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Saint Francis lifts the lid on its 44th season of women's basketball as it welcomes regional rival Duquesne to DeGol Arena on Friday.  The Dukes – who are SFU's most-played non-conference opponent – hold a 24-10 advantage in the all-time series.

Since the series resumed on an annual basis in 2006-07, the Dukes have won four of the five meetings.  Two of those Duquesne wins were by three points or fewer.

The last Red Flash win in the series came on Nov. 27, 2007 in Susan Robinson Fruchtl's first season on the Saint Francis bench.
Saint Francis is 5-13 in Loretto against Duquesne in Loretto, including a 5-12 mark in the Stokes Center.

Due to a typically-strong non-conference slate, the Red Flash are 12-31 in season-openers all-time.  The last time SFU won its first game was in 2006-07 -- the year before Robinson Fruchtl arrived at the school.

Duquesne took last year's meeting in Pittsburgh, 84-69, behind a 19-point outing from then-senior Samantha Pollino.  Current Dukes' senior Alex Gensler scored 18.

Duquesne finished last season with a 24-9 record and is picked to finish third in the Atlantic-10.


RED FLASH PICKED TO WIN THIRD STRAIGHT TITLE
The Northeast Conference Women's Basketball coaches have given Saint Francis University the moniker of NEC preseason favorite.  The two-time defending NEC champion Red Flash garnered four first-place nods in the poll of the conference's 12 head coaches.   Not since the 2004-05 season has the coaches' preseason favorite gone on to capture the NEC's automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament field.  Saint Francis was actually the last Preseason No. 1 to go all the way when it won the last of its nine titles over a 10-season span (1996-2005).

WATTS TO MAKE SFU DEBUT
After sitting out the the 2010-11 season due to NCAA transfer rules, Flash fans will get a first look at Rhonda Watts (Alabaster, Ala./Thompson) this season.  A native of Alabaster, Ala., Watts played two seasons at Virginia Commonwealth.  At Thompson High School she was a four-year letterwinner, and left the program as the Warrior's all-time leading scorer with 1,757 points.  During her career, the Warriors won 72 games and two 6A Area Titles.  Watts averaged 17.4 ppg as a senior shot 94 percent from the free-throw line.

INJURY BUG BITES HARD
Senior Brittany Lilley (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) and junior captain Shené Fleming will miss the 2011-12 basketball season due to isolated ACL tears suffered in the preseason.  With 8-to-12 months of recovery ahead of them, both players will redshirt this season and return in 2012-13.  Fleming led the Red Flash with 223 rebounds in 30 games in 2010-11. Although a hand injury slightly derailed her shooting ability, Fleming still managed to average 7.4 points per game.  The MVP of last season's NEC Tournament and an All-NEC second-team selection, Lilley
became Saint Francis' 21st 1,000-point scorer in last season's NCAA Tournament First Round game at Maryland.

SAINT FRANCIS RECEIVES VOTES IN MID-MAJOR POLL
The CollegeInsider.com Preseason Mid-Major Poll showed that the Red Flash have caught the attention of coaches around the nation with its recent success.  Although the poll includes only 25 teams, the Flash received 65 points to land in the 30th spot.

SCOUTING THE DUKES
Duquesne, which reached the Third Round of the WNIT for the first time in school history last season and won a record-setting 24 games, returns four of its top five scorers from the 2010-11 season, including a trio of preseason All-Conference selections in Vanessa Abel, leading scorer Alex Gensler, and A-10 Rookie of the Year Wumi Agunbiade. Abel and Agunbiade, both second team picks, averaged 10.0 points and 11.2 points a game, respectively. Abel, a third-team pick that averaged 12.6 points a game last season, was also named to the A-10's preseason All-Defensive Team.