The Fairfield University women's basketball team tips-off its 30^th Division I season Friday night as it hosts Quinnipiac University at 7 p.m. at Alumni Hall. Tickets for the game are available at Alumni Hall prior to the game. Fans can also purchase season tickets by contacting ticket manager Helen Smaldone. The game is the season opener for both squads.

Fans can watch the video stream, for $7.95 per game, or purchase a pass for all 15 home Fairfield women's basketball games for $69.00. There is a basketball package available at $99.00, in which fans can watch men's and women's home basketball games, with at least 24 home contests being broadcast.    Fans are also able to listen to the WVOF 88.5FM call of the game by John Cummings and Maria Conlon on-line here, and can follow Livestats throughout the contest.

The Stags posted a 20-14 record a year ago, advancing to the quarterfinals of the Women's Basketball Invitational.  To read the Stags 2010-11 season preview, click here. The Bobcats finished the year at 12-18 and fell in the opening game of the Northeast Conference Tournament.

Fairfield and Quinnipiac, separated by merely the distance of a marathon, are meeting for only the fourth time ever in women's basketball, with the Stags leading 3-1. It marks just the second meeting between the two teams at the Division I level, with the Stags winning that meeting 66-62 on November 25, 2001. Fairfield has won three straight games in the series, since dropping the initial contest, 75-59, during the 1978-79 season at the Division III level. The Stags grabbed their first victory the next year, as a Division II team, 78-61, and won again during the 1980-81 season, 64-59.

The Fairfield women's basketball team is 3-0 in its season opener under head coach Joe Frager, but are opening with a home game for the first-time in his tenure. Frager's debut as the Stags head coach came on November 14, 2007 at Richmond and saw Fairfield cruise to a 72-57 victory. Last season Fairfield defeated Rhode Island 72-48 on the road, and defeated host UNC-Asheville 69-49 to start the 2008-09 campaign.

Tonight's game is a homecoming of sorts, as Quinnipiac's 16th-year head coach Tricia Fabbri makes her first return to Alumni Hall since finishing her career as one of the Stags all-time greats. Tricia Sacca during her 1987-91 Hall of Fame Stags career, Fabbri is one of only four players in Fairfield history to finish with over 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. She ranks fourth in Stags history with 1,037 career rebounds and is fifth with 1,622 points helping lead Fairfield to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances.

The Stags were voted fourth in the MAAC Preseason Coaches Poll, which was announced on October 26 at the league's annual Basketball Media Day, this year hosted at B.B. King's House of Blues in New York City. Fairfield earned 64 points in the poll, while Marist College was the unanimous pick to win the league. Iona College earned 90 points to be picked second, while Loyola University Maryland earned 70 points to finish third in the poll. Manhattan College also picked up 64 points, to tie with the Stags, and were followed by Niagara University (51), Canisius College (44), Siena College (34), Saint Peter's College (20) and Rider University (13). Quinnipiac was selected to finish sixth by the head coaches of the 12 Northeast Conference schools.

The Stags continue their four-game, season-opening homestand on Monday, November 15 as they host George Mason University at 7 p.m. at Alumni Hall. Fairfield will then host Cornell University on November 19 in the program's 1,000 varsity contest, before wrapping up the homestand versus the University of Rhode Island on November 22.