United States Coast Guard Academy - Department of Athletics - Women's Basketball

Coast Guard returns its top five scorers, four starters, led by honorable mention All-America guard and team captain Natalie Moyer as the Bears look to earn a postseason berth for just the second time in school history, the 2001-2002 team earned a bid to the ECAC Tournament.

The Bears, who were 13-13 overall last season and 6-7 in the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC), have lost in the first round of the NEWMAC tournament in each of the last four seasons after playing in the championship game in the 2002-2003 season.

“We want to compete in every game, compete for the NEWMAC championship and get a postseason bid,” said head coach Alex Simonka in his 15th season. “We play a tough schedule early, as we always do, and it will help us get prepared for conference play.”

Coast Guard will open the season with a pair of games in California and also play solid teams such as WNEC, Eastern Connecticut, Salve Regina, Wesleyan and Trinity in the first semester.

Moyer, led the NEWMAC in scoring (19.0) and 3-point field goals (63) for the second straight year, last season, which earned her a spot on the All-conference first team for the second straight time. She enters the season with 1,133 points and is 312 points shy of becoming program’s all-time leading scorer currently held by Lis Bosma (‘05) with 1,444 points. Moyer is also just 32 three-pointers shy of the Coast Guard career mark of 207 set by Meredith Engelke (‘98).

The Bears also welcome back last season’s NEWMAC Rookie of the Year sophomore center Melissa Martinelli. Last season, she lead all NEWMAC freshman with 13.7 points and 8.5 rebounds to earn NEWMAC Rookie of the Year honors becoming just the second Coast Guard player to win the award.

Senior captain Laura Hutchinson, a three-year starter, is back at point guard and will be counted on to run the offense and play tenacious defense.

Senior captain and forward DeCarol Davis, who was named the 2007 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar of the Year and the Truman Scholar is also a finalist for the Rhodes Scholar, which will force her to miss the first two games of the season. Davis averaged 9.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.4 assist per game last season.

Senior captain Corinne McCormack, who appeared in 24 games last season, but did not make a start, will start at the other forward spot. Last year, McCormack had the best season of her career averaging 7.8 points and eight rebounds per game.

Simonka is very impressed with freshman swing player Jennifer Tamminen, who will get to start for Davis in the first two games of the season.

“Jennifer has all the abilities of Natalie, she can shoot, she can dribble, she was a point guard in high school and she is a good defender,” said Simonka. “Being a freshman at the Academy is tough, we just need to let her develop and she will be a huge lift to this team.”

A pair of sophomores, Sabrina Taylor and Leslie Hunt will compete for playing time in the Bears backcourt.

Junior forward Chanel Lee, whom Simonka says in the most improved player from a year ago, is very quick and very athletic. Lee earned All-New England honors in the 100 meters as a member of the Bears track team last spring.

Freshman Allison Majcher is expected to see time as the backup to McCormack at the power forward spot while sophomore Crystal Lee Coonan will backup Martinelli at center.

“We have more depth than we had last year and we have the potential to have a successful season.” said Simonka. “We are better than last year and there are plenty of opportunties for other players to step up and become scorers for us this season. We will be able to rotate players and keep them fresh and have the players that we want on the floor at the end when the game is on the line.”