Courtesy: Vermont Athletic Communications
TORONTO, Ontario - University of Vermont’s Courtnay Pilypaitis (Orleans, Ontario) has been named a tri-captain of the Canadian U19 Women’s Basketball National Team. Canada Basketball announced the roster today.
Team Canada will compete at the FIBA U19 World Championships for Women from July 26 to August 5 in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Canada is in Group C with Serbia, Japan and the Czech Republic. The Canadians open up play on Thursday, July 26 versus Serbia.
Pilypaitis is one of six players on the team that also competed in the FIBA U21 World Championships earlier this summer in Moscow, Russia. She helped the Canadians finish sixth overall (out of 12 teams). It was the best finish for a Canadian team in that age group in the women’s competition.
Team Canada finished the tournament with a record of 4-4, falling to the Australian team in the quarterfinals. The Australians advanced to the gold medal game but came up short against the United States.
Pilypaitis averaged six minutes per game, 2.8 points and 1.4 rebounds in the tournament. Her best outing was a 10-point performance in 10 minutes in Canada’s 78-54 win over China.
As a freshman at Vermont, Pilypaitis was the unanimous pick for the America East Rookie of the Year honor. She was also named to the all-rookie and all-conference second team in the league.
During the 2006-07 season, Pilypaitis won the America East Rookie of the Week honor seven times, including five straight weeks, to set a new school record for earning the conference’s weekly honor. She finished her rookie campaign leading the team in scoring (13.7 ppg) and ranked second on the team in rebounds (5.3 pg) and assists (126). She is the first freshmen to lead Vermont in scoring since Joann McKay achieved the feat in 1984-85.
Pilypaitis finished the year with the fourth best scoring average among freshmen in the history of the Vermont program. She was one of four rookies in the country at the Division I level to lead their team in scoring and only 10 Division I teams in the nation started a freshmen at the point in their first game of the year, including UVM’s Pilypaitis.
She led #3 Vermont to a victory over #6 Maine in the America East Quarterfinals, scoring a game-high 23 points (8-for-13 FG), grabbing seven rebounds, handing out four assists and collecting seven. She finished the tournament averaging 21.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 4.0 steals, while shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 41.7 percent from three point range.
Vermont posted a record of 19-12, the most wins and four years, and finished third in the America East regular season standings after being picked to finish eighth in the preseason coaches’ poll.