March 29, 2024
Sports

Ex-UMaine teammates to reunite in Germany Ernest, Barker join same pro team

Heather Ernest and Bracey Barker, who played together for one season on the University of Maine women’s basketball team and were both named Miss Maine Basketball after their senior years in high school, will join forces again as members of the same professional basketball team in Germany.

The two former Maine schoolgirl and Black Bear standouts both recently signed contracts to play for New Basket Oberhausen, a Damen Basketball Bundesliga (DBBL) team located in the western part of Germany about 20 miles from its border with the Netherlands.

The season starts in October.

“It’s totally crazy,” said Ernest, who is spending part of her summer visiting her boyfriend, who also plays for a German team, in Washington state. “It’s a great opportunity for both of us.”

Ernest said she was thinking about playing in a different country after one season in the German league and another in Luxembourg, but after hearing the Oberhausen team wanted both her and Barker, she rethought leaving Germany.

The idea of playing with Barker again, and the fact Oberhausen was able to find a place for Ernest’s boyfriend, former Central Washington player Chris Bond, on its men’s team, kept Ernest in the country.

“When I heard about [Barker] I was like, oh, this is interesting,” Ernest said.

The two former Bears have kept in touch over the years via the Internet and Ernest saw Barker occasionally when she returned to Orono for games. Ernest said she watched the Black Bears’ America East playoff game around 2 a.m. on her computer in Germany.

Ernest asked her agent if he could help Barker link up with a team in Europe. That, Ernest said, may be how Oberhausen got a copy of a game DVD of Barker.

Once it was settled that they’d both be on the same team, Barker sent Ernest an e-mail with a slight concern that they played the same forward position.

“I wrote back to her, Bracey, it doesn’t really matter. We’re gonna kill everybody when the two of us are on the floor together,” Ernest said.

The addition of another player, German national team member Sarah Austmann, who Ernest said is a “great shooter,” could make Oberhausen tough to beat.

Ernest said she signed a one-year contract but declined to comment on her salary. Her contract last year, however, included German language classes.

Barker isn’t the only women’s basketball player from the UMaine Class of 2007 to be overseas. Ernest said Benton native Ashley Underwood will play for a team in Switzerland this winter.

Temple native Ernest, who was the 2000 Miss Basketball winner while at Mt. Blue of Farmington, was a senior when Barker was a freshman at the University of Maine. Bar Harbor’s Barker graduated from MDI High in 2003, the year she was named Miss Basketball, and from UMaine this year.

Both had stellar careers for the Black Bears. Ernest was a two-time America East Player of the Year and Barker was an all-conference player who finished her career as the leading free-throw shooter in UMaine history and led the nation with her 92 percent free-throw shooting.

Both were also first-team All-Maine players as high schoolers and led their high school teams to state championships.

Ernest, a 2004 UMaine graduate, spent three seasons with BG 74 Goettingen, averaging 18.9 points per game during the 2006-07 season, which ranked second in the DBBL. She was also the league’s third-leading rebounder with 9.73 per game.

Barker averaged 15.4 points and 7.0 rebounds per game in her senior season.

According to a translation from German-to-English from a story on the DBBL web site, Oberhausen head coach Julia Gajewski sees Ernest as an “extremely positive” addition.

“In spite of [Ernest’s] youth, [she already has] much experience and can always [help] the other players,” Gajewski said.

The Oberhausen coaching staff liked what it saw of Barker from the DVD, according to the league site.

“Bracey can play with the back and with the face to the basket,” assistant coach John Bruhnke said. “[Her] movements are excellent, and … [she has] a very good game understanding.”

Ernest also has a connection to one of the Oberhausen assistant coaches, WNBA player Marlies Askamp. Askamp isn’t playing this season because she is pregnant, Ernest said.

It was Askamp who hit Ernest during a 2005 playoff game, which caused Ernest to suffer a broken neck.

Former UMaine star Jamie Cassidy also played professionally in Germany.


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