The Marietta College women’s basketball team was picked to finish fifth in the Ohio Athletic Conference Preseason Poll announced Wednesday morning by the conference office, placing the Pioneers in the middle of a closely grouped field. Marietta received 36 points in the voting.
Otterbein, last season’s tournament champion, took the top spot with five first-place votes and 61 points. Baldwin Wallace, last season’s regular-season champion, was a close second with the other four first-place votes and 60 points, followed by Mount Union in third with 46 points and Ohio Northern in fourth with 43.
Head coach Jenna Andersen said the team believes it can compete at a higher level than its polling position. She pointed to a strong group of returning players and the experience they gained last season as a foundation for building through the year.
Marietta finished last season 12-14 overall and 7-9 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, earning the number six seed in the OAC tournament. The Pioneers’ season ended with a loss to Mount Union in the quarterfinal round.
Behind Marietta in the poll were Capital in sixth with 27 points, Muskingum in seventh with 24, Wilmington in eighth with 19 and Heidelberg in ninth with eight points. The narrow spread between the top five teams leaves little separation heading into the season.
Andersen said the preseason poll gives the program a starting point, and that the goal is to grow, compete at a high level and improve on last year’s results as the season moves toward the final standings.
The Pioneers will have the conference race to prove that point, with the same teams that voted ahead of them on the schedule in OAC play. Where Marietta finishes will be settled on the court rather than in the October poll.
Marietta’s fifth-place position also reflects how the conference viewed the Pioneers’ returning core. A team that reached the OAC tournament last season and returns familiar faces starts the year inside the top half of the poll, ahead of four other programs, while still trailing the two teams that split last season’s regular-season and tournament titles and the two programs directly above it in the voting.
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