2009-2010 Franklin Pierce Season Outlook

Information Provided By Franklin Pierce Sports Information

The Franklin Pierce University women’s basketball team has been one of the top programs, not just in the Northeast-10 Conference, but the entire nation the past two seasons. During that time, the Ravens have won two NCAA regional titles, advanced to the Elite Eight in back-to-back years, won the conference tournament and regular season title last year, and advanced all the way to the Division II national title game last season.

Those honors haven’t satisfied the Ravens, but have made them hungrier and wanting to strive for even more in the upcoming 2009-10 season.

The Franklin Pierce attack starts with senior guard/forward Johannah Leedham, who is the two-time reigning Northeast-10 Conference Player of the Year. Leedham, who has already been named the 2009 Preseason National Player of the Year by Women’s Division II Bulletin, averaged a league-best 23.5 points per game last season as she scored a conference-record tying 799 points.

She enters her final season with 2,135 career points, and is close to breaking several career scoring records at the school, conference and NCAA levels. Leedham is 54 points shy of becoming the all-time leading scorer in NE-10 women’s hoops history. She is also 354 points shy of becoming the all-time leading scorer in NE-10 basketball history (both men’s and women’s). Leedham is also just 675 points shy of becoming the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division II women’s basketball history. On the Franklin Pierce front, she is just 429 points shy of becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer in women’s hoops.

Leedham is one of three starters returning for the Ravens this season. Joining Leedham in that capacity is sophomore forward Marielle Giroud (34/30 gp/s) and junior center Tori Ahrens (35/32 gp/s). As a rookie last season, Giroud averaged 5.0 points per game and pulled down a team-high tying 6.1 rebounds a contest. Ahrens posted averages of 7.3 points and 5.2 rebounds per game.

Overall, nine letterwinners return for Franklin Pierce this season. In addition to Leedham, Giroud and Ahrens, the other six include: junior guard Cynthia Gaudet (5.4 ppg, 1.8 rpg); senior guard Kirsten Doldoorian (4.0 ppg, 1.3 rpg); sophomore center Jewel White (2.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg); senior guard Rachel Kimball (1.1 ppg, 0.4 rpg); senior guard Alexis Auffray (0.5 ppg, 0.9 rpg); and sophomore forward Anna Mapes (0.4 ppg; 0.6 rpg).

Four newcomers are added to the mix and include freshman guards Siobhan Carnell and Jordan Grant, and freshman forwards Amanda Saab and Tiffany Johnson.

The team returns several players who have played on the big stage, including in front of a national TV audience (ESPN 2) for last season’s national title. That experience should help prepare the team as its game at Bentley on Feb. 20 will be broadcast nationally on CBS College Sports Television.

The team will be led by head coach Steve Hancock, who returns to the position after a successful eight-year run from 1988-96. During that span, Hancock went 135-92 and led Franklin Pierce to three berths in the NCAA Tournament and two NECC championships. Hancock retired from the position in the spring of 1996, but did spend the past three seasons as an assistant coach on the Ravens staff, helping guide the team to back-to-back NCAA regional championships.