BURLINGTON, Vt. – Fresh off celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies will battle the Siena Saints in a semifinal of the annual TD Bank Classic at the Patrick Gymnasium on the campus of the University of Vermont on Saturday, November 26 at 3 p.m.
Officially designated as the away team for Saturday's neutral site clash, Oakland enters play at 2-2 this season, winning their first two games over the Akron Zips and Central Michigan Chippewas before dropping a pair of road contests to the Michigan State Spartans and Illinois Fighting Illini.
Based in Loudonville, New York and a member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), Siena is 2-3, falling to the Duquesne Dukes, 92-73, in their most recent action on Tuesday, November 22.
Prior to the Golden Grizzlies' tip with the Saints, the host Vermont Catamounts will face the Stonehill Skyhawks at 12 p.m. Saturday in the other TD Bank Classic semifinal.
Saturday's two winners will play for the tournament championship at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 27, while the losing teams will square off in the third-place game at 12 p.m.
CURRENT OAKLAND STATISTICAL LEADERS
Tallying at least a dozen points in three of the Golden Grizzlies' four games thus far, sophomore
Kennedie Montue is the team's high-scorer at an even 12 per night, followed by senior
Breanne Beatty at 10 and junior Alexis Johnson at eight.
Beatty is Oakland's leading rebounder, pulling down five per game, with junior Linda Van Schaik and Johnson also averaging at least four.
SCOUTING THE SAINTS
Fifth-year head coach Jim Jabir's Siena squad is paced by sophomore forward Anajah Brown, who is averaging 11.4 points and seven rebounds.
Junior guard Ahniysha Jackson is not far behind at 11 points-per-game, and six-foot freshman Teresa Seppala is giving the Saints 9.8 points and six rebounds in just under 29 minutes-per-contest.
TELEVISION AND LIVE STATS LINKS
Saturday's action will air live on AmericaEast.TV, the conference to which Vermont belongs, and can be accessed using
this link.
Additionally, the Live Stats can be viewed
here.
ALL-TIME SERIES AND LAST MEETING
Oakland and Siena have played twice before, a home-and-home in 2007-08 and 2008-09. The Golden Grizzlies won both, with the first coming in Loudonville and the second in Rochester.
In the latter meeting on November 26, 2008, senior Jessica Pike led Oakland with 20 points, followed by sophomore Brittany Camargo with 19 and fellow senior April Kidd with 16.
SEASON-LONG STORYLINES
NEW FACES FOR GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Faced with the graduations of
Kahlaijah Dean,
Kayla Luchenbach and
Brianna Breedy, who combined to average 28.7 points and 9.9 rebounds last season, the Golden Grizzlies brought in a trio of diversely talented transfers in Raquel Ferrer-Bernad, Alexis Johnson and Linda Van Schaik.
A Southfield A&T Warriors graduate, Johnson is a junior forward who played three seasons in Conference USA (C-USA) for the Marshall Thundering Herd, while Ferrer-Bernad is a graduate student point guard who came from a different C-USA program, the Florida International Panthers.
Van Schaik, another junior, joined Oakland by way of the Sun Belt Conference's Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and projects to provide the team with another 3-point shooting threat.
On top of the program's work in the transfer portal, the Golden Grizzlies' 2022 recruiting class features a couple of high-upside players in guard Brooke Daniels, a Miss Michigan Basketball candidate a year ago from L'Anse Creuse North, and Lianna Baxter, a 6-foot-1 forward who starred at Oconto and is one of the top-100 scorers in Wisconsin high school history.
BREANNE BEATTY HEADLINES GROUP OF RETURNING PLAYERS
Appearing in all 83 of the program's games over the last three seasons, and starting all but two of them, senior guard/forward
Breanne Beatty was named to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team on October 18.
The pride of Worthington, Ohio, Beatty is Oakland's leading returning scorer at 9.7 points-per-game in 2021-22.
In addition to Beatty, junior guard Sug Williams and guards
Kennedie Montue and
Aaliyah McQueen and forward
Miriam Ibezim, all of whom of sophomores, are back with the program and are in line to contribute significantly right from the season's opening tip.
JEFF TUNGATE ENTERS 10TH SEASON
Named the eighth head coach in program history on July 16, 2013, the 2022-23 campaign is the 10
th with
Jeff Tungate at the helm.
Third on the school's all-time wins list with 106, Tungate and four-year veteran assistant
Crystal Davis made some changes to the coaching staff ahead of this season, bringing in Golden Grizzly Hall of Famer and former Mercyhurst Lakers head coach Deanna Richard and Tim Webb, who has extensive coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate levels in Michigan, as assistant coaches.
