Sports

Team Spotlight: Women’s Basketball 

By Hailey Hokanson (hhokanson@css.edu)

November 22, 2024

  With a roster full of returners, the St. Scholastica women’s basketball team has high aspirations as they head into the 2024-2025 season. To round out last season’s team, the team mixes in six freshmen and one transfer, setting them up for success both this year and the next. “We return six of our seven leading scores from last season,” said Head Coach Jason Schmitz. “We’re still relatively young, and we don’t have a single senior on the roster, so it's a unique makeup from that aspect.”

     The team will bring back their All-MIAC team member Kloey Lind, who led the team in nearly every statistical category last season. Starting shooting guard Jackie Johnson is also returning to the team. The junior out of Bemidji said that she is excited to see the team connect more and continue to grow. “We’ve been working on getting everyone on the same page and making sure that everyone shows up ready to play every single day,” Johnson said. “We met outside of time with the coaches to develop our team and individual goals so that we can hold each other accountable.”

     After growing as a team last season, the squad looks to set their sights on making the MIAC playoffs, a feat they missed by only one game last season. “We’re excited to take that next step in the MIAC, and we’re hopeful that if we continue to improve and show up every single day with some intentionality that we’ll get there by the end of the year,” Schmitz said. “Our conference slate might be a little bit softer this year, but we make up for that by having a really strong non-conference schedule.”

     This season, the Saints will only have to play the reigning first and second MIAC finishers, Gustavus and Concordia, once, but that doesn’t mean the overall schedule will be any easier. They added UW-Stout to the schedule, a consistently ranked team, and a few more challenging teams to test their players at the beginning of the season. 

     The team will look to take their level to new heights within the coming seasons, especially as they eye up an NCAA tournament berth, but to do that, they will have to continue to try new strategies. “We’re just in a general evolution, especially since (two years ago) we kinda just scrapped what we were doing offensively and decided to change everything,” he said. “It’s a constant evolution of tweaks that fits the girls we have.”

     The addition of Assistant Coach Sarah Hart, a graduate of Ashland University in Ohio and a part of their Division II National Championship runner up team, will boost the Saints squad, as she will focus on helping them grow their mental game. 

     Other than that, the members of the team have been communicating consistently about how they want to approach this season. “We talked a lot about intentionality,” Johnson said. “Mostly, I’m looking forward to playing with everyone on the team and growing with them as we start to be together more.”

     They also have been focusing on making sure everyone's voice is heard, a testament to Schmitz’s belief that anyone can be a leader. 

“Our running phrase is we want leaders without titles,” he said. “We want all the voices to feel like they are expressing their thoughts and feelings so that we as coaches can figure out where confusion is. We’re trying to encourage that no matter what year you are, that your voice deserves to be heard and your experience is valid.”

     Through live play during practice and keeping games competitive, the CSS women’s basketball team is looking forward to competing throughout the season and growing as a program and a team. As of Nov. 16, the team is 1-3 and will open up MIAC play against Carleton College Dec. 4 in Northfield, Minn..