AE men’s basketball tourney moving to Binghamton arena

The America East men’s basketball tournament will shift locations from Boston to Vestal, N.Y., next year.

For the first time since the 10-team conference adopted its current playoff system – which involves a single site for all first round, quarterfinal and semifinal games and then a switch to the highest remaining seed’s home arena for the championship game – the tourney will be hosted by an arena outside of Boston or Delaware.

The tournament will take place March 4-6 at Binghamton University’s new, $33.1 million Events Center, which currently seats 4,660, but will expand to a capacity of 5,600 next season. The title game will be played Saturday, March 12 at the higher seed’s home court.

The University of Delaware hosted the entire tournament from 1996 to 2001. Northeastern University hosted in 2002 and Boston University’s Brown Arena was the host site the last two years.

The decision to switch the tourney’s location to Vestal was reached via a vote of the conference athletic directors.

St. Clair is player of year

Pittsfield native Andrew St. Clair has followed up a freshman season in which he was named Commonwealth Coast Conference rookie of the year with a sophomore season as the CCC’s player of the year.

St. Clair, who starred for Maine Central Institute, will have to make some room on his trophy shelf as he also was named an ECAC Division III New England All-Star honorable mention player, a second- team member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches All-Northeast Region team, a D3hoops.com All-Northeast Region third team member, and a New Hampshire Division III Men’s Basketball Coaches Association first-team member.

The sophomore captain led Colby-Sawyer College in scoring with 18.5 points per game, rebounding (10.3), blocks (2.1), steals (1.9), and field goal percentage (53.3). He is only 65 points shy of 1,000 after his second season. He was also selected as an Academic All-American men’s basketball college division All-District I second team selection.

Another former Maine high school star on the Colby-Sawyer roster is making his mark. Sophomore Tyler Putnam of Hodgdon became the program’s all-time blocks leader with 97.

The Chargers went 19-9 and advanced to the CCC tournament final before losing in double overtime.

Latendresse makes grade

Freshman Kelly Latendresse of Sidney was one of 10 players on the Stonehill College field hockey team to make the 2003 National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division II National Academic squad.

The Chieftains, who posted the third highest team cumulative grade point average in the country with a 3.27.

Latendresse was a standout student-athlete at Messalonskee High School in Oakland.

Women’s event has Maine touch

The recently completed NCAA Women’s Frozen Four also had some Maine connections.

Becky Wacker, a freshman forward from York, was a key player for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, who won their second Division I national championship in five years with a 6-2 victory over Harvard in the title game.

Wacker played in all of Minnesota’s 36 games, finishing fifth on the team with 14 goals and adding seven assists for a total of 21 points.

A 2003 graduate of York High School, Wacker was a two-year captain of the Wildcats’ boys hockey team, and as a senior amassed nine goals and 12 assists for 21 points.

She also was a key member of the Assabet Valley team that won the 2003 USA Hockey Under-19 women’s championship.

Wacker is coached at Minnesota by Laura Halldorsen, who last week was named the American Hockey Coaches Association Division I women’s hockey coach of the year. It marks the third time third time in seven years that honor has been earned by Halldorsen, who coached at Colby College in Waterville from 1989 to 1996 before taking the Minnesota post.