Hawks Open Season Saturday 11/15

Hello again everyone. UHA opens this Saturday at 2:00 at home against Dartmouth. We are expecting a challenging 08-09 season with games against 3 of the top 10 teams in the country (UConn, Duke and Louisville) and 3 more top 25 teams. The Hawks are feeling the disrespect having been picked to finish 2nd in the America East Conference after 4 consecutive first place finishes. In the preseason coaches poll Vermont was picked to finish first, but they'll still have to come to Chase Arena for the America East Championship in 2009.

There will be plenty of opportunities to catch the Hawks on television this year, with 5 or more games on NESN, one on CSN and one nationally televised game on ESPN2 with Marist. In addition, every game will be broadcast on WWUH radio. Although their signal is weaker than a walkie-talkie, you can listen live on their web site at http://wwuh.org/

An excellent resource for Hawks info, schedules events and photos is the recently redesigned Hartford Hawks Flight Zone Fan Club site at http://www.flightzone.org/.

And coming up Friday, 11/14 on NESN at 9:00 PM is the always exciting Jen Rizzotti coaches show. Each episode features different players and you can usually get a glimpse of Mary during various segments. Is it worth staying home for or TiVo'ing? Well with outstanding production values and compelling storylines it's quality TV at it's best. So good in fact, it will be repeated several times until both viewers watch it.

Upcoming schedule can be found in the links at left and includes a Tuesday (11/18) night game at home vs. Providence followed by a weekend Tournament in Chicago where the Hawks face Duke (8) in the first round.

While we're at it, let's catch up on some former teammates who have moved on to play college ball. It's hard to believe all these kids played together on the same teams and all have succeeded in moving to the college game. You can follow any of these friends using the college links at left.

First there's our all-time favorite Carolyn Crampton who is entering her second season at Vassar. Carolyn had a great season as a freshman including a 15 point effort against Skidmore where she drained 5 three pointers.

Then there is our old buddy Kristen Finn of the early years at the Melrose Y. Kristen is a freshman at Bates and is playing for Jim Murphy, one of the best coaches around. She'll be joining former Middlesex Stars Val Beckwith of Woburn and Lauren Yanofsky of Belmont on the team. We wish Kristen the best and hope to see Bates at Tufts later this year.

Kristen's baby sister Courtney who also played with us at the Y is a senior at Winthrop High this year and has already committed to play at Bentley next year. She'll be looking go deep in the MIAA tournament once again this year.

Then there's our former AAU teammate Becky Bowman now playing at Babson. Becky was always an exciting player to watch and is keeping up the tradition at Babson.

Finally there's former Reading basketball and volleyball standout Meredith Gent, now playing Volleyball for Providence College. Even though this is officially a basketball site, we're cutting some slack here. We saw Meredith at a basketball game last year and she assures me that when she is not practicing or working out she is spending all her time in the Library.

We are still trying to track down Ashley Rivera who we know is playing somewhere.