Coaches pick Maine women to finish first in America East

BOSTON – For the second year in a row, the University of Maine women’s basketball team was picked to win the America East Conference regular-season title in a preseason poll of the league’s head coaches.

The Black Bears received five first-place votes and racked up 72 points, edging Boston University by one point in the preseason rankings.

The UMaine men, meanwhile, were picked to finish third behind defending champion Vermont and BU.

Neither Maine team placed any players on the preseason all-conference squads.

The team selection was a strong vote of confidence for coach Sharon Versyp’s Bears, who graduated three starters from last year’s America East tournament championship squad.

Senior guards Missy Traversi and Kim Corbitt are returning starters from last year’s team which went 25-7 (17-1 in America East) en route to its seventh conference tournament championship. The Bears have amassed a 33-1 conference record in two years, which is the best of any men’s or women’s squad in the league.

The Black Bear women garnered nine first-place votes and 81 points last year.

The BU women earned three first-place votes to finish in second place, followed by Hartford with 64 points and a nod for first. Northeastern was picked fourth, followed by Binghamton, Albany, Vermont, New Hampshire, Stony Brook and University of Maryland Baltimore County.

The women’s preseason all-conference team includes Binghamton’s Rachel Laws, BU’s Adrienne Norris, Erika Messam of Hartford, Maralene Zwarich of Northeastern and Albany’s Danielle Hutcheson. Laws and Hutcheson were unanimous selections.

New UMaine men’s coach Ted Woodward will guide a Bear team that returns four of the five starters who played on a team that made it to the conference championship game. Kevin Reed, Mark Flavin, Freddy Petkus and Joe Campbell of Bangor all return, as does Chris Markwood, who appeared in 24 games last year.

The rest of the men’s preseason all-conference poll includes Northeastern in fourth place, followed by Binghamton, Hartford, Stony Brook, Albany, New Hampshire and UMBC.

Taylor Coppenrath of Vermont and Northeastern’s Jose Juan Barea were unanimous selections to the men’s preseason all-conference squad. Other picks were Binghamton’s Nick Billings, BU’s Chaz Carr and Coppenrath’s Vermont teammate T.J. Sorrentine.