Women's Basketball Opens up 2011-12 Season at Home Against Molloy
North Andover, Mass. – The Merrimack women's basketball team will open their season on Saturday afternoon at 3 pm as they will host the visiting Molloy Lions in a non-conference battle. Saturday will be the first-ever contest between the two schools.
The Warriors are coming off a 2010-11 season where they finished with a record of 10-17 overall and an 8-14 mark inside the Northeast-10 conference. The Warriors made the Northeast-10 conference tournament as a #11 seed but they fell to #6 American Int'l in the first round 61-51.
The Warriors basketball team returns a solid core of players from last year's team, including leading scorer Gennifer Roy (Granby, Mass.) who averaged 12.1 per contest last season. Roy became the 18th player in school history last year to break the 1,000 point plateau. She finished off the season with 1,022 career points, which puts her 17th on the all-time list. Roy led the team in three point field goals and ranked second on the team with 42 steals.
Junior Kelly Schatzlein (Tolland, CT) paced the team last year with 6.6 rebounds per game and was also second on the team in points per game with 9.5. Schatzlein's presence on the inside was well known towards the end of the season as she led the team with 40 blocks on the season. Schatzlein also ranked third in the conference in field goal percentage with .466.
Junior Katie Ganser (Needham, Mass.) will serve as the teams co-captain along with Roy for the 2011-12 season after compiling 3.6 points per contest and 2.8 rebounds per game as a sophomore. Senior Valerie Avebe (Yaounde, Cameroon) returns to the Warriors to add some depth to the young front court. Avebe averaged 4.3 points per game, 3.6 rebounds per contest and 14 blocks last season in 24 games.
The Warriors added six players for the 2011-12 season, five rookies and a transfer. Jaclyn Lyons (Reading, Mass.) transfers to Merrimack after two seasons at the University of New Hampshire. Chloe Rothman (Newton, Mass.), Allison Wagner (Center Conway, NH), Angie Michalski (Sandwich, NH), Cassi Amenta (Lynn, Mass.) and Melissa Miller (North Andover, Mass.) are all entering their first collegiate season.
The Warriors are being led this year by first year head coach Monique LeBlanc who comes to Merrimack after three years at Northern Arizona University as an assistant coach. LeBlanc brings seven years of division I coaching experience to North Andover and four years of playing experience, including two years as a team captain, at Bucknell University.
LeBlanc is bringing in a pair of assistants to help improve the Merrimack Warriors basketball team, Julian Assibey and Blake DuDonis. Assibey came to the Warriors after three years as an assistant coach at Western State College of Colorado. DuDonis comes to Merrimack after two seasons as student assistsant coach at division I Gardner-Webb University.
Merrimack opens up its 2011-12 schedule with four straight games at home in North Andover, including two games against top 20 competition in Bentley and Franklin Pierce. The next six games for the Warriors will all be away from home as Merrimack won't return home again until January 3, 2012.
Five of the final six games for Merrimack will be played at Bert Hammel Court, including senior night against Southern New Hampshire at 1:30 pm on February 18. The Warriors will close out the season at conference foe Franklin Pierce February 21.
The Warriors held a conference record of 8-8 last season before dropping their final six conference contests and eventually a #11 seed in the Northeast-10 conference tournament.
