Despite losing only one senior and returning four starters from last year’s Frontier Conference Tournament championship team that advanced to the NAIA’s Sweet 16, the Lewis-Clark State College women’s basketball team was picked to finish second behind last year’s regular-season champion Westminster in the conference’s annual preseason coaches’ poll for this season.
Westminster received 5.5 first-place votes from the coaches, while LCSC received the other 2.5 votes. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own team and one coach split the first-place vote between the two.
Westminster totaled 47.5 points in the poll, while LCSC had 44.5 and Carroll was third at 35. Rocky Mountain (28.5), Montana Tech (25.5), Montana State-Northern (23), Montana Western (13), and Great Falls (7) rounded out the voting. A first-place vote is worth seven points, a second-place vote is worth six, and so on down the line.
LCSC has won either the conference regular-season or tournament title in each of the past four seasons. LCSC went 29-6 a year ago and returns the nucleus of its team, including seven players who are in at least their third year of the program.
The Warrior women kick off the season on Nov. 1 at home against Walla Walla University at 6 p.m.
