Sea-Hawks Weekly Preview Nov. 10, 2010

This weekend will feature Sean Hulburt and Erica Pritchett competing at the CIS Championship in Cross Country, the basketball teams travelling to UNB for a weekend set against the Varsity Reds and the women’s volleyball continuing their November road swing with a trip to Moncton.

 

Cross Country

Sean Hulburt and Erica Pritchett will represent Memorial University at the CIS Championship hosted by Sherbrooke University on Saturday.

 

The women will get started in their 5k race at 1pm. Pritchett (Gambo, NL) earned her place at nationals by finishing 8th at the AUS Championship at St. FX on October 30, 2010. Her time at St. FX was nineteen minutes flat.

 

Pritchett ran a season-best time at the UNB Invitational of 18:51. Cross Country times depend heavily on weather conditions but Pritchett will be aiming to set a seasonal best this weekend.

 

Sean Hulburt earned an AUS all-star nod for his performance at the AUS Championship. Hulburt finished fourth in the 10km run in a time of 33:48. The Leetunia, Ohio native raced in two meets this season after missing the early part of the season with injury.

 

Hulburt and Prtichett will be heading to the meet with assistant coach Colin Fewer.

 

Basketball

This weekend the Sea~Hawks will be travelling to Fredericton for a weekend series against the Varsity Reds. The series will be a good measuring stick for Memorial as the UNB women are expecting to be near the top of the AUS and the UNB men are in a similar growth stage as Memorial.

 

Women’s Basketball

The women opened up their regular season with a key win at home over the rival Capers last Saturday. The leader for Memorial over the weekend’s games was third year Grace Fishbein who contributed a team-high 48 points over the two game series. Brittany Dalton continued her strong play, with 28 points on the weekend, along with a team-high of 23 total rebounds.

 

Two areas that will need to be improved heading into this weekend’s games against UNB will be bench points and second half points. In last Sunday’s game this was particularly highlighted as the CBU bench outscored the Sea~Hawks bench 31-12. Also in the Sunday matchup, the Sea~Hawks could only muster 6-32 (18.8%) on their FG shooting in the second half.

 

Last year the Varsity Reds had an 8-12 record.. The women’s Sea~Hawks managed to pick up key wins over the Reds last year, winning both their matches against them 85-72 and 91-57. However, UNB expects to be much-improved with top level recruits joining the program this season.

 

UNB will be opening up their regular season this weekend with the Sea~Hawks coming to them. Game times are Saturday at 6 pm and Sunday at 1 pm.

 

Player to watch on UNB: Fifth year post player Amanda Sharpe was named to the AUS first team all-stars in the 2009-10 season.

 

Men’s Basketball

Though the men’s basketball team lost both its opening games to the reigning AUS champion Capers last weekend, there are many positive signs to draw from. The men’s team has finally matured into a scoring threat with third year wing Robbie Habib, fourth year wing Jason Shepherd, and fourth year guard Mark Woodland. This dynamic trio contributed over 70% of the Sea~Hawks total offensive point production (113 of the men’s 159 total points scored).

 

Three new Sea-Hawks Theo Stanoev, Will Bradbury and Justin Alliman have made contributions in the backcourt to give Memorial more stability. Mike Helsby, a top performer for Memorial last season, remains questionable with an injury.

 

Much like the Sea~Hawks, last year UNB found themselves on the outside looking in on the AUS playoffs. Both teams finished with eight points in the AUS standings. The Sea~Hawks picked up their second win of the season when they took on the Varsity Reds for the first time last season, winning by a score of 70-58. The Varsity Reds took the second game of the season series, winning 93-66.

 

The Varsity Reds have yet to begin their regular season and will start this weekend with the Sea~Hawks. Game times are Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm.

 

Player to watch on UNB: Last year guard Daniel Quirion was named to the AUS all star rookie team. Also, UNB has quite a “down-under” feel to it as they have two rookies, William McFee and Michael Suffield, who come from Australia.

 

Volleyball

Women’s Volleyball

The Sea~Hawks will hope to get back to their winning ways this weekend when they head to Moncton to take on the Aigles Bleues. The team can take a lot out of their recent trip last weekend at UNB, which saw the club drop both games by close scores.

 

Fifth year player Sasha Wilkins has guided the Sea~Hawks this season with 20 kills (3.33/game) and 29 total digs (4.83/game) in four of their games. Young players are continuing to develop, and are also contributing in many ways to the team this season. Second year Samantha March trails Wilkins’ kill total by only four, at sixteen on the season. Also, third year player Chantel Jones currently has eight blocks in the three matches she has played in. Look for these players to get involved early and often when they head out this weekend.

 

The Aigles Bleues have gotten off to a solid start to their campaign with a 2-1 record. Their wins have been close with 3-2 victories over St. FX and Acadia. Their lone loss to the early season has been to CBU, in which they dropped the game 0-3. Last year the women’s side played the Moncton squad very close in their two games, winning one and losing the other. Both game scores were 3-1 with a couple of games needing extra points to decide the victor.

 

Game times this weekend for the women’s volleyball team are Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 11am in Moncton.

 

Player to watch on Moncton: Currently Joline Richard has 33 kills on the season (2.54/game), and is third on the team with 62 total digs.

 

Contributed by Alex Gibson