Posted at 11:30 a.m. 11-15-09
When the women’s basketball team fell to the Illinois Wesleyan in the second round of the NCAA Div. III playoffs last year to end their season, they lost more than just the game. The game was the final one for five seniors, leaving the Blugolds to take on the 2009-10 season with only one senior and two juniors. But that’s something head coach Tonja Englund said isn’t necessarily a bad thing after coming off a 24-6 season.
“I don’t look at it as a rebuilding situation at all,” Englund said. “I look at it more so as that there is a lot of really good talent in our freshman and sophomore classes and we just have to bring them along quickly because we play such a difficult schedule.”
The schedule Englund refers to is one in which the Blugolds’ season and home opener will be against St. Benedict (Minn.), who Englund said has dominated the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and made it a step further in the NCAA Div. III payoffs than the Blugolds did last year.
“It’s a big deal to have them here right away,” Englund said. “Their strength is perimeter shooting whereas our strength is in the post.”
The game kicks off a string of six games the Blugolds have at home within their first seven games, leading them into Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play.
“We’ve had a great home record in Zorn arena over the last three years and that is our most pressing goal – that we play extremely well at home in our non-conference schedule early on,” Englund said. “That really brings us into our conference schedule when we’re ready to play and that’s been the design of the schedule, because we are young, to have difficult games in Zorn right away and hopefully use our crowd and court advantage to help us.”
Besides maintaining their dominance at home, the Blugolds have other goals for the season, junior center Hannah Mesick said.
“As a team, our goals don’t change from year to year,” Mesick said. “We always have high expectations and want to be able to compete with everyone . the identity (of the team) may be younger and less experienced, but we are still shooting for the same.”
Englund said the team also always aims to get a conference championship and get a step farther than the previous year.
“I think this team is really going to be fun to watch develop,” Englund said. “Watching them, there is a ton of potential out there and the faster we can move them along, the faster I think it will be a great team . the sophomores played against our really strong senior class all last season and you can see that experience is benefiting them now and they are ready to step in.”
Mesick agreed, saying the younger players are really doing well and are ready for their new roles.
“The freshmen have been great,” Mesick said. “They’ve been picking things up fast and can contribute right away.”
The Blugold fans got their first chance to see what the sophomore and freshmen were all about this week in their Blue and Gold Game scrimmage. The Gold won the scrimmage 59-47, as a number of players received large minutes and got some condition and tuning up out of the way. Englund also said that with the team coming off some injuries, it was nice to see where certain players were.
“We showed a lot of improvement from our earlier scrimmages,” Mesick said. “It was good to see that we are still getting better and improving.”
In June, the women’s basketball team recorded the second highest home attendance average in NCAA Division III for the 2008-09 season, the NCAA recently reported. Englund and Mesick said they both hope student and crowd support will remain high this season.
“It’s great to have our fans out and the whole environment in Zorn is a really big advantage for us,” Mesick said. “We are going to use that right away to help build our confidence and get us to a good start.
