Women’s basketball started off great during last Saturday’s season opening exhibition game, defeating the Evergreen women’s basketball alumni team. Though the team comes into the season ranked ninth in the Cascade Conference, the team and Coach Monica Heuer are confident that this team can overachieve based on that expectation.
“With this team, our biggest strength will be our speed” said Sammi Clark, a second year guard out of Monroe, Wash. “We’re not very big, but we’re all pretty fast. So our defense will be intense and cause other teams to hate playing against us,” Clark said. That speed across the lineup gives the Lady Geoducks a versatile small-ball lineup that should be able to create a lot of fast break opportunities off of turnovers.
“We have a lot of new players,” said Danielle Swain a fourth year forward from Rainier, Wash. “We’re still learning how to play with each other, like knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Clark agreed, “We’re a pretty young team still, so for preseason we are really focusing on the things in our control that will allow for us to play smoothly… This team has the capability of being really great. We made it to the playoffs last year and us returners like the way making the postseason felt. We plan to do it again.”
Swain received exciting news this preseason that she had made the preseason All-Cascade Conference First Team, coming off finishing third in scoring and rebounding in the conference last season, as well as setting an Evergreen women’s record with 49 blocks. Their first game will be a home exhibition at 6 p.m., November 13 against crosstown rival St. Martins.
By David Lukashok
