| THE LEAD |
| The Daemen College women's basketball team takes a five-game winning streak on the road for a key contest at New York Institute of Technology Wednesday (Feb. 8)…both teams are in contention for one of six spots in the upcoming ECC Championship Tournament…a look at the ECC standings shows eight teams with at least five league wins. |
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| GAME INFORMATION & LINKS |
 Â Â Â VS Â Â  Â |
Date:Â Wednesday, Feb. 8
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Time:Â 4 p.m.
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Location:
Recreation Hall
Old Westbury, N.Y. |
| Daemen Roster |
NYITÂ Roster |
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| Daemen Schedule |
NYIT Schedule |
ECC Website | ECC Standings |
| Daemen Stats |
NYIT Stats |
D2 East Hoops Website |
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| Â Â LIVE STATS |
   LIVE VIDEO |
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| SOCIAL MEDIA |
| Daemen Twitter:Â |
@DaemenAthletics, @DaemenWBB |
| Daemen Hashtags:Â |
#DCWildcatNation, #WNYsD2Team, #LiveBreatheDaemen, #beFIERCE |
| NYITÂ Twitter:Â |
@NYITBears |
| ECC Twitter: |
@ECCSports |
| D2 East Hoops Twitter: |
@D2EastHoops |
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| MEET THE NEW BOSS |
| Jenepher Banker enters her first season as head women's basketball coach at Daemen…Banker comes to Daemen with nearly 30 years of coaching experience at various levels, ranging from Division I to high school…her first collegiate experience came as an assistant coach at Iowa State University (1986-88) and later as an assistant at Canisius College (1993-95)…between assistant coaching stops, Banker served as the head coach at Penn State-Behrend where she led the NCAA Division III program to a 67-61 overall record…her 1991-92 team went 23-4, winning the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) South Region championship…that team garnered Penn State-Behrend's first-ever national ranking in any sport…she was inducted into Penn State-Behrend's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994…Banker ultimately settled at the high school level, coaching the varsity team at Grand Island High School from 1998-2013, building the Lady Vikings into a regional contender with seven Section VI championships, four appearances in the Far West Regional, and one appearance at the New York State final four. |
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| DAEMEN SCOUTING REPORT (10-11, 7-6 ECC) |
| Daemen returns three starters and eight players from last year's team that posted a 9-17 overall record and a 7-13 mark in the East Coast Conference…the Wildcats were voted ninth in the 2016-17 ECC preseason poll…junior Sarah Saba tops the list of returning players…she became the first-ever women's basketball player from Daemen to earn first-team All-ECC honors last winter after leading the team in points (432), rebounds (165), blocks (44) and steals (36)…seniors Leah McDonell and Natalie Galus also return…McDonell ranked second on the team in scoring (9.5 ppg) and assists (69) last year while also contributing 4.7 rebounds…Galus averaged 8.0 points and 5.7 rebounds and ranked second on the team in three-pointers (35) and blocks (39)…seniors Rachel Pawlak and Jesse DeWaters, juniors Taylor Heinold and Liz Miles and sophomore Erin Egan will provided quality depth…five freshmen join the fold, all with impressive credentials…guard Tiara Filbert was expected to make immediate contributions, but a preseason injury will sideline her for the entire season…Jordan Heinold joins her sister Taylor following an outstanding career at Immaculata Academy…guards Carina Pringle, Alexis Perdue and Sydney Jones also join the fold…Daemen opened the year with wins over Felician (65-54) and Nyack (76-54), before dropping eight of the next nine contests, three of which were decided by two points or less…Daemen is 7-3 since Dec. 31 with six of the seven wins coming on home court…the Wildcats enter Wednesday's game riding a five-game winning streak, having posted ECC wins over Roberts Wesleyan (88-80), District of Columbia (85-56), LIU Post (96-84), Mercy (64-59) and Bridgeport (83-79)…the five-game winning streak is the longest since Daemen joined the ECC in 2013-14...Saba and McDonell and have paced the Wildcats all season…Saba has scored in double figures in 18 of 21 games and leads the team in scoring (16.6 ppg), rebounding (7.4 rpg) and blocks (34)…she has averaged 20.4 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.6 blocks during Daemen's five-game winning streak…McDonell has scored in double figures in 17 of 19 games and registered 18 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and five steals in 64-59 win over Mercy…she ranks second on the team in both scoring average (15.2 ppg) and assists (48) leads the team in steals (50)…Jordan Heinold has started 18 games and is averaging 8.8 points and 5.3 rebounds with a team-high 37 three-pointers…Galus (7.3 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 33 blks) scored a season-high 15 points in the win over LIU Post…Pringle (6.6 ppg) scored 12 points in the win over RWC and leads the team in assists (2.8 apg)…DeWaters (18) and Jones (15) both established career-highs for points during a win over Mercy on Jan. 2…Egan (13), Miles (11), and Pawlak (10) all contributed double-figure scores in the win over UDC…Egan canned 6-of-8 field goal attempts for a career-high 13 points. |
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| NEW YORK TECHÂ SCOUTINGÂ REPORT (12-9, 6-7 ECC) |
| New York Tech returns 10 players and four starters from last year's team that finished 26-9 (18-2 ECC), claimed the ECC regular-season championship and advanced to the "Sweet 16" of the NCAA Division II Tournament…first-year head coach Kenny Parham must overcome the loss of 2015-16 ECC Player of the Year Dina Ragab…NYIT was voted second in the 2016-17 ECC preseason poll…the Bears won five of their first seven games, but are just 7-7 over their last 14…NYIT went 3-4 during the month of January, and opened February with a 59-53 victory over cross-town rival LIU Post this past weekend…senior forward Shannon Duer, a second-team All-ECC pick last year, was averaging 14.3 points and 9.7 rebounds over the first nine games before going down with an injury…freshman Margaret Knollmeyer is a three-time ECC Rookie of the Week selection and is averaging 14.2 points and 10.0 rebounds…she totaled 24 points and 12 boards in a recent 70-52 win over Bridgeport…junior Nina Vukosavljevic (12.9 ppg, 34 3pt fgs, 6.7 apg, 41 stls) and seniors Shanice Allen (12.5 ppg, 40 3pt fgs, 32 stls) and Julie Williams (8.6 ppg, 25 3pt fgs) and have also produced…Vukosavljevic was a second-team All-ECC pick last year and totaled 18 points in the win over LIU Post this past weekend. |
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| THE HISTORY vs. NEW YORK TECH |
| All-Time: New York Tech leads 7-0 |
| Streak:Â Lost 7 |
| Previous Meetings: CLICK HERE |
| Last Meeting: NYIT 64, Daemen 63 | Dec. 14, 2016 | Amherst, N.Y. |
| Last Meeting Highlights: A three-pointer by Julie Williams with 10 seconds to play lifted NYIT to a 64-63 victory over Daemen at Lumsden Gym…Sarah Saba played all 40 minutes for Daemen and registered a career-high 28 points…Saba, who scored 20 points after halftime, connected on 8-of-17 shots and was 11-for-12 from the charity stripe…she also totaled six rebounds, three assists and three steals…Shanice Allen drilled five three-pointers and scored a team-high 20 points for the Bears. |
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| THAT'SÂ A FIRST |
| Daemen's 72-68 win at Bridgeport earlier this year marked the first time since the Wildcats started playing a predominantly NCAA Division II schedule in 2013-14 that they have defeated a team ranked in the D2SIDA East Region poll…Bridgeport entered the game riding a seven-game winning streak and ranked fourth in the region. |
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| GETTING OFFENSIVE |
| Daemen has averaged 83.2 points over the past five games and scored over 90 points in a game for the first time since the 2014-15 season during a 96-84 win over LIU Post…Daemen is shooting 45-percent (148-326) from the field overall and 42-percent (49-116) from three-point land over the past five games…the Wildcats made a season-high 12 three-pointers in a win over Roberts Wesleyan three weeks ago. |
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| THREE'S A CHARM |
| Daemen ranks second among ECC teams in three-pointers made per game (7.4) and three-point field goal percentage (.337)…six different players on the team have made at least 10 three-pointers this season. |
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| SENIOR STALWARTS |
| Seniors Natalie Galus and Leah McDonell have been steady contributors since their freshman season…Galus has played in 101 of a possible 102 games (87 starts) over the past four seasons and has totaled 931 points, 622 rebounds and 192 blocks over her career…she ranks fifth among Daemen's all-time leaders in career blocks…McDonell had started 93-straight games before sitting out two games due to injury…she has started 100 of a possible 102 games and has racked up 911 points, 473 rebounds, 239 assists and 109 steals. |
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| SABA JOINS 1,000-POINT CLUB |
| Sarah Saba scored 17 points in a loss to Saint Anselm on Dec. 19 and in the process registered her 1,000th career point—making her the 23rd player in program history to reach the 1,000 point plateau…last year she became the first-ever women's basketball player from Daemen to earn first-team All-ECC honors…Saba closed out the 2015-16 season as Daemen's leader in points (432), rebounds (165), blocks (44) and steals (36), and became the first player since former great Sarah Soroka in 2010-11 to lead the team in points, rebounding, blocks and steals…Saba was named the East Coast Conference Player of the Week for games held December 12-19 after averaging 22.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists over two games…Saba has played in all 76 games over the past three seasons (72 as a starter) and has totaled 1,191 points (15.7 ppg), 531 rebounds (7.0 rpg), 115 blocks and 102 steals…she has scored in double figures in 65 of her 76 career games. |
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| HEY ROOKIE |
| Freshmen Jordan Heinold, Carina Pringle and Sydney Jones have played significant minutes this season…Heinold has started 18 games and is averaging 26.1 minutes, 8.8 points and 5.3 rebounds with a team-high 37 three-pointers…she had four three-pointers and equaled her season-high for points (21) in the win over LIU Post…Pringle has started 16 games and is averaging 27.8 minutes, 6.6 points and a team-high 2.8 assists…she totaled 11 points, five rebounds, five assists and four steals in a 79-66 win over Mercy…Jones has played in all 21 games (5 starts) and is averaging 15.5 minutes and 5.2 points with 20 three-pointers…she contributed three three-pointers and 11 points in just 14 minutes off the bench in a 64-59 win at Mercy. |
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| ON THE HORIZONÂ |
| The Wildcats are off this weekend and return to action next Wednesday (Feb. 15) when they travel to St. Thomas Aquinas College for a league game…STAC, which is ranked ninth in the latest D2SIDA East Region poll, posted a 65-55 win over Daemen earlier this year at Lumsden Gym. |
