UMBC finished in third place in the Commissioner’s Cup standings last season and there is plenty of reason to believe they will be more successful this season.

With the 2011-2012 athletic season starting in only a few days when the women’s soccer team plays their season opener here are five bold predictions for this upcoming year.

The women’s sports will break through

Ali Loynchan

Last season the volleyball team shocked a lot of people when they took an incredibly young group to finals of the America East tournament. Meanwhile, the women’s basketball team won their first-ever regular season championship and the women’s lacrosse team played in their second-straight championship game.

There is a lot of reason to believe that all three of those teams will again contend for a championship and while I’m at it, I’m saying at least two of the three will.

Last year the volleyball team had 14 players on it, 10 of them were only freshmen or sophomores, getting significant playing time. While losing Sabrina Hoeks and Bianca Sande is going to be tough both on the court and in the locker room there is plenty of leadership to be provided from their four upper classmen and plenty of talent on the roster. Ian Blanchard has also added an incredibly talented freshman class again, led by Hannah Schmidt, the Baltimore Sun and Varsity Sports Network 2010 Player of the Year.

The women’s basketball team returns three all-conference players, including two Player of the Year candidates. All three will be seniors with plenty of experience under their belts. While the team will have to replace two work-horses in Meghan Colabella and Michele Brokans, they have two eligible transfers capable of playing at a very high level while last year’s group of freshmen should be able to provide a lot in their sophomore seasons.

The women’s lacrosse team did lose a lot of talented offensive players, like Amanda Pappas, Erika Braerman, and Ashley Stodter, but there are still loads of talent left on the roster. First-team All-Conference Player Alicia Krause should once again lead the Retrievers while Emily Coady should bounce-back as a senior. The defense should also remain a solid unit with Lauren Mundell, Jessica Harkey, and Jamie Fahey all sticking around.

While I’m on the subject of women’s sports…

At least two female athletes will win Player of the Year awards

Michelle Kurowski

The only reasons the women’s basketball team did not have the America East Player of the Year last season was because Erin Brown and Michelle Kurowski were both so good that they split votes. Both should be in contention for it again this season and it might be the year one of them wins it.

Meanwhile, a member of the volleyball team will definitely be in contention of a significant award, which is what happens when you have a good team. Allie Spaay was in contention for the Setter of the Year award last year and she may have won it had she not missed significant time with an injury. Ali Loynachan should definitely be right there with the conference’s best hitters.

Alicia Krause will also be in major contention for the Player of the Year award in women’s lacrosse. Last season she was a major candidate for it after finishing with 35 goals, 15 assists, 29 ground balls, 32 draw controls, and 20 caused turnovers. With three of the team’s top five goal scorings having graduated she’ll have plenty more opportunities to score and the offense is definitely going to be going through here. Emily Coady could be a dark horse this season as well. She has a stellar sophomore campaign but was quiet last season as Erika Braerman ran the game behind the net, but now that position is open for Coady again.

Let’s also not forget about Abbey McKenney on the swimming team, who won the Most Oustanding Swimmer award after winning six gold medals at the America East Championship Meet, leading the Retrievers to a conference title.

Men’s Soccer will repeat as champions

Andrew Bulls

Whooh, that’s a pretty big prediction, especially since they lost a very talented group of seniors, including the nation’s leading scorer the past two seasons, Levi Houapeu, but the Pete Caringi lead Retrievers should once again be one of the best teams in the nation. With Andrew Bulls, Pete Caringi III, Nirav Kadam, and incoming All-American Kadeem Dacres the Retrievers should once again have a very potent offense. While John Paul Waraksa and Chris Williams will both be missed on the defensive end, the return of Sean Rothe should help bolster a defensive unit with Vince Savarese, Liam Paddock, and Daniel Welsh that played very well last season.

They team will once again be having a very interesting goalkeeper battles going into the season but with three incredibly talented players at the position, they’ll be in great shape no matter who wins it.

Caringi also brought in a very strong freshman class, led by Zach Wenger, who has been playing against top-notch competition his entire youth career as a part of the United Stats National Team.

Men’s Basketball will bounce back significantly

Chris De La Rosa

The last two seasons have been very difficult for the men’s basketball team, going a combined 9-51. But the team should definitely be much better this season. They probably won’t contend for a championship or anything but they very well could finish in the top half of the nine-team conference.

While the team does lose four players that saw significant time last season Chris De La Rosa may have been the conference best point guard last season and he’ll lead a group of guys that have finally grown up and have a lot of experience with them.

Last season four of the team’s major contributors were freshmen or sophomores but not that they know the ropes Jamar Wertz, Chase Plummer, Brian Neller and Adrian Satchell, who was an All-Rookie team selection two seasons ago, should be able to provide him with a lot of help while Randy Monroe’s incoming class is one of his most talented yet.

The Men’s Lacrosse team will return to the nation’s elite

Scott Jones

From 2006 to 2009 Don Zimmerman has the men’s lacrosse team in the upper echelon of the collegiate lacrosse world, reaching rankings as high as fourth in the nation at some points. But the last two years the team has had losing seasons and has missed the NCAA tournament. That what losing 17 All-Conference players and nine All-American in a four year span does to teams, especially when those players have to be replaced by 27 freshmen and sophomores on a 35-man rosters.

The men’s lacrosse team was incredibly young last year and it really showed. But this year Zimmerman, who is already regarded as one of the best coaches in the history of the game, really bolstered his coaching staff by getting Ed Stephenson back after an incredibly successful stint at Binghamton and has some experience to work with. Now those 27 freshmen and sophomores are seasoned players and will be joining a very experienced group of five seniors.

Scott Jones developed into an elite scorer as a sophomore while Rob Grimm continued his yearly-improvement as a junior. Players like Scott Hopmann, Dave Brown, Joe Lustgarten, Zach Linkous, Greg Korvin, Neill Lewnes, Matt Gregoire, and Ryan Johnston all showed a lot of promise last season and could make for a very dangerous and deep offensive unit while Brian McCullough, Aaron Verardi, Lucas Wood, Sam McKelvey, Riley Hansen, Breck Merritt, Nathan Klein, Ethan Murphy, and Tony Spada are all returning on the defensive side of things.

<strong>Forget about the bad record, Chris De La Rosa should be the Player of the Year.</strong>

If the UMBC men’s basketball team could play at least a little decent in the first half they might not be so bad this year. For the sixth straight game the Retrievers either outscored or matched their opponent’s scoring total but it also marked the sixth straight game where the team had a double-digit deficit in the first half and for the fifth straight game, they lost.

UMBC fell to Albany in SEFCU Arena, 83-67, ending their regular season with a 5-24 record. Their 4 conference wins is tied with Binghamton for the fewest in the league, but the Bearcats have two more games left on their schedule.

The Retrievers will play in the play-in-game of the America East tournament on March 4 in Hartford.

UMBC went down by double-digits in only four minutes. After Brian Neller hit a three-pointers at 18:27 to make the score 4-3 in favor of the Great Danes, Albany went on a 20-2 run over the next seven minutes, taking the Retrievers out of the game early.

Even though UMBC made a respectable 43.5 percent of their shots, the defense was once again deplorable, allowing Albany to make 57.1 percent of theirs as the Retrievers went into the break trailing 44-28. The defense wasn’t much better in the second half as Albany again made over half of their shot attempts, but UMBC did match their 39 points.

Leading the charge for Albany was Logan Aronhalt with 19 points while Mike Black scored 18, Tim Ambrose had 17 points, 7 assists, and 7 rebounds, and Luke Delvin has 12 points and six rebounds. UMBC was led by non other than Chris De La Rosa, who scored a game-high 25 points in 38 minutes while Chase Plummer scored 10 points and had six rebounds.

Chase Plummer scored 13 points with seven rebounds, both team highs, in only 13 minutes against UNH.

As much as I would love to not write about this game and pretend it never happened, I can’t, it happened. It’s hard to believe the men’s basketball team followed a hugely one-sided loss to Vermont up with an even more one-sided loss to New Hampshire, 63-46.

As bad as the Retrievers were in the first half against Vermont, they were worse against New Hampshire, scoring only 10 points, the fewest points they have scored in a half.

UMBC made only three field goals and two free throws before going scoreless in the final 9:34 of the game, a span in which the Wildcats scored 21 straight points. After scoring their first five points in that run UNH center Dane Diliegro scored on a fast-break dunk and was followed by two more fast-break dunks by Tyrone Conley in a 30 second span, putting UMBC down by 19 points

But like against Vermont, the Retrievers actually outplayed their opponent in the second half. After trailing 39-10 at the half, UMBC outscored New Hampshire 36-24 in the second half.

Led by Chase Plummer, who scored 13 points in only 13 minutes due to foul trouble, UMBC not only outscored in the second half, but also outrebounded their opponent 20-7.

Travis King scored 15 points in the second half.

UMBC couldn’t have played a worse first half against Vermont. While they shot a respectable 37.5 percent they went into halftime down 45-23, trailing by as many as 25 point in the 20 minute period.

After a three-point play by Chris De La Rosa, who led UMBC with 20 points and six rebounds, three minutes into the game made the score 10-9, the Catamounts went on a 12-point run over the next five minutes, giving them a 22-9 lead. Freshman Chase Plummer broke the streak after a timeout with two of his six points in the game and Bakari Smith, who scored a career-high seven points, followed that with a three-point play to give the Retrievers a modest 5-point run.

But Vermont got back to what they were doing very soon and scored 13-straight points, extending their run to 25-5 over an 11 minute span.

The Retrievers turned the ball over eight times in the first half, managed only one offensive rebound, were hammered in the paint, 24-6, and outscored 21-2 on hustle points (second chance and fast break points).

The second half was a completely different story. UMBC outscored Vermont 44-35 in the second half shot 53.1 percent from the field, 45.5 percent from three-point range, beat Vermont 18-6 in the paint, and 17-2 on hustle points.

But the the time the Retrievers started to get everything together it was way too late. After another three-point play by De La Rosa put the score at 51-31 Vermont went on a 9-point run, giving them a 29-point lead, their largest of the game.

In the final nine and a half minutes the Retrievers outscored 31-14, not enough to get back in range of a victory, but enough to make the final score of 80-67 not look quite as one-sided as the game was.

Travis King made three of his four 3-pointers in the second half of his 18-point performance while Justin Fry scored 10 points with seven rebounds.

All five of Vermont’s starters scored in double-figures, led by freshman Brian Voelkel with 19 points and 10 rebounds while Brendan Bald also scored 19 points, Matt Glass scored 13, Evan Fjeld scored 11 with seven rebounds and three blocks, and Sandro Carissimo scored 10 points for the Catamounts.

Travis King missed only one shot in his 17-point effort.

When Chris De La Rosa lost control of the ball with 10 seconds to go in a tie game was was forced to end his otherwise superb 10-point, eight rebounds, six assists night by fouling Greer Wright, giving him his fifth foul, it looked like UMBC was headed for another loss, and when Wright hit both of his shots it looked all but over. But then senior Laurence Jolicoeur saw Wright getting back on defense right in front of him, jumped up for a three-despite not really being set. What he did was catch Wright in the air for a three-shot foul with 1.5 seconds remaining in the game.

Jolicoeur made the first, missed the second, but tied the game with a successful third attempt, sending the game into overtime.

With De La Rosa forced on the bench Bakari Smith, along with fellow seniors Travis King, Justin Fry, and Jolicoeur, carried UMBC to their fourth victory of the season as the latter three scored 10 points, going 6-for-6 from the foul line, and held Binghamton to only six points, giving UMBC an 83-79 victory.

The Retrievers barely ever trailed in the first half. While Binghamton made half of their shots and seven three-pointers, led by Mousa Camara, who went 4-for-4 from deep for 12 points in the first half, UMBC didn’t struggle from the field either, making 45.7 percent of their shots with four three-pointers.

Binghamton continued to make three-point shots in the second half, five more, and took a lead and never trailed again for the final 12 minutes of regulation.

But what they couldn’t do was stop UMBC was scoring inside. The Retrievers got big pick-me-ups from Justin Fry (10 points, 8 rebounds), Travis King (17 points), Jolicoeur (8 points), and freshman Chase Plummer (12 points) inside as UMBC outscored the Bearcats 42-28 in the paint.

Meanwhile, Sophomore Brian Neller, who made his second-straight start, drained five three’s in a 21 point effort.

After Camara scored his 20th point 10 minutes into the second half, UMBC never let him get free for a shot again and forced Mahomoud Jabbi (12 points, 10 rebounds) and Greer Wright (14 points) to beat them. Both of those guys were in foul trouble at that point and both fouled out before the end of game.

Jabbi fouled out with a minute left in regulation. Wright, who picked up his fourth foul when he sent Jolicoeur to the line with 1.7 seconds remaining in the second half, fouled out in overtime after making the Bearcats first two baskets.

UMBC won their fourth game of the season and improved their America East record to 3-7.

Chase Plummer has given Retriever fans a lot of hope for the future.

Freshman forward Chase Plummer recorded her first career double-double, scoring 13 points while grabbing 11 rebounds, both team highs, against the Stony Brook Seawolves but his efforts weren’t enough as for the second time this season the Retrievers lost to last year’s regular season champions, 69-59.

With the help of 12 successful free throw attempts in the first 11 minutes of the second half the men’s basketball team rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to get a three-point lead over their AEC foes, but the Seawolves ended the game with a 16-3 run in the final nine minutes to hand UMBC their third straight loss, dropping them to 3-19 overall and 2-7 in the AEC.

Chris De La Rosa made it to the free throw line seven times, making six of them, in a 12 points effort with a team-high five assists.

But the Retrievers struggled on offense the entire night. While they made five three-pointers in the first half they only made nine total baskets and in the second half they only made nine as well, shooting 28.1 percent from the floor and 15.4 percent from three-point range.

Meanwhile, Junior guard Bryan Dougher led Stony Brook with 19 points while Marcus Rouse and Eric McAlister each scored as the team shot 42.0 percent from the floor and 38.1 percent from three-point range in the game.

Chris De La Rosa was sick against Hartford but he seemed like he was back to normal against UNH.

With Alvin Abreu out of action since the second game of the season and center Dane Dilegrio suspended for New Hampshire things were setting up well for the men’s basketball team, which won back-to-back games headed into their match against the Wildcats.

New Hampshire is an perimeter team anyway, but with their center out it was going to be more exaggerated. UMBC just beat two teams like that, Boston U and Hartford. They let those teams shoot their three-pointers, but what they didn’t do was let them win the inside battle as well, and eventually the three-pointers stopped falling at the end of the game.

UMBC won the inside battle against New Hampshire, scoring more points in the paint and beating them on the offensive glass, but the Wildcats three-pointers didn’t stop falling as they sunk 14 of their 27 attempts, handing the Retrievers an 80-60 loss.

Chris De La Rosa was back to 100 percent on the court after being sick against Hartford and he scored a game-high 23 points with seven assists, five rebounds, and three steals while making half of the Retrievers’ six free throws. Meanwhile, Justin Fry has eight points and Chase Plummer had six points and six rebounds off the bench.

But the Retrievers couldn’t get by the three-point shooting of the Wildcats. Senior Tyrone Conley made six three-pointers in a 22 points effort along with seven assists, six rebounds, three blocks, and two steals, while Chandler Rhoads went 4-for-4 from three-point range in a 15 point effort. Scott Morris also made three three-pointers for nine points in the game.

That amount of success from outside started to open things up inside for Brian Benson, who scored 15 points with 16 rebounds.

New Hampshire shit 51 percent from the field and 51.9 percent from three-point range while UMBC shot only 36.7 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three-point range.

Chris De La Rosa can do a lot of things but the guys around him need to step up and give him some help.

I can say it a different way every night, but the fact of the matter is, the men’s basketball team is not playing well. When a college basketball team can score 75 points if should be enough to win a game, but when you give up over 80 points it makes thing really difficult.

Chris De La Rosa continued to impress this season by scoring a career-high 30 points off 12-for-20 shooting with four three pointers, and Justin Fry got back on track with 16 points and seven rebounds while the entire team shot 45.0 percent from the field, 45 percent from three-point range. But they could not stop Binghamton from making baskets. The Bearcats mad over 51 percent of their shots from the floor, 63.6 percent in the second half, while hitting 13 three-pointers in the game.

The Retrievers played a very close first half, as they have done this entire season, but one again they could not close out a game and things got out of hand early in the second half.

Five minutes into the second half UMBC had a one point lead over Binghamton but then they went on a 14-3 over the next three minutes, putting UMBC down by double-digits for the first time in the game. They were able to cut the deficit to five but were never able to get any closer and eventually lost, 83-75.

Brian Neller added for De La Rosa and Fry’s efforts with 11 points after hitting three three’s and Jamar Wertz hit two three’s in a nine point, seven rebound effort but Travis King and Laurence Jolicoeur continued to struggle, combining for zero points. Chase Plummer was also shut out in the game after scoring 13 points against Maine.

Justin Fry is the tallest player UMBC has but only had three rebounds against Maine.

Chris De La Rosa needs more guys to step up and help him. De La Rosa continues to build his case to be an all-conference player but anymore he is having to do it by himself. In the first half De La Rosa had six assists to go along with nine points but after his teammates failed to make open shots he decided to keep the ball, and finished the game with 24 points and eight assists.

The two guys that did step up and give De La Rosa help against Maine were freshman Chase Plummer, who scored 13 points, and sophomore Adrian Satchell, who had nine points and a team-high five rebounds. The team’s four seniors were almost non-existent. Justin Fry, Travis King, Bakari Smith, and Laurence Jolicoeur combined for 81 minutes but only 15 points and nine rebounds.

Even though Maine made 55.2 percent of their shots in the first half, the Retrievers kept the game close, trailing only 38-33 at the half. But things got out of hand in the second half as UMBC lost, 82-67.

In the first half UMBC was making smart shots, going 3-for-7 from three-point range, and weren’t letting Maine get to the line, they had only two free throws, but in the second half both of those things changed. UMBC went 1-for-6 from three-point range and allowed Maine to get to the line 19 times.

But as the problem the last two season has been, the team’s inability to keep the rebounding margin close was too much for them. Maine outrebounded UMBC 39-25 and that led the Retrievers being outscored 24-10 on second change points.