The Maritime Women’s Basketball Association is working toward its fourth season, set to begin play the first weekend of May across several locations.
The MWBA thanks all of its partners across the league and to those involved with teams in their own area.
We look forward to working toward Season IV.
Here are some news and notes collected from across the MWBA the past few months.
- Two players from the Maritime Women’s Basketball Association are playing professionally this season. Alaina McMillan of the reigning Pro*Line Stadium Series champion Halifax Thunder is in D’Artois, France and Elizabeth Iseyemi of Dartmouth/Cole Harbour’s Lake City 56ers is with USC Heidelberg in Germany.
- The MWBA has had five players play at the professional level in Europe including McMillan, Iseyemi, Karinna Kajorinne (Portugal), Tiffany Reynolds (Nicaragua), Sophie Widmeyer (Ireland).
- The 2025 MWBA Pro*Line Stadium Series championship will be played in New Brunswick. The Moncton Mystics have indicated they would like to host. An announcement will be made in March.
- Former MWBA MVP Kaylee Kilpatrick of Saint John’s Port City Fog will not return for her fourth season of action. Kilpatrick is teaching in New Zealand and will not return home until June. Kilpatrick departs as the league’s second all-time leading scorer. She played professionally in Germany, Australia and Ireland before joining Port City.
- Allie McCarthy and Bailey Russell of the Fredericton Freeze are key parts of the University of Ottawa Gee Gees revival. Ottawa was ranked No. 1 in the USPORTS nation at the end of 2025.
- Congratulations are in order to the voice of the Freeze and other MWBA teams. Bill Gibson of Fredericton was named Sport New Brunswick’s Media Personality of the Year at a gala event late last year.
- *Commissioner Jen McKenzie of Dartmouth, NS, will enter her second season in a leadership position for the MWBA. She has a new vice commissioner as Saint John’s Lori Wall moved up from league secretary.
- Former MWBA star player Karla Yepez is retiring from competition, but not from the MWBA. Yepez, 24th in all-time MWBA points, accepted the position as head coach of the Halifax Hornets. She played four seasons with the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers and was coaching before joining the MWBA as a player. The love of game took her back to UPEI where she studied and played her fifth and final season at the USPORTS level.
- Jasmine Parent of the Halifax Hornets, Fredericton’s Robbi Daley and Port City’s Kaylee Kilpatrick are tied with the most games played in the MWBA. All have played 29 out of 30 regular season games since the league opened in 2022.
- The MWBA is tentative scheduled to open its fourth season on Friday, May 2.
- Mark Forward, who guided the Halifax Hornets to the MWBA’s first Legacy Cup title, recently reached the 300-win mark for Mount St. Vincent University Mystics women’s basketball.
- Moncton players Allie Berry, Leonie Elbert and Emily Briggs are all part of the coaching staff with the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association’s Crandall University Chargers. Berry is the Chargers’ head coach.
- Former MWBA vice commissioner Anna Lee LeBlanc of Riverview, NB, is now working in the athletics department with Queen’s University Gaels in Kingston, ON.
- University of New Brunswick track and field star Shelby McIsaac of Riverview is the MWBA’s new social media director, taking over from LeBlanc. A multi-sport athlete, McIsaac recently finished her social media internship with the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League’s Moncton Wildcats.
- Treasurer Jeff White of Saint John will be leaving his post after three seasons with the MWBA. The league certainly acknowledges the work of White and looks forward to naming a new person to the role prior to the 2025 campaign.
- Former MWBA MVP Haley McDonald of the Halifax Thunder was named Basketball Nova Scotia’s head coach for its girls’ under-17 program. The team will compete at the 2025 Canada Summer Games in St. John’s, NL.
