Senior co-captain and sharpshooter Katie Meinhardt was one of three finalists for the America East Fan’s Choice Player of the Year award. Voting ended on Sunday, and the winner will be announced tomorrow.
“It was pretty cool, I didn’t even know about it. I didn’t think I had any chance,” Meinhardt said.
Meinhardt entered the final round of voting in second place. Her 331 votes put her in second place heading into the weekend, 111 votes ahead of University of Vermont freshman Courtnay Pilypaitis but well behind Hartford’s junior forward Danielle Hood, who had a commanding lead with 685 votes heading into the finals.
“I wish I had known about it a little bit better,” said BU coach Kelly Greenberg. “None of us even knew until Friday.”
This helps explain why it took so long for a link to the voting site to get posted on the BU athletics webpage. In fact, it was Meinhardt’s roommate, College of Communication junior Jackie Ward, who told the administration Katie was in the mix for the title.
And Ward also led some of the BU community in an attempt to close the sizeable gap between Meinhardt and Hood by starting a Facebook.com “event” to rally more votes for the Terrier senior. The page had a link to the voting site and urged all the members to vote for BU’s tri-captain.
“Between myself and [Katie’s] little brother, we invited over 1,200 people,” Ward said. “We hope it will make a difference.
Ward is hoping an award for Meinhardt would also help level the score against conference opponents who beat up on the Terriers during the regular season.
“Hartford has beaten them the last eight times, we couldn’t let them win off the court,” Ward added. “And they’re crazy in Vermont.”
Meinhardt is not sure whether her roommate’s efforts will pay off, but she is glad for the support she has received from the BU community.
“They have a lot of school spirit out there [in Hartford], but a lot of people have been coming up to me – people I don’t know – and saying, ‘Hey I saw the link online and I voted for you,'” Meinhardt said.
If Meinhardt can pull off the come-from-behind win, it will not only be a victory for her, but for her roommate, as well.
“I consider myself her unofficial agent,” Ward said. “I’m a superfan of these girls.”
Devine’s Back is Back
Junior forward Kasey Devine will be 100 percent for the team’s first-round matchup against Binghamton University in the America East tournament, according to Greenberg.
Devine went down with a back injury in the first half of the Terriers’ regular-season finale on Wednesday against Binghamton and was unable to return in the second half, but Greenberg says the junior will be ready to play against the Bearcats this time around.
“We are playing her as if she’s 100 percent,” Greenberg said. “She’s full-time practice and all that, thankfully.”
The Terriers will need Devine’s presence if the game plays out anything like the last contest between the two. In that game, each Terrier frontcourt player besides Devine was in foul trouble at halftime, and senior forward Erica Kovach played for most of the second half with four fouls.
“That’s their game, is being physical. They got those nine fouls on our forwards the first half,” Greenberg said. “Having Kasey will be big.”
Kibbles and Bits
The Terriers, who finished their regular season before this past weekend, learned they are the fifth seed in this weekend’s America East Championship Tournament. Unfortunately for the Terriers, they will play No. 4 Binghamton, who’s hosting the tournament.
“We’re looking at it as we’ll be a part of the most crowded, loudest and most exciting game,” Greenberg said. . . . The Terriers played in the past four America East Championship games, but have lost the last three. . . . The last time BU lost a first-round matchup in the America East tourney was in the 2001-02 season, when the second-seeded Terriers fell to No. 7 Stony Brook University, 63-46. . . . If both BU and Hartford advance to the second round, they will meet for the third-straight year in the tournament. The Hawks won the last two, which were both title games, and have beaten the Terriers in eight-straight contests overall.