Women's Basketball Beats Kalamazoo 62-48
Tiffany Williams
Teamwork is a great tool used at Manchester University for many things, but the women’s basketball team is just getting started.
This year’s group of women is comprised of a generally equal amount of first-year students to returners with nine returners on the team and seven first-year students. Out of the nine returners, five of them are senior athletes that are using their experience to help benefit the team as the year previously there were no senior students on the team.
So far, the team has won two out of the five games they’ve had. Those two winning games being against Muskingum and Kalamazoo both had the starters of Faith-Alexis Graham, Haley Farris, Nicole Weaver, Beth Schaefer and Macy Miller.
The team is building relationships with each other considerably quickly, allowing the younger students to feel more confident as they have more people to help. Bridget Nash, a first-year player, said, “As a first-year, I still have yet to see the extent of the competition seeing as we are only four games into the season, but with our chemistry and charisma our team possesses, I think we can do whatever we set our minds to.”
Along with their quick relationship building, Coach Dzurick said, “If they keep learning at this pace and keep working this hard we should have a very successful season.” This gives the team a lot of hope for the season that has only just begun. The basketball season has a couple of unique qualities that other sports may not have including having Thanksgiving break at the beginning of their season. However, the women of the team took responsibility of the situation even asking for a morning practice to stay in shape but get more time with family for the holidays. “They have a 72-hour break, almost three full days,” said Dzurick. “That is a goal they set to enjoy their family time, but come back ready to go.” When they did come back after Thanksgiving for the Saturday game, the team was ready to go and won against Kalamazoo, 6248. “We have a lot of depth as a team which means we have a lot of talent we can use,” said Nash. “The upperclassmen have been doing a great job leading the freshmen to do the right things in practice so that it can transfer into game situations.”
From the coach’s perspective, improving every day is the main goal, as defensive rebounding is key, as well as trying to improve upon last year by staying healthy with weight training programs and overall work with the athletic training staff for the long and hard season.
However, the long-term goal for the team has been set to try and make it to the conference tournament this year. “We still have a lot of work to do, but each day we continue to get better and push ourselves,” said first-year Macy Miller. “In order to meet our goals, we have to continue to hold each other accountable and push each other.”
Coach Dzurick said the crowds that have come to see the team play has been supportive of the team and helps them maintain confidence in their abilities. Come watch the women’s basketball team shoot some hoops tomorrow at 3 p.m. in the Stauffer-Wolfe Arena.