Coach Matthew Mitchell and Marist head coach Brian Giorgis team together to help fight hunger
*Photo by Regina Rickert
LEXINGTON, Ky. – No. 7/8 Kentucky women’s basketball opens its 40th season of varsity women’s basketball when it travels to New York for a two-game road trip this weekend. The Cats will first take on Marist in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Friday, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be carried live on the UK IMG Sports Radio Network with Neil Price, including locally on WWTF 1580 AM. A live video stream will be available through the subscription video portion of www.GoRedFoxes.com and fans can follow Twitter updates on @UKHoopCats.
“We’re really excited to get the season started,” UK Hoops coach Matthew Mitchell said. “I thought we had a good day of work Sunday in Memorial Coliseum. I thought Eckerd College really did a good job of helping us get ready for this road trip. We have tremendous respect for Marist and their program. I think that Coach (Brian) Giorgis is one of the better coaches in our game. It’ll be a sellout crowd, so it will be an incredible atmosphere for women’s college basketball and we’re awfully excited to be a part of it. We get to spend a little time in New York City on Saturday and that’ll be good for our players from that region. Jelléah Sidney and Jennifer O’Neill are both from New York. Kastine Evans is from Connecticut and Bernisha Pinkett is from Washington D.C., so it’s good that we’re up in that region so some of our kids can get some friends and family to the game.”
Kentucky returns 10 letter winners and four starters from last season’s NCAA Elite Eight squad who won a school record 30 games. Leading the way this season will be All-Southeastern Conference performers Bria Goss, DeNesha Stallworth and Samarie Walker and NCAA Tournament Bridgeport Regional All-Tournament Team honoree Jennifer O’Neill. UK will lean on veteran leadership as nine of the 13 players on the roster are upperclassmen, including five seniors. New faces to the roster are McDonald’s All-Americans Linnae Harper and Makayla Epps. Freshman forward Kyvin Goodin-Rogers will not see action this season after being diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.
Stallworth was named a preseason First-Team All-SEC selection by the coaches and media and is on every major national award watch list this season, including the preseason “Wade Watch”, the John R. Wooden Award Preseason Top 30 list and the Senior CLASS Award Top 30. Walker and O’Neill were named to the All-SEC Second Team by the league’s coaches for the 2013-14 season.
Stallworth posted a game-high 17 points and game-high tying six rebounds and two steals in UK’s 83-35 exhibition win over Eckerd College on Sunday, while Walker had 12 points and six rebounds. Epps came off the bench for 10 points, hitting 2-of-6 from the 3-point line.
Marist is coming off its ninth NCAA Tournament appearance after a 26-7 mark in 2012-13.
The Red Foxes went a perfect 18-0 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and won their 10th consecutive MAAC regular season championship.
Marist returns 11 letterwinners and four starters off last season’s NCAA Tournament team. Senior guard Casey Dulin is the team’s leading returning scorer after averaging 10.2 points per game. Returning with Dulin are all-conference selections sophomore guard Sydney Coffey, senior forward Emma O’Connor and senior guard Leanne Ockenden.
The Red Foxes are led by head coach Brian Giorgis who is in his 12th season at the helm. Under Giorgis, Marist is 277-80 which is good for a winning percentage of 77.6 percent.
This will mark the third all-time meeting with Marist but UK’s first in McCann Arena. The Wildcats defeated the Red Foxes in Memorial Coliseum last season, 78-56, and won 96-65 in the team’s first meeting in Lexington on Dec. 26, 1993.
Along with the game, both head coaches will be doing their part to help fight hunger in the Hudson River Valley. Giorgis, who is dedicating the 2013-14 season to hunger awareness in the Hudson River Valley, will be donating 10 cents for each person who attends a women’s basketball home game this season. The campaign will begin Friday against the Wildcats and Mitchell has agreed to match Giorgis’ donation in the season opener.
“Brian Giorgis is donating a dime for every person who attends a Marist home game this year and asked if we would match that during our game,” Mitchell said. “It’s a hunger initiative in the Hudson Valley and hunger is a national issue which breaks down into different regions. It’s an issue in the Hudson Valley and in the Bluegrass. The cause really hit close to home because we’re already involved in hunger awareness and hunger issues. (UK Athletics Director) Mitch Barnhart several years ago implemented a program to support God’s Pantry here in town. I’ve had the absolute honor of speaking at God’s Pantry and their big fundraiser the last three or four years, so I’m close to the organization. Our players work here with it and we also go out one night a year and actually go to the food bank. It’s an issue we are aware of and we want to bring awareness to. When Brian asked us to be involved with it in Poughkeepsie and in the Hudson Valley, we were happy to be a part of it and I commend him for bringing awareness to the issue there.”
[adsenseyu2]
