Hartford Women Win Three of Four Conference Honors

The University of Hartford women's basketball team captured three of the four top post-season honors handed out by the America East conference, as announced Thursday at the conference's annual banquet in Springfield, Mass.

Senior guard Erika Messam was named America East Player of the Year while freshman Erica Beverly was the unanimous selection as Rookie of the Year. Rounding out the major awards was Head Coach Jennifer Rizzotti, who was named Coach of the Year in a vote of her peers. The fourth conference honor is Defensive Player of the Year, which went to Dana Ferraro of Stony Brook.

Messam and Beverly became the first-ever Player and Rookie of the Year honorees in Hartford Hawks women's basketball history. Rizzotti is just the second Hartford women’s basketball coach to be named Coach of The Year. Hartford’s basketball coaches have swept this year’s America East honors; just one week ago, Hartford Head Coach Larry Harrison was named the conference’s Coach of the Year for men’s basketball.

In addition to the top honors for Messam, Beverly, and Rizzotti, the Hartford women also placed five players on the different all-conference teams. Messam and sophomore Danielle Hood each earned spots on the All-Conference First Team, with Messam also snagging one of five spots on the All-Defensive Team. Beverly was named to the All-Conference Second Team while Ikea Witt was selected as an All-Conference Third Team member. Beverly was also named to the All-Rookie Team along with classmate MaryLynne Schaefer.

The No. 1 Hartford women will begin their quest for a second consecutive America East title tonight (Friday) at 6 p.m., when they face No. 8 Maine in the quarterfinals of the 2006 Friendship Cottage Cheese America East Women’s Basketball Championship. The game will take place in the Chase Arena, Reich Family Pavilion (Sports Center), and tickets are FREE for University of Hartford students.

Following the Games
If you want to follow the Hawks' progress this weekend, but you can't attend the tournament, you can still keep up with the action. Any games in which the Hartford women play will be broadcast live on WWUH radio (91.3 FM) or www.wwuh.org.

Both the semifinal and championship round games will be televised live on FOX Sports New England.

In addition, you can get live statistics for all the tournament games on the America East website, at www.americaeast.com.