UMBC

Head Coach Phil Stern has his Retrievers out to a 2-1 start.

Baltimore, Md. – The UMBC Women’s Basketball team (2-1) returns for their third home game of the season as they host Navy at UMBC RAC Arena on Wednesday Night.  The Retrievers are coming off an 87-52 win over Morgan State and will be looking to stretch their win streak to three straight.

RETRIEVER UPDATE:  America East Co-Player of the Week Matea Pender scored a game-high 25 points as the UMBC Women’s Basketball team (2-1) won consecutive games with an 87-52 victory over Morgan State last Tuesday night.  Pender was one of four Retrievers to score in double digits (Heather Luttrell, Brittnie Hughes and Kristin Drabyn) as all 11 eligible Retrievers tallied points in the win.  Hughes finished with 10 points and six assists as the sophomore guard for the third consecutive game handed out six helpers.  UMBC scored 50 first-half points in the game and took a 30-point advantage at the break.  UMBC scored on 11 three-pointers, three away from tying the school’s all-time mark of 14 in a game set last year at Northeastern.

NAVY UPDATE: Navy picked up their first win of the season last week after opening the season against Cal Poly and California.  The Midshipmen defeated Troy State, 80-66, to move to 1-2 on the year as Caryl Meyer off the bench scored a game-high 25 points.  Nikki Curtis added 18 and Lauren Skrel finished with 15 points in the game.

Who’s Up Next:  The Retrievers begin a stretch of three games in five days when the play Radford at home on Tuesday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m.

All-time Series vs. Navy

Last Meeting:       Dec. 3, 2003 (Navy 61, UMBC 40)

First Meeting:       Jan. 11, 1978 (Navy 69, UMBC 44)

UMBC’s last win: Nov. 22, 2000 (UMBC 67, Navy 56)

Streak:    Navy has one the last three meetings

Series Record:       Navy leads the series, 13-6 

Pender's Second 20-Point Night Earns Her League Honors… UMBC Women’s Basketball junior forward Matea Pender (Sibenik, Croatia/Croatian National Team) was named Wilson Co-Player of the Week for the week ending Nov. 28, 2004.  Pender, with a game-high 25 points, led UMBC to their second-consecutive win with an 87-52 victory over Morgan State.  Pender over the last two games is averaging 22.5 ppg as she registered 20-point performances in both those contests.  Pender during that stretch is 17-of-27 (62.0 percent) from the field and 7-of-13 (52.8 percent) from three-point range.  Pender currently leads the America East with 18.0 ppg.

Retrievers Run At Record Books With Big Night Against Morgan State…UMBC’s 35-point victory over Morgan State (87-52) is their largest margin of victory against a Division I opponent since scoring a 95-49 (46-point) victory over Coppin State on Feb. 1, 1988.  The 35-point  victory ties for second largest margin of victory against a D-I opponent as UMBC defeated Coppin State on Jan. 22, 1987 by a final of 91-56 (35-points). 

Retrievers Break Out The Offense…Shooting 55.6 percent (30-of-54) from the field, the UMBC Retriever scored 87 points against Morgan State.  The last time UMBC scored at least 87 points in a game was on Feb. 14, 2000 with an 87-56 win over St. Francis (N.Y.).  UMBC has scored at least 80 points on one occasion since then, losing two years ago to Robert Morris, 85-82, 3OT.  The Retrievers are shooting 46.0 percent on the season, tops in the America East Conference to date.

Pender Heating Up…Matea Pender is averaging 22.5 ppg in her last two games and 18.0 ppg in three games this season.  Over the last two she is shooting 63.0 percent (17-of-27) form the field and 53.8 percent (7-of-13) from three-point range.  Pender already has two 20-point performances, topping last season one 20-point performance the entire year.  Courtney Doughman produced that performance with a 22-point effort against Albany. 

Retrievers Dial Long Distance…UMBC’s 11 three-point baskets against Morgan State was three treys off their school record of 14 set by the Retrievers last year at Northeastern.  Matea Pender led UMBC with five three-point baskets while Heather Luttrell had two treys and four others had one each.

UMBC Clearing The Glass…The Retrievers grabbed 46 rebounds in their game against Morgan State last week as Sharri Rohde led the Retrievers with seven boards.  UMBC never reach 40 total rebounds in their 28 games last year and 46 boards are the most rebounds by a UMBC team in the Stern era.

Retrievers Showing Unselfish play…UMBC as a team has recorded 20 assists or more in each of their first three games, eclipsing their total amount of assists in any one game all of last year with 21 in each of the first two.  Leading the way is Brittnie Hughes with 18 assists on the season and Sharri Rohde with 12.  UMBC's school record for team assists in a game is 27.  The Retrievers have 62 assists on the season, a 20.67 assist per game average, which ranks over 3.0 apg better than second place in the America East team statistics charts.  UMBC ranks second in assist/turnover ratio at 1.11.  Morgan Hatten with 11 assists and a mere two turnovers leads the conference at a 5.50 assist/turnover ratio.

Using The Bench…Head Coach Phil Stern has seen his bench log some quality minutes in the opening three games of the season.  Stern’s has scored over 15 points in each of the first three games, including a season-high 33 points against Morgan State.  Kristin Drabyn has 30 of UMBC’s 73 bench points on the season. 

Coming To Play…The UMBC freshman class has come to the play with three of UMBC's eight double-digit scorers in the first three games coming from Retriever rookies.  Kristin Drabyn is averaging 10.0 ppg after consecutive double-digit performances and Morgan Hatten dropped 11 points in her collegiate.  Fellow freshman Amanda Robinson has recorded four blocks, four steals and cleared 12 boards in her three starts.  The Retriever freshman have combined for 33.0 percent of UMBC's total scoring and 32.5 percent of UMBC's total minutes played.

Hughes Lending A Helping Hand…Brittnie Hughes, who saw action in 11 games last year, has handed out six assists in each of UMBC's three games this year.  At least six assists was only reached on two occasions all of last year.

Getting Ahead Early...UMBC has led at half in each of their first three games, including taking a 30-point advantage over Morgan State with 50-first half points last week.  Last season UMBC did not lead at half for the first nine games of the season and trailed in 24-of-28 games at halftime. 

I’ll Take That…The Retrievers defense has picked up the intensity which is showing in the box score.  UMBC recorded 12 steals in their first game of the season against Coppin State and 11 the next day against Mount St. Mary's.  UMBC only recorded double-digit steals as a team once last year.  Brittnie Hughes leads UMBC with eight steals while Matea Pender has five on the season.   

Luttrell Clears Career-High On The Glass...Sophomore Heather Luttrell grabbed a career-high eight rebounds against Mount St. Mary’s.  Luttrell’s eight boards was a team-high for UMBC as the 5-11 forward held tough in the paint.  Luttrell, who played in 27 games last year, previous career-high was five blocks.

Hughes Named to All-Tournament Team…Sophomore Brittnie Hughes was named to the UMBC Retriever Tip-Off Tournament All-Tournament team after finishing the opening weekend with 9.0 ppg and 6.0 apg.  Hughes also stole seven balls.  Hughes set a career-high for points in a game in the first half against Coppin State and went on to set her new mark at 12 points. 

Home Sweet Home...The Retrievers for the first time in their 36 seasons have 15 home games as UMBC welcomes six non-conference opponents and all-nine America East foes to RAC Arena in 2004-05.  The Retrievers best home mark was a 10-0 record at RAC Arena in 1993-94.  UMBC's career home record is 185-143.

No Charity Allowed...Over the last two seasons Head Coach Phil Stern's squads ranked in the top-five in the country in fewest fouls per game.  Last year the Retrievers as a team finished second nationally at 13.3 fouls per game.  UMBC finished fifth in the nation two years ago in fouls per game at 13.5. 

Hitting The Airwaves…With the newly launched umbcretrievers.com, the majority of home games and a few road contests will be broadcast live on the internet through www.umbcretrievers.com. Play-by-Play announcer Troy Green will bring the action on all contests via the web.  Umbcretrievers.com will also broadcast live stats for all men's and women's basketball home games.  In addition UMBC will play a home televised contest as part of the America East Television package when UMBC hosts Hartford on Feb. 26 at 12 p.m. at UMBC RAC Arena.  Currently the game is set to air on Metro TV NY and Fox Sports New England. 

Retrievers on Air

UMBCretrievers.com Radio

Nov. 20  Coppin State         4:00

Nov. 21  Mount St. Mary’s                4:00

Dec. 7     Radford  7:00

Dec. 11   American               7:00        

Dec. 18   Drexel     5:00

Dec. 28   at Towson             7:00

Jan. 8      at Hartford             12:00

Jan 12     Boston U.              7:00

Jan 15     Northeastern         7:00

Jan. 26    Maine     7:00

Jan. 29    New Hampshire    7:00

Feb. 5     Stony Brook          7:00

Feb. 19   Albany   7:00

Feb. 23   Vermont 7:00

Feb. 26   Hartford 12:00

Metro TV NY/Fox Sports Net

Feb. 26   Hartford 12:00

Live Stats

All homes games and selected away contests.

Retrievers No Longer New Beast In The America East…The Retrievers are no longer the new kids on the block in the America East Conference as they open their second season in the mid-major conference.  Despite a full season in league play the Retrievers still received no love from their conference foes, being picked to finish 10th in the league for the second consecutive year.

Going Global…The Retrievers' 13-player roster contains three international players. 

Senior Anastasia Goncharova is from Russia junior Matea Pender is a native of Croatia and freshman Zuzana Kasanová hails from the Slovak Republic.  In addition to players from the around the world, the majority of UMBC's squad is from outside the state lines.  Tyecia Powell (Baltimore, Md.), Amanda Robinson (Lusby, Md.) and Morgan Hatten (Potomac, Md.) are the Retrievers' women's hoops only Maryland natives.

Infirmary Report:  UMBC prior to the season lost freshman Zuzana Kasanová to an ACL tear to her knee.  Kasanová will red shirt this season.  

Retrievers Ink Three For 2005-06…UMBC head women's basketball coach Phil Stern announced the signings of three student-athletes to National Letters of Intent to attend UMBC for the 2005-06 academic year.  The list includes Melissa Book (Raleigh, N.C./Millbrook High School), Mackenzie Butler (Reno, Nev./Reno High School) and Suzanne Morris (Cleveland, Tenn./Walker Valley High School).