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Promising Season for NPU Women's Basketball
By Craig Pinley
CHICAGO, IL (November 15, 2002) - It will be a whole new ballgame for many
players on the 2002-03 North Park University (NPU) women's basketball team,
which has seven freshmen on its roster of 14.
Three returning starters - seniors Carrie Swenson, Amy Stoltz and Sara
Sietsema - should help coach Jack Surridge's squad better last season's
8-17 overall record and 2-12 mark in the College Conference of Illinois and
Wisconsin. However, Surridge will have to help 10 first-year college
players transition from high school basketball quickly enough to complement
the returnees.
"The real challenge is that the newer ones don't know how intense it
(college basketball) is," said Surridge, who has 442 wins in his coaching
career, fourth among women's Division III coaches. "If they learn that
quickly, we could do pretty well. Last year, we couldn't play full-court
defense, but this year I think we could play full-court defense for 40
minutes.
Swenson of Grace Covenant Church in Little Falls, Minnesota, is the biggest
block in the rebuilding plan and a valuable one as a 6-foot-1-inch center.
She was second in the conference in blocked shots per game and fifth in
rebounding. Overall, she averaged 10.5 points and 8.8 rebounds while
blocking 65 shots, the most by an NPU player since
1990. She has scored 519 points in 74 collegiate games and grabbed 444
rebounds to go with 72 steals.
Stoltz has played 72 collegiate games during her
three years at NPU, scoring 501 points and dishing out 178 assists while
making 64 shots from 3-point range. She averaged 9.0 points per game, shot
81 percent from the foul line and totaled 55 assists while serving as her
team's primary ball handler. Sietsema started 22 games a year ago and was
among
the team leader in rebounds (80) and assists (32).
One other returning player, sophomore Redina Hall, received playing time
last year, although Hall missed much of the season with a knee injury.
Three other sophomores playing their first year at NPU are Angie Willner,
Amy Prokopowicz and Angie Wood. All were All-Conference high school
players. Willner, who attended Covenant Bible College in Windsor, Colorado,
last year, is from the Evangelical Covenant Church of
Fairmont, Minnesota. She was a three-sport athlete all through high school,
earning All-Conference mention twice while earning her school's highest
honor as a student-athlete.
Two freshmen, Melanie Morgan and Lucia Abel already have collegiate
athletic experience. Morgan played for NPU's women's soccer team this fall.
She was one of her team's top scorers at Bradley (Bourbonnais) High School.
Abel, who is from the African country of Namibia, ran in the NPU
cross-country program.
Six-foot forward Megan Slattery comes from the most accomplished prep
basketball program of the recruits, New Trier High School in Winnetka, the
third-place Class AA team in Illinois last winter. Slattery and
5-foot-10-inch Anna Slenk of Holland, Michigan, are the tallest newcomers
on Surridge's roster.
Three others - Molly Mitchell, Sara Teachout and Shandrel Young - round out
the roster and Surridge believes all can contribute to his team's fortunes
right away. Young, who captained her team, was an All-City and All-Metro
basketball player at United Township High in East Moline and played on a
championship summer league amateur squad. She was also one of the area's
top high jumpers in track and field. Teachout and Mitchell
captained their high school teams, earning four and three varsity letters
respectively.
NPU opens its season November 22-23 at the Kalamazoo Invitational in
Michigan and travels to Lake Wales, Florida, for the Warner Southern
Tournament December 30-31 during its non-conference schedule. The Vikings,
who were picked seventh in the preseason CCIW rankings, open conference
play at Carthage College December 7 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Their home
opener occurs January 7 against CCIW opponent Millikin University.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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