Stevens, seven wins shy of the 800 career win plateau, has blended a mix of returnees from last year’s 19-11 squad and some talented newcomers. If last Monday’s exhibition game at the University of New Hampshire (a 78-51 win) was any indication, her 25th Bentley team may be one of the deepest she’s had in a while.
Against the Wildcats, Stevens went with a starting five of senior All-Northeast-10 guard Kim Brennan (Locust Valley, N.Y./Locust Valley HS), juniors Elise Caira (Wakefield/Arlington Catholic HS) and Katherine Goodwin (Goffstown, N.H./Governors Academy), sophomore guard Courtney Finn (Winthrop/Winthrop HS) and freshman forward Lauren Battista (Easton/Oliver Ames HS).
Brennan was second in the Northast-10 in scoring last winter, averaging 17.4 points and enters her final year with 1,319 points, needing 80 to crack the program’s all-time top ten list. Goodwin and Caira both were double-figure scorers a year ago, with Goodwin netting 11.8 ppg in her first Bentley season and Caira 11.0 despite injuries that sidelined her for 10 games. Goodwin shared the team-lead in threes with Brennan, both with 45, and Caira was second in rebounds at 7.5 a game.
A knee injury kept Finn out of action last winter, but in the UNH game, she provided 12 points and five offensive boards. Battista, a six-footer, was the Gatorade Massachusetts Girls Basketball Player of the Year last year while starring at Oliver Ames.
Holy Family returns seven players from last year’s 30-3 club that reached the NCAA Division II East Regional final. Heading that list is senior All-Conference guard Catherine Carr, who averaged 17 points last season and enters her final collegiate season with more than 1500 career markers to her credit.
Among returning players in the East Region, Brennan and Carr had the second highest scoring averages a year ago.
Other key returnees are junior guard Lauren Peters, a third-team All-Conference selection last year after averaging eight points and 3.4 assists, and sophomore Erin Man, who provided 9.3 points a game off the bench as a rookie.
This is the second straight year that these two successful programs have squared off in the season-opener. Last November in Waltham, Caira scored 21 and Brennan followed with 17, along with seven assists, as Bentley led from the opening basket en route to a 72-61 victory.
Bentley leads the all-time series with the Tigers, 2-1, with the home team having prevailed in each of the previous three.
After returning from the City of Brotherly Love, Bentley will open its home and Northeast-10 schedule on Wednesday with a 5:30 tip against Merrimack. The Falcons were deemed the preseason favorites in the conference by the NE-10 coaches.
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