WOMEN'S BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK
Vermont women's basketball continues the 2021-22 regular season with its first road trip of the campaign. The Catamounts are headed to Poughkeepsie, New York to play American and Marist on the Red Foxes campus. UVM will face American Saturday at 3 p.m. and Marist at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
 
Please note to accommodate Marist hosting the MAAC Men's Soccer Championship at 11 a.m. on Sunday the Vermont Marist contest was moved from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
 
TELEVISION AND RADIO COVERAGE
Both games this weekend will be broadcast live on ESPN3. Fans can also listen live on the Vermont Sports Network, from Learfield IMG College on WVMT. Fans can also listen online at Catamounts All-Access with the new voice of the Catamounts Cooper Boardman on the call.  
 
RELATED LINKS
Listen 
Live Stats 
Watch on ESPN3: Saturday | Sunday
 
OFFENSE ON FIRE TO START THE SEASON
The Catamounts scored 87 points in its home-opener against Merrimack on Tuesday. The 87 points mark a new-high under Mayer Women's Basketball Coach Alisa Kresge. Before Tuesday the previous high was 76 points against Loyola Chicago on November 8, 2019. As a team Vermont assisted on 19 of their 37 made field goals Tuesday night.
 
PICTURE PERFECT POINT GUARD PLAY
Junior guard Emma Utterback was a picture-perfect point guard Tuesday night. She had a game-high 16 points, seven assists, and zero turnovers. UVM was a +14 in her 27:43 of game time against Merrimack.
 
FIRST YEARS MAKING AN EARLY IMPACT
First year players Aryana Dizon, Catherine Gilwee and Maria Myklebust made their regular season green and gold debut Tuesday night. Together they accounted for 16 of Vermont's 25 bench points. Gilwee played 20:29 of game action Tuesday, the fifth-most of anyone on the team.
 
SCOUTING THE EAGLES
American is 1-1 this season after dropping its season opener Tuesday at George Washington 58-47 and defeating Marist Friday night 59-52. The Catamounts two weekend opponents were tied at 49 with less than a minute remaining before American pulled away.
Senior guard Jade Edwards leads the team in scoring with 16.0 points-per game. She's also had four assists in each of American's games this season.
 
American leads the all-time series against the Catamounts 2-0. The Eagles defeated UVM 64-62 in the 2017 TD Bank Classic and in 1983 they bested Vermont at the St. Peter's Tournament in Jersey City, N.J.
 
SCOUTING THE RED FOXES
A perennial mid-major power Marist won a conference-record 11th MAAC Championship last season under Head Coach Brian Giorgis, who enters his 20th season this year. The Red Foxes were selected to finish fourth this season in the MAAC Preseason Coaches' Poll.
 
On Tuesday, the Red Foxes topped Drexel on the road 52-50. The Dragons were ranked 13th in the College Insider Mid-Major Top 25 entering the season. Syracuse transfer Kiara Fisher leads the team in scoring with 18 points-per game. She had 25 points Friday night against American.
 
Marist leads the overall series with Vermont 3-1. The Catamounts won the first-ever meeting between the two teams December 4, 1987 in the Fairfield Tournament. The two teams' only meeting in Poughkeepsie, NY was a 66-45 Marist win on November 9, 2012.
 
RED FOXES REUNION
This weekend at Marist will feature Marist alumnae and coaches on all of the teams. Mayer Women's Basketball Coach Alisa Kresge graduated from Marist in 2007 and played with American assistant coaches Nikki Flores and Emily Stallings under Marist's Brian Giorgis and American Head Coach Megan Gebbia.
 
Kresge also spent time on Marist's bench as an assistant coach from 2013-16 along with current-Vermont associate Head Coach Dominique Bryant. Eileen Van Horn, another assistant on the UVM staff, is also a Marist alumnae having played during Kresge's tenure as an assistant with the Red Foxes.
 
DOBO CECILY CARL ALSO REUNITING WITH FORMER TEAM
Vermont Director of Basketball Operations Cecily Carl will also be reuniting with her former team this weekend. A Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year, Carl departed American in 2019 as one of only four players to hold spots in the career top-10 lists for points, rebounds, and blocks.
 
AMERICA EAST PRESEASON POLL
The Catamounts were selected fourth in the 2021-22 America East Preseason Poll. Voting was conducted by the conference's women's basketball coaches, who were not allowed to vote for their own team. Stony Brook, the defending tournament champion, was picked to finish first, placing just four points ahead of second place Maine. The Black Bears were selected as league favorites in each of the last three seasons. Vermont and UMass Lowell were selected to round-out the coveted top-four positions. This year will be the third full season on the women's side where the entire America East tournament will take place on campus sites with the higher-seeded school hosting each game throughout the championship.
 
OLSON NAMED TO PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM
After earning Rookie of the Year, All Conference Third-Team and All-Rookie Team honors last season Olson was selected to the Preseason All-Conference Team this fall. She led the Catamounts last season with 13.3 points-per game and 6.8 rebounds-per game. She also averaged two assists a game. She helped lead Vermont to its best America East start through six games since the 2009-10 campaign.
 
RETURNING DEPTH FOR THE CATAMOUNTS
UVM returns 96.2% of its scoring from a season ago. All six Catamounts who started a game last season are back in the fold. UVM ended the season last year on a three-game win streak in league play, the third such instance in Mayer Women's Basketball Coach Alisa Kresge's career.

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