UNH Gets A Leg Up On The Field

New Hampshire and Maine played the league's first conference contest last night at Lundholm Gym with the Wildcats coming out victorious, 51-47 behind 18 points from junior Candace Williams and 17 points from Amy Simpson (on her 21st birthday, no less). The Black Bears' top scorer was point guard Kristin Baker with 11 points, but junior Brittany Boser also chipped in 10 points and 7 rebounds.

Home teams won over 62% of the time last season (45-27) in conference play. Home teams are now up 1-0 this year; we'll see if that trend continues tonight as three more conference openers will be played tonight. Here are quick previews of each:

Boston University (6-6) at Stony Brook (2-10), 7 p.m.
In the conference-opener for both teams, both squads come in going 1-1 in the last two games... Boston University picked up last season's game at Stony Brook on March 1 by a 12-point margin to finish the season sweep... The Seawolves are 1-3 at Pritchard Gym this season, while the Terriers are 3-3 on the road.

Binghamton (5-8) at Hartford (5-7) 7 p.m.
The Hawks return home for the first time in over a month (December 6) with 29 straight home-court victories under their belts... Binghamton finishes up a season-long five-game road stretch with its visit to Chase Arena.

UMBC (8-5) at Vermont (6-7) 7 p.m.
In a role reversal, the preseason favorite Catamounts host the first-place Retrievers for both teams' conference-openers... This game features four of the top-six scorers in America East this season (Carlee Cassidy, Michelle Kurowski, May Kotsopoulos and Courtnay Pilypaitis).

Also, as a closing note, Burlington Free Press writer John Fantino published his mid-season prediction of how the America East will look on March 7, the final day of the regular season.