Girls' Basketball earns #3 seed

The Wilbraham & Monson Academy Girls' Basketball team is headed back to the postseason, but this season's team is in a totally different position than a year ago.

The Titans (16-4) earned the #3 seed for the New England Prep School Class C Tournament Feb. 26. The Academy, which has won 15 of its last 17 games, will host perennial Class C power Kimball Union Academy March 1 at 3 p.m.

"It's going to feel great Wednesday to have a home playoff game and to have our gym rocking," Coach Durelle Brown said. "It's a dream come true for us – not the end goal, but the beginning of something we've been trying to put together."

WMA was seeded sixth for last year's tournament, when the Titans lost at Lexington Christian 62-38. Unlike last season, though, the 2016-17 team is a senior-heavy group with Annika Bruce '17, Katie Cronin '17, Jenny English '17 and Meera Miller '17, while newcomers Kayla Mokwuah '18 and Courtney Thrun '17 have been instrumental to the team's success as well.

Coach Brown said the team finished second in the Sailor Points System but was seeded third for the tournament due to the strength of schedule for St. Andrew's School of Barrington, R.I. St. Luke's School of New Canaan, Conn., earned the top seed.

"For me and our program, we're going to recognize ourselves as second because to take over a program that three years ago was 22^nd, the legacy of these seniors will be changing a program," Coach Brown said. "They've changed the perception of the program. For that, I'm really proud of them. That second place, we earned that and that means a lot to us.

"It's a strong field. We're playing an opponent we know and an opponent we really respect. Three years ago when we started, KUA was the model we wanted to be. This is the 16^th or 17^th consecutive year making the tournament. They are the cream of the crop in terms of a program and what you want to be. It's special that's who we're going to play this year as we're trying to do something special."

WMA beat Kimball 65-48 at home Dec. 3.

The semifinal round will be held March 4 at the site of the better seed, and the final will be played at Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, Conn., March 5 at 1:30 p.m.