High expectations:

A heartbreaking last second shot by Siena ended the Stags’ season last year as the women’s basketball team was upset in the semifinals of the MAAC Tournament.

Expectations are high this season as the Stags lost only one key contributor, Cara Murphy ’07, from last year’s fourth place squad, which finished 15-16 overall, but 10-8 in the MAAC. This season, Fairfield was picked to finish second in the conference by a preseason coaches poll.

However, the Stags still have work to do in order to contend this season under first-year head coach, Joe Frager.

“We have a great deal of room for improvement,” said Frager. “Every college player should evolve, whether you are a senior, a junior or a freshman; it’s no different.”

While the Stags struggled with an inconsistent offense last year, they could normally produce stops when they needed them. Now with Frager, there will be more of an emphasis on running the half-court offense rather than pushing the ball up the court.

“I want us to be opportunistic, but we need a lot of work on our half-court offense,” said Frager, who added that it is hard to win consistently when the team struggles in the half-court.

Senior guard Sabra Wrice, named to the Preseason All-MAAC First Team, is one of the top players in the conference on both sides of the ball and should provide the Stags with plenty of scoring opportunities.

She was second in the league with 15.7 points per game and set a single-game record for Fairfield, scoring 36 points against Siena while becoming the 21st player in school history to score 1,000 points in her career. She is also one of the Stags’ best defenders, having stolen the ball 52 times last year.

Junior Baendu Lowenthal will give the Stags a post presence and will build off her strong sophomore season, during which she averaged 11.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. She was named to the Preseason All-MAAC Second Team this season.

Another key player in the half-court offense will be junior point guard Megan Caskin, who has struggled at times with her shot, hitting only 28 percent. But she averaged 3.2 assists per game last season along with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio.

Other unheralded players could vie for significant minutes as well, such as senior guard Meka Werts.

The post positions will have a mix of young players along with Lowenthal. But besides Lowenthal and sophomore Stephanie Geehan, the team needs another option down low.

“I think we need better rebounding,” said Frager, while Wrice said to look for senior Steph Cziria to step up in the post.

Despite certain flaws, the team’s experience and depth earned it the second choice in the MAAC behind Marist in the poll.

The Stags return one of the most experienced teams in the conference, but the freshmen should still contend for significant playing time.

Almost all of the post players are freshmen or sophomores, while the small forwards could also have a rotation.

Last season, junior Lauren Groom started toward the end of the year, replacing Werts, who became the sixth man. This season, Groom and Werts will be in the mix again, along with freshman Joelle Nawrocki, a high school McDonald’s All-American nominee.

Besides the MAAC conference play, the Stags will also play a tough non-conference schedule, traveling to Richmond and Villanova, while hosting Boston College and Maine. In addition, Fairfield will play in two tournaments: the Cal-Poly Tournament and the Fordham Tournament, both named after the host schools.

Frager is cautiously optimistic about the season’s prospects.

“We want to get progressively better,” he said, “and play our best basketball in the last two-thirds of the season.