The Truman State women’s basketball team’s first game is tomorrow, Nov. 5. The Bulldogs will play an exhibition contest against Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. The following night, the Bulldogs will compete in a second exhibition game against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Both preseason competitions for the ‘Dogs are against NCAA Div. I opponents, and their first regular season game will be against Grand Valley State University during a four-team festival in Quincy, Illinois, Nov. 14. Redshirt senior center Michalina Tomczak says the team’s strong schedule will be beneficial. Tomczak says the team will play lots of quality competition this year, and said this schedule could help the team gain a higher regional ranking. Tomczak says the Bulldogs are looking forward to playing again with such a stacked game lineup.
The ‘Dogs are coming off of a 16-11 season during which they lost 72-51 to Indianapolis during the first round of the GLVC tournament, just one year after claiming the championship and advancing to the NCAA National Championship Tournament. The Bulldogs only graduated three seniors from last year’s roster — forward Sarah Gaeddert, guard Allison Wiese and Allie Norton, a First Team All-GLVC guard.
“We had a huge underclassman class last year,” Tomczak says. “[Sophomore forward Ashley] Hartwig and [sophomore guard Rachel] Steinhoff started for us, and they’re definitely going to be more of an offensive threat this year, especially with Allie being gone. They’ll pick up some of the slack in our offense.”
Tomczak also mentioned sophomore guards Kennedy Martin and Montira Mosby and sophomore forward Sam Andrews, who she said are anxious to take the court this season. Tomczak says redshirt freshman guard Brooke Bailey will do great things this season her position.
Tomczak says she wants her team to be known for its defense and the women’s offseason focused on controlling the court when they do not have the ball.
“I think our conditioning and our strength is immeasurable to the past four years I’ve been here,” Tomczak says. “It helps get through games when times are tough. [Head] coach [Eagan] is really big on the defensive end, and putting in effort on getting stops. We want to work on being one of the best defensive teams in the GLVC and in Div. II. She wants us to be one of the most hardworking teams on both offense and defense.”
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