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 Head Coach Kathy O'Neil |
Aug. 26, 2010
If you stopped to think about it, it did seem odd. Lowell High School put together one of the premier girls basketball programs in Massachusetts up the street and around the corner from a university with a Division 2 program.
UMass Lowell is within walking distance of Riddick Field House where LHS played its games. Somehow, the high school powerhouse hadn't been fertile recruiting ground for the university.
There wasn't any bad blood between the two. The River Hawks actively recruited several players through the years, but not one Lowell High player in a UML uniform in recent memory.
That changed in a big way this week as the River Hawks welcomed former Lowell High standouts and twin sisters Brianna and Whitney Wilson. The Wilsons will join head coach Kathy O'Neil's River Hawks as transfers from Salem State College.
"It's exciting to have a couple of Lowell kids come back and play in Lowell," O'Neil said. "We've tried a few times, so it's nice to have them."
Brianna, a 6-foot-4 former Sun Player of the Year, earned Second Team All Conference in the Mass. State College Athletic Conference as a freshman last year. She started 25 of 26 games and ranked second on the team in scoring (10.7 points per game) and tied for the team lead in rebounding (7.3 per game).
Whitney, a 6-foot-3 former Sun All-Star, played in 25 games at Salem State. She averaged 6.1 points and 4.7 rebounds in just over 17 minutes per game as a freshman.
The sisters were AAU teammates of current UML center and Pelham resident Briana Szidat. The Wilsons join the program the same off-season as Tewksbury High's Danielle DePierro, another former Sun Player of the Year, who signed as part of the incoming freshman class.
Add in incoming freshman A.J. Guidi from nearby Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H., and incoming assistant coach Courtney Schermerhorn, the former Lowell High and Bryant star, and suddenly it seems the River Hawks have become a big player on the local scene.
What switch did UML flip to keep these players close to home?
"I don't know," O'Neil said. "That's a good question. I hope that they are taking a look at the university and how we're moving forward and the basketball program.
"That's what we hope, that they take a look at what Chancellor (Marty) Meehan has done here in moving the university ahead. We're going to have a couple new buildings. You know, that attraction, and then obviously we hope that they like the basketball."
