Women's Basketball

2007-2008 SEASON OUTLOOK

University of St. Francis women’s basketball coach Frank Kaminsky has watched his program take some big steps over the past four years. Now entering his fifth season with the Lady Saints, Kaminsky and his team are getting to the point where they can see the biggest remaining step – the one that puts them at the top of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference and earns them a trip to the NAIA Division I Championship Tournament next March in Jackson, Tenn.

That next step, though, is still a big one to make.

The Lady Saints still have to find a way to finish ahead of reigning CCAC champion Saint Xavier and rival Olivet Nazarene, who has lost to SXU in the conference tournament final in each of the past two seasons. USF has lost its last 13 meetings with SXU and has not beaten them with Kaminsky as head coach. Olivet Nazarene beat the Saints three times last season and eliminated USF in the semifinals of the CCAC tourney in Bourbonnais. Olivet also handed the Saints their toughest defeat of the year, topping USF 119-118 in a record-setting shootout at the USF Recreation Center in February.

Still, the Saints have made up a lot of ground with their two conference rivals in the Kaminsky years and believe that they can challenge the two – who tied for the CCAC regular-season title a year ago – for the top spot in the league’s standings in 2007-08.

Much of the optimism comes from the return of all five starters and the top eight scorers from last season’s 18-14 team that placed third in the CCAC with an 8-4 league mark.

The returnees are led by sophomore Jacqie Storm, an honorable mention NAIA all-America choice last season and the Freshman of the Year in the CCAC. Storm, a first-team all-CCAC pick, led USF in scoring with a 16.3 points-per-game average and established USF records in three-pointers made in both a game (8) and season (82).

Storm was not the lone Lady Saint to average in double figures in scoring.  Junior Amanda Mistretta scored at a 10.9 points-per-game clip and earned all-CCAC second-team honors. Fellow junior Brittani Hunter, the CCAC Freshman of the Year in 2005-06 and a second-team pick last season, narrowly missed double digits and finished with a 9.9 scoring average. Junior Kristina Yedinak, also a second-team all-CCAC choice and a first-team selection as a freshman, and sophomore Katie Carls rounded out the normal starting five with scoring marks of 8.1 and 6.8, respectively.

The next scorers on the 2006-07 Saints’ statistics sheet were senior center Clara Graham (7.0), sophomore forward Kellie Fazio (6.4) and sophomore guard Anna Sears (4.7). They were usually the first three off the USF bench, with both Graham and Fazio getting spot starts on occasion.

Only four players who finished last season with the Saints are gone for 2007-08. Perhaps the biggest loss is center Christine Walczak who transferred into USF at the winter break from the University of Chicago. She averaged 8.8 points in 14 games and also drew three starting assignments. Walczak, though, decided to give up basketball and transfer again to the University of Illinois-Chicago for academic reasons.

Reserve forwards Katrina Yedinak (Kristina’s older sister) and Marquita Woodson each graduated, and guard Kara Grossklaus left the squad over the summer after undergoing knee surgery last spring.

Six new players – three transfers and three freshmen – join the Lady Saints.

The transfers include senior center Kristina Hedlund, who previously played at College of Du Page and also served as a student assistant coach there. Junior Stacie Klawun, a forward/center from Southwestern Iowa Community College, will join Hedlund as players battling for playing time in the post for the Saints. Junior Alyse Winter, a high school teammate of Hunter’s at nearby Lockport, also enrolled this summer at USF.

The freshmen include a pair of players from tradition-rich Seneca High School, located about 50 miles west of Joliet. Forward/center Abbey Musser and guard Jalea Berg helped lead Seneca to a regional title as juniors before losing to future teammate Carls and Peru St. Bede’s Academy in the sectional. Musser will compete for time at center and power forward and Berg, an entrant in the three-point shootout at the state tourney last March, will give USF another outside shooting threat. Forward Tori Albrecht, from Downers Grove North, rounds out the freshman class. Albrecht is not only a strong rebounder but also capable or shooting from the perimeter.

Kaminsky likes the makeup of his team, even though it remains a young group with just one senior among its returning players.

“We won 18 games last year against a very difficult schedule with a lineup that consisted almost entirely of freshmen and sophomores,” said Kaminsky. “Our normal starting five included three sophomores and two freshmen. And our leading scorer was a freshman. It really was amazing when you think back and see what we accomplished with such a young team.

“The maturing process will make us a better team this season,” continues Kaminsky. “We completed our second straight summer league this August and that gave our kids the opportunity to play together all summer against some outstanding competition. Saint Xavier played in our summer league again and we did manage to beat them once.  Our kids know what it will take to challenge for our conference championship and they are working hard toward that goal.”

Kaminsky, always a proponent of the up-tempo style and the three-point shot, feels that he has the talent to play the game the way he likes to see it played.

“Anybody who has seen us play knows that we are not afraid to take a three-pointer at any time.  I’m not worried about that part of our game. We do have to improve defensively if we want to reach our goal of competing for the conference title and going to the national tournament. We can’t just count on outscoring teams. Our league and the teams on our nonconference schedule are way too good to beat just by shooting threes.

“My good friends won’t believe it when I say that we will be spending more time in practice doing defensive drills, but that is what we have to do if we expect to get better as a team,” said Kaminsky, who was an outstanding scorer in his playing days at Lewis University and then professionally overseas.

The schedule is filled with tough games and Kaminsky did that purposely. “We can’t get better unless we play the stronger teams. If we expect to compete for a spot in the national tournament, we have to play and beat teams during the season that are of that caliber.”

The non-conference slate includes dates with NAIA Division II powers Cardinal Stritch (WI), Bethel (IN), Saint Francis (IN) and Aquinas (MI). USF also travels to Lebanon, Tenn., where it will face the 2007 NAIA Division I runnerup Cumberland (TN) on its home floor and fellow NAIA Division I national tournament entrant Freed-Hardeman (TN). The Lady Saints also will have the challenge of playing host to NCAA Division II power and neighbor Lewis University on Dec. 15.

Add those games to a CCAC slate that includes home and road games with both SXU and Olivet Nazarene and you have a schedule that is more than formidable.

“We can’t try to be the best if we don’t play the best,” said Kaminsky. “I know that our kids are excited to face the challenges that are in place for them.”