Women eye second half resurgence

Tina Schreiner

If the NCC season ended today at the half-way point, the SCSU women’s basketball team, with an unexpected below par record of 4-5 (9-8 overall), would still give them a third place finish in the NCC.

Sound eerie? It’s because of the chaos at the top of the conference that involves a four-way tie between the defending champs, North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota and South Dakota State all with 6-3 NCC records. Northern Colorado holds second place with a 5-4 NCC record. Which means the Huskies are actually only two games out of first place and one game out of second place.

The Huskies were picked by the coaches to finish third behind nationally ranked UND (#4) and NDSU (#9).

“We can do much better. I think we’ve been in games and haven’t been consistent so I’m not satisfied with this and hopefully we can do better in the second half,” said head coach Lori Ulferts.

Those losses have a lot to do with some of the season lows the Huskies have faced this year. The biggest loss of the season was against Morningside College, 33-97, and the lowest point total was 59 at Concordia St. Paul. SCSU pulled down a season low 31 rebounds in the SDSU loss and according to Ulferts, the Huskies have been struggling on the boards thus far this year.

“We need to box out and rebound and do a much better job on that aspect of the game,” she said.

The first half of the season is not even close to being all negative. The Huskies have also experienced some incredible numbers that have lead to victories. The Huskies scored a season high 105 points, 54 rebounds, and 20 steals against the U of M, Morris. The Huskies are currently ranked third in offensive scoring and first in offensive rebounding.

Senior Tina Schreiner is doing as well as expected and maybe even a little better. Schreiner is currently leading the NCC in steals with 59 (three per game), second in the NCC in rebounding with 176 (9.4 per game) and third in scoring with 384 points (20.4 points a game). Schreiner had a season high in steals with seven against the U of M, Morris, a season high in points with 32 against Bemidji, and a season high in rebounds with 17 against the University of Colorado.

Senior point guard Nicole Persby is currently second in the NCC with 94 assists (5 per game).

Aside from the usual starters that include Schreiner, Persby, Jessica Abrahams and Andrea Shogren, Ulferts has used a barrage of different players to fill the fifth starting spot, and on some occasions to take the place of one of the fab four. Juniors Jonelle Streed and Celestine Frank have helped fill the gap along with first-year players Katie Huschle, Lynnea Salscheider, Molly Jensen. Even sophomore Tracy Melham and junior Andrea Bennett have made special appearances as starters.

“We have done very well with the amount of depth that has played. In other words, our veterans and freshman are mixing in and are having different starters and different people to pick it up every night. So the overall team play (has gone well),” Ulferts said.

Salscheider is currently leading the team in field goal percentage shooting .537 and Huschle is leading in three point percentage shooting .563.

The Huskies received a first hand look at the top of the mountain with back to back road losses to UND and NDSU, and know what they have to do to be the best.

“It was great games to see what the top two teams are like back to back. They were great games to play in, especially with their fans, the crowd, the band, the noise level, and the support those two schools have for their basketball teams, and to play in that environment was a great experience,” Ulferts said.

Although a conference record below .500 is unexpected from this deeply talented SCSU team, they have not began to panic yet.

“If we can play as well as we did against NDSU we can turn our season around. The NCC race is still wide open. We’re not getting down about it,” Andrea Shogren said.

The Huskies are still on pace to be in the top seven that go on to the Wells Fargo finals. The Huskies will play at MSU, Mankato Saturday, January 26. The Huskies are also keeping an eye on their calendar for highly anticipated match ups at Northern Colorado Feb. 8, and home games against North Dakota State Feb. 15, and North Dakota Feb. 16.

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Bobby Hart can be reached at: [email protected]

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