girls bb

Women's Basketball

Lady Aggies begin season Wednesday as league favorites

By Kevin Farr
Murray State Sports Information
Ranked in the national preseason poll, tabbed at the top of the NJCAA Region II rankings and coming off a national tournament appearance, expectations are definitely high for the Murray State Lady Aggies entering the season.

While head coach Steve Lowe is excited about the preseason recognition he knows that it's a new year and much of those honors are as the result of last year's 27-6 record and trip to the NJCAA National Tournament. They begin ranked 23rd in the Division I national rankings and are also pegged at the top of the Region II ratings that includes teams in the conference.

The Lady Aggies have a nice returning nucleus but what that looks like in the opening portion is still in question thanks to a plethora of injuries that have even made practicing difficult at times in the preseason. Murray State is slated to open the slate at 5:30 Wednesday when they host Collin County.

"We have pretty high expectations, and those preseason rankings are great for our program," Lowe commented. "It's a great honor with four kids back that started for us last season. We don't have the most players back in the conference, but we have a really good core when everyone is healthy.

"As far as expectations, that's where we want to be. It's only opinions now but we have established ourselves in the last four years. We are the only team in the conference that has made at least the semifinals of the postseason tournament for the last three years. We recruit players that want to be in those games and want to be in that spot. And you have to have some luck along the way with injuries."

Luck has not been much on the Lady Aggies' side to date with no less than six players that have missed time due to injury. Fortunately, all of that half dozen are supposed to return at various points of the season.

The biggest of those is 5-foot-2 sophomore point guard Briana Knabe from Era, Texas, who was second in conference player of the year voting a season ago. She notched 12 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.5 steals and 4.0 assists while shooting 35 percent from three-point range.

Also back for Murray State is 5-9 Lanie Gooch from Wylie, Texas as well Silo product 5-7 Mattie Busby and six-foot post Reese Webb out of Fort Gibson.

Gooch tallied 6.0 points and 4.1 rebounds last season while Webb notched 5.4 points and 4.6 rebounds while shooting 45 percent from the field. Busby also contributed 5.2 points while missing some time with injury and shot a team-best 43 percent on threes.

Newcomers Bella Peterson, Jade Millan, Payton James and Remi Langmaid are expected to be valuable newcomers that should step into key roles throughout the season. Peterson and Langmaid are from Australia while Millan hails from Empire, Oklahoma and James from Sulphur.

"Peterson has really good size and should make a big impact," Lowe said. "She rebounds well and plays hard on defense. She is active and athletic. Jade is arguably the best shooter on the team and has shown great production including 36 points in on scrimmage. Payton James a point guard that is a high IQ player that's going to run the offense and get us in what we need to be in. She's a steady player that can keep us organized. Remi also could make a key impact once she returns from injury.

"Things have been kind of makeshift in the preseason as banged up as we have been early. I think we have good depth but with up to six players missing some time, so we are definitely going to find out. Those newcomers will get experience before our league games really kick in January and February and hope that experience pays off in the end."
 
Print Friendly Version