Women Cagers Aim For Title

Fast, aggressive and confident. The preseason adjectives for the women's basketball team sound encouraging, but the squad will need more than potential to beat UMass in tonight's opener.

With five freshmen playing varsity, the Crimson will have to overcome a severe lack of experience in addition to a height problem to fulfull its goal of winning the Ivies.

Four members of last year's varsity will play J.V. this season to make room for the new recruits.

Youth corps members Pat Horne, Nancy Boutillier, Ann Scannell, Marget Long and Frenesa Hall, will "give the team a shot in the arm," Coach Carole Kleinfelder said Monday. "They are really charged up and should provide us with a lot of spark."

Kleinfelder said the rookies will need a lot of help from their elders. "In order for this team to fulfill its potential, the veterans will have to perform in the clutch," she explained.

"Veterans" translates to Co-captains Caryn Curry and Wendy Carle, the only seniors on the team. Together they steered the squad to a 17-10 overall record last year, with a 4-3 mark in the Ivies.

Curry, a forward who holds Crimson single-game and season records in rebounds and assists, will once again anchor the team at both ends of the court.

Saying she has "high expectations" for the season, Carle added that "it's time we finished at the top."

Scoring remains sophomore center Elaine Hopuch's department. The team's only six-footer topped the squad last year in total points (298) and average points per game (11.9) while snaring 200 rebounds.

Kleinfelder will start Holpuch, Curry, Horne, Scannel and an undetermined fifth player tonight against out-of-league rival UMass. The hoopsters hope to avenge last year's embarrassing 86-49 loss to the Minutemen.

But to keep the game close, they will have to improve their ball handling, a problem that Kleinfelder and assistant coach Linda Moultan said plagued the squad for much of the preseason. Kleinfelder added that she is still "trying different combinations of players. We probably will not find our strengths until half way through the season."

And the season will be tough. After UMass, the team visits Villanova, St. Joseph's and UNH, an opening series Kleinfelder soberly described as "murder."

UPenn, Dartmouth and last year's champion, Yale, will give the Crimson plenty of competition in the league. "There are no sure wins on our schedule," Moultan said.

In fact, the schedule itself may yet defeat the cagers. Because of what Kleinfelder called a "communication problem" between the EAIAW and the Ivy League, the two organizations' end-of-season tournaments are slated for the same weekend in February.

Curry and Carle sent a letter to other Ivy captains urging them to ask the EAIAW to hold the opening round of its tourney a week later for Ivy League teams that qualify.

Assuming they overcome this logistical challenge, the cagers still face a long struggle in their quest for the EAIAW play-offs and, perhaps, Ivy gold.