Fairfield: “That’s maybe one of the headlines for this team. They found a way to win.”

MAAC-champion Fairfield opens NCAA Tournament play at 13th-seeded Purdue, which finished third in the Big Ten, on Thursday. Also in West Lafayette, Indiana, Ohio Valley-champion Eastern Illinois plays Marquette of the Big East. The winners play Friday. 

She also had a visiting professorship at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, that she enjoyed.

Then, last January, Todd Cress and assistant Melissa Batie-Smoose left Fairfield for San Jose State. Fairfield needed someone to guide the team in the interim.

At smaller Division I schools such as Fairfield, the coaching staff often consists of a head coach and an assistant. So when Cress and Batie-Smoose left, there wasn’t so much as a grad assistant to shepherd the Stags. It so happened that Batie-Smoose was acquainted with Somera, who worked with her husband, Michael, at Johnson & Wales. She approached Somera about possibly stepping in at Fairfield until a permanent hire could be made.

Somera agreed, working out a deal with Fairfield senior associate AD Alison Sexton to come in a couple of days a week from mid-January until spring break.

“Along the way, I’m talking with the administration about my observations and what I’m seeing,” Somera said. “And in one of those conversations, Alison Sexton … kind of jokingly says, ‘That sounds an awful lot like a coach. Are you sure you don’t want to coach this team?’

“I was kind of like, I’m good with what I’m doing.”

But there was something about being back in the gym. Being around the players. Teaching.

After some research, she found out Fairfield’s conference matches would be on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Yale, on the other hand, played its Ivy League matches Friday and Saturday nights.

So Somera could have the best of both…