FARMINGTON, Utah (October 17, 2019) – The Northern Arizona women's basketball team was picked eighth in both the Big Sky Preseason Coaches and Media Polls released by the conference office on Thursday, matching the Lumberjacks' finish last season. NAU received 48 points in the Coaches Poll and 83 points in the Media Poll.
Head coach
Loree Payne returns an experienced roster that includes seven letterwinners and four starters. Although the Lumberjacks lost
Kaleigh Paplow, an All-Big Sky Third Team selection, to graduation, they do return 79 percent of their scoring and 80 percent of their rebounding from last season. NAU is coming off a 13-18 campaign in 2018-19 and the Lumberjacks finished eighth in the league with an 8-12 mark in conference play.
Junior
Khiarica Rasheed will lead the 'Jacks into the 2019-20 season as the team's leading returning scorer (12.8 per game) and rebounding (6.3 per game). The Lumberjacks also return double-digit scorers in redshirt junior
Jacey Bailey (11.5) and junior
Lauren Orndoff (10.1) in addition to senior
Peyton Carroll, redshirt junior
Caitlin Malvar and sophomore
Regan Schenck among others from a team that won four of their final five games this past spring.
Graduate student
Molly Rohrer and redshirt sophomore
Nina Radford will also be eligible this season after sitting out last season as transfers.
Although Montana State received seven of 21 first-place votes from the media and five of 11 first-place votes from the coaches to rank first in both polls, the Big Sky appears to be a wide-open race this season. A total of seven teams received a first-place vote in the Media Poll and four teams got a top voe in the Coaches' Poll.
Last season's regular season champion Idaho was picked second in both polls, while the reigning Big Sky tournament champion Portland State was third. Idaho State was the consensus fourth-place team.
Montana, Northern Colorado and Eastern Washington occupied the fifth, sixth and seventh spots immediately ahead of NAU in varying order in both polls. Sacramento State, Southern Utah and Weber State rounded out the polls in ninth, 10th and 11th.
On Wednesday, the Big Sky's Preseason All-Conference Team was announced with Montana State's Fallyn Freije selected as the Preseason MVP. Oliana Squires gave the preseason favorite Bobcats two representatives on the All-Conference Team. The two Bobcats were joined by Kylie Jimenez (Portland State), Kennedy Nicholas (Sacramento State), Estefania Ors (Idaho State), McKenzie Johnston (Montana) and Gina Marxen (Idaho) as honorees selected by both the league's coaches and media.
NAU will open the 2019-20 season at New Mexico on Nov. 8 before the Lumberjacks' home opener versus Seattle on Nov. 16 in the Rolle Activity Center at 2 p.m.
