With her coaching staff in place and team assembled, first-year Longwood head women’s basketball coach Rebecca Tillett has unveiled the 2018-19 non-conference schedule for her debut season with the Lancers.
In Tillett’s inaugural season on the sideline, Longwood is set to welcome reigning Northeast Conference champion Saint Francis (Pa.) — a 2018 NCAA Tournament participant who won 24 games a season ago. The Dec. 1 game against the Red Flash marks the first non-conference opponent that Longwood has hosted to advance to the NCAA Tournament in the year prior since Gardner-Webb in 2010-11, two years before the Lancers joined the Big South.
Longwood’s game against Saint Francis (Pa.) highlights a schedule against 11 non-conference opponents that combined for more than 140 wins a season ago with St. Francis (Pa.) and Virginia Tech earning bids to play in the postseason.
Those two games, along with a home game against Mid-American Conference foe Eastern Michigan are part of a schedule that will see the Lancers play five games inside Willett Hall and eight games throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Tillett will make her official Longwood debut along the sideline in the team’s season-opener at VCU in Richmond, Va. That game will set the tone for a grueling non-conference portion of the schedule that will see the Lancers play teams representing nine different conferences while staying in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
“We’re looking forward to playing four talented Virginia teams with Norfolk State, Old Dominion, VCU and Virginia Tech,” Tillett said. “In addition to those local teams, our schedule includes regional games with a Big South footprint. This will accelerate our staff’s knowledge of the local recruiting landscape.”
On the heels of Longwood’s season-opener, Longwood will play four of its next five games inside Willett Hall. That stretch begins when the Lancers welcome Wagner (Nov. 14) for Tillett’s home debut inside Willett Hall.
“One of our program goals is to increase attendance at games and we need the support of students and the local community,” Tillett said.
The Lancers will also play host to Maryland Eastern Shore (Nov. 27) and Wofford (Dec. 8) before welcoming Saint Francis (Pa.) (Dec. 1) to Farmville.
Longwood will play two non-conference games in the Hamton Roads area, traveling to face C-USA foe Old Dominion (Nov. 29) before a Dec. 12 matchup against Norfolk State awaits 10 days later. This season’s meeting with the Spartans marks the third consecutive season the Lancers have played Norfolk State.
After the trip to Norfolk State, the Lancers welcome Eastern Michigan (Dec. 15) to Farmville in Longwood’s first home contest against a MAC school for women’s basketball.
Longwood’s game against Eastern Michigan marks the start of a grueling four-game stretch prior to the start of Big South play. The Lancers will take on East Carolina (Dec. 19) in a mid-December matchup in Myrtle Beach, S.C., as part of the Beach Ball Classic before playing UNCW (Dec. 21) two days later in Wilmington, N.C.
The final tune-up for the Lancers prior to the conference schedule and the final game of the 2018 calendar year will be a trip to Blacksburg, Va., to square off against a Virginia Tech (Dec. 29) that earned a bid into the 2018 WNIT.
For the 2018-19 season, Longwood welcomes back a strong nucleus of 12 student-athletes from the 2017-18 team, including Kristina Antonenko and Kate Spradlin, who played all 30 games for the Lancers a season ago.
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