Women’s Basketball Slated As Number Four In CCC Coaches Poll

2013-14 CCC Women's Basketball Coaches Poll

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) released their women's basketball coaches poll Thursday afternoon and Endicott has been selected as number four with 68 points. Reining conference champions, the University of New England has been tabbed as the favorite after receiving all 10 first place votes for a total of 100 points. Roger Williams and Salve Regina were slatted as the number two and three followed by the Blue and Green.

Voting for the preseason poll was conducted among the league's head women's basketball coaches.

The 2013-14 women's basketball team is ready to pick up where they left of last season after advancing to the Commonwealth Coast Conference semifinals and ECAC quarterfinals. The Gulls went 16-12 overall last season and are only looking to improve from there as they enter to the 2013-14 season under third year Head Coach Brittany Hutchinson.

The Blue and Green will be led by seniors Samantha Crough (Cohasset, Mass.) and Julie Manning (Hulls, Mass.) as team captains. Hutchinson reflects on their leadership qualities stating "They make a good match in their different leadership styles. Crough is quiet but passionate and Manning has a contagious personality as she is outgoing and boisterous, I think they will do a good job at complimenting each other in how they lead this team. They get what we are trying to do here and they work hard to get everyone on board."

The Gulls have a good group of veteran players as they only graduated one senior last year. They will welcome back last season's top two scorers Crough, who had 229 points and averaged 12.1 points per game and senior Jen White (Lisbon, N.H.) who earned 322 points. The squad will look to them to continue to use their abilities to shoot and get points on the board this season.

Following behind them, junior Kayleen Whall (Foxboro, Mass.) and Manning will look to be a force in the paint as they have continuously gotten better over the course of their careers.  Manning really stepped up big last season coming in off the bench and making an impact on the floor and will now look to be a key role in the Gulls offense and defense in terms of crashing the boards and earning buckets.

Senior Sarah Robinson (Norwich, Vt.) is taking on the point guard position full time entering the season after splitting time with recent graduate Jen McBrien (Medfield, Mass.) and averaging 23.4 minutes per game in 2012-13. Robinson is quick and will use her skills along with her knowledge of the game to create scoring opportunities for the Blue and Green.

Coach Hutchinson is excited to see her sophomore class excel as they have come into their own, "They have a year under their belts and know what we expect of them and realize their role on this team which is a great benefit to them and to the team. We have good 10-11 players that will see some significant minutes this season."

The Gulls will face a tough out of conference schedule with matchups against Bowdoin, Salem State, Emmanuel, Suffolk and Keene. Coach Hutchinson is hopeful that those games will only make the team better in the long run saying, "I want to establish ourselves in the region, were in a good location surrounded by a lot of top 25 teams and getting ourselves on the map is important. I schedule tough matches, so we can be tougher and get better."

In the CCC the Gulls will be contested but the squad is up for the challenge as they went 11-7 in the CCC last season while advancing to the semifinals. The Blue and Green expect to be a top competitor in the conference, "we are going to take it one day at a time, and if we do that we should be getting better every day and playing our best basketball in February. If we commit to being the best we can be than we will be successful" explains Hutchinson.

In the CCC the toughest competitions for Endicott will be against reining conference champions the University of New England, who was a regional power house last season and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament, the two will meet in the first game of the New Year on January 4^th in Gulls territory. Two days later on the 7^th the Blue and Green will be contested again as they face conference rival Salve Regina who split with the Gulls last year with one victory apiece.

The squad has all hands on deck this season and is ready to work and take the season one game at a time. Endicott is set to face Keene, MCLA and Green Mountain on the weekend of November 15^th in the Keene State Tournament to get the team prepared for the upcoming road ahead.