The University of New England women's basketball team will be playing two games in central Maine in the coming weeks. The Nor'easters start two freshmen who are central Maine high school graduates and play at UMaine-Farmington at 1 p.m., Saturday and at Colby on Jan. 3.

Margo Russell of Madison and Kelley Paradis of Newport both start for UNE, which has a 4-3 record and plays in the Commonwealth Coast Conference. Both Paradis and Russell have started all seven games.

Their stats are very smiliar in some ways. Russell is averaging 10.7 points and 5.0 rebounds, and Paradis is averaging 10.1 points and 5.0 rebounds. Paradis is shooting better from the field, but Russell is getting to the free throw line more often. Both can shoot from long range (Russell is 9 for 29 on 3-pointers, and Paradis is 8 for 19).

As a team, UNE averages 72.4 points per game and takes over 20 3-pointers a night, so it should make for some interesting matchups against the strong defenses of UMF and Colby.