FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

League favorite Saints
receive nine first-place votes

WINTHROP, Mass. – Emmanuel College has been ranked first by the league’s head coaches in the 2014-15 GNAC Women’s Basketball Preseason Poll, as announced by the conference office on Friday morning. The Saints received nine of a possible 12 first-place votes and 141 points in the voting.

Emmanuel (19-8, 11-0 GNAC) fell last year in double overtime to eighth-seeded Norwich University in the GNAC Tournament quarterfinals, snapping a streak of seven straight conference titles for the Saints. They did however finish third in the league last season in points per game (67.2), second in rebounding (43.5) and third in points allowed (58.7).

Emmanuel also ran the tables in the league for the fourth straight year a season ago, as the Saints enter the 2014-15 campaign with an unblemished 48-0 mark in regular-season GNAC play since 2010-11.

The Saints will see the return of junior guard Sarah Higgins and senior forward Jennifer Bujnowski, who averaged 10.1 points and 9.7 points, respectively, per game last winter for Emmanuel. Bujnowski also pulled down 6.6 rebounds per contests last season.

Defending GNAC champion Saint Joseph’s College of Maine (23-6, 10-1 GNAC) finished second in the poll with 123 points and the other three first-place tallies, as the Monks last season defeated Norwich in the GNAC title contest before falling to Tufts in the NCAA Tournament.

Suffolk University (16-10, 8-3 GNAC) finished third in the voting with 110 points, while Rivier University (20-8, 9-2 GNAC) and Norwich (15-13, 4-7 GNAC) rounded out the top-five with 105 points and 103 points, respectively, in the voting.

Rivier last season advanced to the GNAC Tournament semifinals.

Johnson & Wales University (10-17, 6-5 GNAC), which also made a GNAC Tournament semifinal appearance last February, finished sixth in the poll with 87 points.

Anna Maria College (11-14, 4-7 GNAC) was seventh with 64 points, followed by Lasell College (12-14, 5-6 GNAC) with 58 points and the University of Saint Joseph (12-14, 5-6 GNAC) with 53 points.

Rounding out the 2014-15 coaches’ poll was Albertus Magnus College (5-20, 2-9 GNAC) with 47 points, Mount Ida College (4-21, 1-10 GNAC) with 26 points and Simmons College (3-19, 1-10 GNAC) with 19 points.

Founded in 1995, the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) is an NCAA Division III association made up of 12 member institutions and over 3,000 student-athletes across the New England region. Each year, the GNAC sponsors and administers 17 championships, while balancing academic integrity, athletic opportunities and community involvement.

2014 GNAC Women's Basketball Preseason Poll
1. Emmanuel (9) - 141
2. Saint Joseph's (ME) (3) - 123
3. Suffolk - 110
4. Rivier - 105
5. Norwich - 103
6. Johnson & Wales - 87
7. Anna Maria - 64
8. Lasell - 58
9. Saint Joseph (CT) - 53
10. Albertus Magnus - 47
11. Mount Ida - 26
12. Simmons - 19 

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