideline – that will be part of school lore forever.

A day that current AD Jonathan Harper envisioned.

“This is an unbelievable feeling,” Harper said. “I’m just so happy for the student athletes and the coaches. Everybody worked so hard behind the scenes to do more things correctly, and when you do so, you can’t help but win.”

DeLanoy has worked as hard as can be over the last 14 years to take the program to new levels. Year by year. Recruit by recruit. Make the tournament was one goal. Then it was host a tournament game. Then win that home tourney game (three years ago in double OT vs. Emmanuel, another memorable day). Then win a championship.

He had to recruit the key players – the group he’s had for five years that stuck together through COVID,then tourney upset losses at home, first in the quarterfinals to Saint Joe’s (Conn.) two years ago to Dean College in the semis last year.

Now they’ve won a championship at home with a group of talented players, in front of the same packed house that went crazy when they beat Emmanuel in the quarters three years ago.

But he had to get those players.

“Everything what this University offers as a university helps me recruit,” DeLanoy said.

The stands at Joanne Merrill Field were packed Saturday for the GNAC Men’s Lacrosse Champonship Game. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

The bar has been set high. Heck, Rivier women’s hockey made it to the MASCAC championship game two months ago, losing a heartbreaker in four overtimes at Plymouth State, second longest Division III women’s hockey game ever.

Lacrosse won for all those teams.

“This is the start of the expectation for all the programs,” Harper said. “Men’s lacrosse had to break the finish line, and they did today. And now they’re setting the example for the rest of the other 14 programs.”

And create such an incredible atmosphere. Nashua, before these last few years, you haven’t experienced an event like these lacrosse postseason games before. You haven’t experienced a college talent like women’s hoop star Lyric Grumblatt, two time GNAC Player of the Year and one of New England’s best who leaves as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

This is what’s been here.

“This is what we expect,” Harper said. “We expect the kids to work hard, we expect the coaches to work hard. We expect the administration to show up and support. We expect our unbelievable fans to come out today from the community, and from the school, and the faculty who were here. If you can’t get juiced up for that, I don’t know what gets you going.”

We knew it would be a memorable day. It will be a memorable moment tonight when the lacrosse team gathers to watch the streamed NCAA Selection Show to find out when and where they play in the Division III tourney (it may even be here in Nashua). Just like it was a memorable day when men’s basketball went to Keene State to play in the NCAA tourney back in 2007.

But it’s been too much of a gap between those days. That’s why Saturday was so important. And if you couldn’t feel happy for a guy like DeLanoy and his coaches and players, well…

“It’s a big day for Rivier,” Harper said. “But it’s the start of something big.”

Tom King can be reached at

tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X @Telegraph _TomK.