UMaine’s Ross nets AE All-Rookie honors Vermont star named player of the year

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – Tanna Ross’s freshman season with the University of Maine women’s basketball team ended in frustration with a right knee injury.

Thursday morning, the forward from Newburgh enjoyed a bit of postseason glory as she was named to the America East All-Rookie Team.

Ross was the only Black Bear to receive postseason recognition at the league’s annual awards brunch, which was held at the Basketball Hall of Fame in nearby Springfield, Mass.

America East handed out its postseason honors, with Vermont sophomore Courtnay Pilypaitis garnering player of the year recognition.

Catamounts teammate and classmate May Kotsopoulos was chosen the defensive player of the year, while New Hampshire’s Denise Beliveau was named rookie of the year.

Trina Patterson, who guided the University at Albany to a 12-17 record (10-6 in America East) and a No. 4 tournament seed after the Great Danes were picked to finish eighth in the conference preseason poll, was named coach of the year.

The 5-foot-11 Ross, who can be a prolific 3-point shooter, had an up-and-down rookie season for UMaine. She averaged 8.8 points and 3.2 rebounds per contest and shot 74 percent from the foul line.

In conference play, Ross appeared in 13 games, averaging 8 points and 3 rebounds while shooting 90 percent from the foul line.

However, Ross was plagued by her sore knee. She was limited to fewer than 20 minutes per game later in the season before sitting out the last three games.

Ross also did not play in Maine’s 64-58 loss to Stony Brook in the America East tournament Thursday night.

Ross scored a career-best 20 points and had eight rebounds in UMaine’s Jan. 23 victory over Boston University.

The All-America East first team included Pilypaitis, Danielle Hood and Erica Beverly of Hartford, Laine Kurpniece of Binghamton and Carlee Cassidy of Maryland Baltimore County.

Second-team honors went to Kotsopoulos and Amy Rosenkrantz of Vermont, Jesyka Burks-Wiley of Boston University, Gia Sanders of Albany and Diana Delva of Hartford, while the third team was composed of Kristin Higy of Albany, Laura Sario of Binghamton, Christine Kinneary of BU, Kristin Drabyn of UMBC and Stony Brook’s Dana Ferraro.

All-defensive honors went to Kotsopoulos, Amarachi Umez-Eronini of BU, Beverly, Sanders and Ferraro.

Joining Beliveau and Ross on the all-rookie squad were Janea Aiken of Albany, Meghan Colabella of UMBC and Kirsten Jeter of Stony Brook.

All-Academic honorees included Sanders, Cassidy, Beverly, Kotsopoulos and Rosenkrantz.

pwarner@bangordailynews.net

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