Franklin & Marshall-Bowdoin Women's Basketball Game Set for Broadcast Via D3hoops.com

by Sports Information
12/30/03

LANCASTER, PA - D3hoops.com will make their inaugural visit to Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Saturday, January 3, 2004 to cover a women's basketball game as the Franklin & Marshall College Diplomats will return to the hardwood versus #4 nationally ranked Bowdoin College at 3:00 p.m. The broadcast is set to start at 2:55 p.m. with Pat Cummings and Pat Coleman, owner and operator of D3hoops.com and D3football.com, handling the announcing duties.

Franklin & Marshall (3-4, 3-1 Centennial Conference) returns to the court for the first time since the team knocked off Gettysburg (74-69 W), Haverford (83-54 W) and Bryn Mawr (82-40 W) during the stretch of December 9-13.

Leading the charge into the new year will be senior guard Courtney Tierney (Sr., Princeton, NJ/The Hun School).

The December 15 Centennial Conference Player of the Week for averaging 14.7 points per game with five rebounds, three steals and 14 assists in the Diplomats 3-0 week to close out 2003, she ranks among the Conference leaders in free-throw percentage (first, .938), three-point field goals (fifth, 1.86 tpg) scoring (sixth, 14.6 ppg), assists (sixth, 3.43 apg) and assist/turnover ratio (15th, 0.80).

Another player to watch is D3hoops.com preseason All-America honorable mention selection Amy Abernathy (Sr., Far Hills, NJ/American School - Paris).

The team's center, she leads the team in field goals (51), points (105), points average (15.0 ppg), rebounds (99), rebounds average (14.1 rpg), offensive rebounds (40), defensive rebounds (59) and blocked shots (21).

For her career, she now has 1,177 points, 910 rebounds, 179 blocks, 137 steals and 90 assists as she is on pace to join Anne Krumrine '90 as the only players in program history to finish with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in their careers.

In the history of the program, she is ranked third in blocked shots, 10th in scoring and third in rebounding as she could challenge Krumrine's first place marks in points (1,811), rebounding (1,180) and blocks (309) by the end of the season.

As a team, Franklin & Marshall ranks among the Conference leaders in free throw percentage (second, .712), field goal percentage (second, .403), assist/turnover ratio (second, 0.85), assists (second, 17.43 apg), three point field goal percentage (second, .360), scoring offense (third, 67.6 ppg), steals (third, 11.43 spg), three point field goals made (third, 5.86 tpg), turnover margin (third, +1.86), blocked shots (third, 3.29 bpg), field goal percentage defense (fourth, .373), rebounding defense (fourth, 41.0 rpg), scoring defense (fifth, 62.7 ppg), scoring margin (fifth, +4.9), three point field goal percentage defense (fifth, .315) and offensive rebounds (fifth, 15.43 rpg).

But the team will have its hands full with Bowdoin (5-0, 0-0 NESCAC) as the #4 nationally ranked Polar Bears leave Brunswick, Maine and come into Lancaster riding a 28 game non-conference, 21 game road and 33-game regular season win streak and have been ranked in the top ten in the nation for 31 straight polls, dating back to the 2001-02 season.

On the bench, head coach Stefanie Pemper will guide the Polar Bears as the team will look to improve on its 78-13 (.849) record over the past three plus seasons. During that stretch, Bowdoin won the NESCAC championship in 2001, 2002, and 2003, and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the national tournament in 2001, the Elite 8 in 2002, and returned to the Elite 8 in 2003.

Leading the way for Bowdoin on the court will be D3hoops.com Preseason All-America first team selection Lora Trenkle. Last season, she 14.4 points per game in leading Bowdoin to their third-straight NESCAC Championship and NCAA Elite Eight appearance. This year, she leads the Polar Bears in scoring with 11.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.

In Bowdoin's last game, she pulled down seven rebounds, dished out five assists and dropped in six points to compliment her team as the Polar Bears put on a defensive clinic holding the Colby-Sawyer Chargers to 18% shooting from the field in a 72-29 victory. Overall, the Polar Bears forced 23 Colby-Sawyer turnovers, blocked nine shots and stole 11 passes.

The game will be the first part of triple-broadcast from the Mayser Center as Cummings and Coleman will also cover the opening round of the men's basketball Rotary Tip-Off the New Year Tournament in which Alvernia will take on SUNY-Old Westbury at 6:00 p.m. before the #29 nationally ranked Franklin & Marshall College men's basketball team tips off the New Year versus Hobart College at 8:00 p.m.

The broadcasts can be accessed at http://media2.mc2interactive.com/capitalcrusaders2

D3hoops.com is widely considered the preeminent source of information on Division III basketball in the electronic medium. D3hoops.com is the sister publication of D3football.com, considered the most up to date and thorough information source on Division III college football. D3hoops and D3football have appeared in Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Hartford Courant and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, among other publications.