women’s basketball ranked in top 25

D3hoops.com poll # School (1st place votes) Rec Pts Prev.  1 Amherst (22) 4-0 622  1  2 Hope (3) 4-0 590  2  3 Christopher Newport 3-0 568  4  4 Kean 4-0 536  8  5 Carthage 4-0 487  9  6 Washington U. 3-1 450  7  7 Mount Union 3-0 436 11  8 Wis.-Stevens Point 4-1 417  6  9 Williams 4-0 413 14 10 Babson 3-0 391 13 11 DePauw 3-1 374 12 12 Rochester 3-1 350  5 13 Illinois Wesleyan 2-2 302  3 14 Thomas More 4-0 293 19 15 William Paterson 5-0 247 -- 16 Wis.-La Crosse 6-0 200 -- 17 George Fox 4-2 172 10 18 Muhlenberg 4-0 158 -- 19 St. Benedict 3-0 134 -- 20 Colby 3-0 122 23 21 Gettysburg 3-1 118 16 22 St. Vincent 4-0 100 25 23 Wis.-Whitewater 3-1 97 -- 24 Lebanon Valley 5-1 90 20 25 Medaille 2-1 68 -- Others receiving votes: New York University 61, Western Connecticut 44, Puget Sound 38, St. Norbert 35, Bowdoin 33, Lewis and Clark 32, Messiah 23, Mississippi College 22, Whitman 17, Wis.-Eau Claire 15, Johns Hopkins 12, DeSales 9, Utica 8, Wis.-River Falls 8, Louisiana College 4, Baldwin-Wallace 3, Eastern Connecticut 3, Coe 2, Gallaudet 2, Mary Washington 2, Calvin 1.

The Muhlenberg women’s basketball team is ranked 18th in the first D3hoops.com poll of the regular season.

The 4-0 Mules, who received votes in the preseason poll,

Sophomore Alita Zabrecky scored a career-high 19 points to go along with 7 rebounds, 3 assists and a career-high 5 steals in the win against Gettysburg. She ranks in the top 15 in the Centennial Conference in scoring (13th), rebounding (tied for eighth), field-goal percentage (ninth), assists (tied for fourth), steals (tied for third), offensive rebounds (tied for fifth) and assist-to-turnover ratio (seventh).

moved into the top 25 after defeating Gettysburg, then ranked No. 16, last Tuesday. The Bullets, who reached the “Sweet 16” of the NCAA Tournament last year, slipped to No. 21.

Muhlenberg is the highest-ranked team from the Mid-Atlantic Region, as teams from the region that were ranked last year – Scranton, Moravian, DeSales, Messiah and Lebanon Valley – all have losses; in fact, all except Lebanon Valley have at least two losses. Remarkably, just two weeks into the season, there are only two undefeated teams in the region: Muhlenberg and 2-0 Baptist Bible.

The Centennial Conference is also represented in the poll by Johns Hopkins, which received 12 votes after a 4-1 start that included a win over Messiah.

In the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association poll, Muhlenberg is 20th.

Being ranked in the top 25 is nothing new for the Mules. They have received votes in the national poll during the regular season each of the last six years, with their highest rank during that span coming last year (No. 11). The program’s all-time best national ranking is No. 8 in the 2001-02 season.