Women’s basketball prepares for 2008-2009 season

Raymond Ayala / Sports Editor / Thee USD Vista

The Toreros women’s basketball team is coming off of one of their most productive seasons in the history of the program.

The Toreros started out their conference season last year losing five straight games, yet they were still able to turn it around and get a No. 3 seed in the WCC tournament. The Toreros used their home court advantage to defeat Gonzaga and advance to their first ever NCAA tournament game.

This season, the lady Toreros will join their male counterparts in coming into the season with higher expectations than the previous season. The Toreros will be led this year by arguably one of the WCC’s most dominant players, senior center Amber Sprague.

Last season Sprague led the team in both points per game, 15, and rebounds per game, nine, but she will be without her partner in crime, Amanda Rego, as Rego has since graduated from USD. The Toreros will look to senior guard Kiva Herman, as well as sophomore Sam Child and junior forward Morgan Henderson to continue their on-court success from last season. The Toreros will also welcome sophomore center Nya Mason to the team, as she was forced to redshirt last season, due to NCAA transfer rules.

The biggest loss this season for the team is the presence at point guard. Last year Rego was one of the top assist leaders in the country, as she was during her junior year. She left the school with the most assists in program history, but at the all important point guard position. Her presence will be missed, but it appears that freshman guard Dominique Conners will compete for the starting point guard role this season.

During the WCC Media Conference, the 2008-2009 women’s basketball WCC preseason coaches poll was released. The bottom four teams are San Francisco at No. 8, Portland at No. 7, Pepperdine at No. 6, and Santa Clara at No. 5. All of the teams are still competitive though and it would not be a surprise to see one of the teams finish higher than expected.

The top four teams are Saint Mary’s at No. 4, San Diego at No. 3, Loyola Marymount at No. 2, and leading the field once again is Gonzaga at No. 1.

The conference this year is strong and the front-runner will be the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Though Gonzaga was stunned by USD last year, they are returning a strong starting lineup, led by last season’s WCC Coach of the Year, Kelly Graves. They also welcome back the defending WCC Player of the Year, junior Heather Bowman, as well as the defending WCC Newcomer of the Year, sophomore Courtney Vandersloot. Another title contender this year will be the LMU Lions, led by head coach Julie Wilholt. Sophomore guard Renahy Young, who as a freshman led the Lions in scoring last season, will most likely be a cantidate for the Conference Player of the Year this season. Finally, the most likely team to surprise the conference this year will be the Santa Clara Broncos, who are led by former Gonzaga assistant coach, Jennifer Mountain. Though the Broncos may be young this year, they still have an extremely talented freshmen class and a new head coach that seems intent on turning the program in the right direction.

The Toreros schedule this year includes quality opponents such as Seton Hall, Arizona and UCLA. Couple this non-conference schedule with a conference that is pretty much even in talent distribution and its looks to be one exciting season.

The Toreros are going to have to pick up the early wins and beat the teams that they are expected to beat this year. The WCC usually sends only one team to the NCAA tournament per year, so the Toreros must have the mindset that they need to win the conference in order to advance to the NCAA tournament.

The 08-09 women’s basketball team should be competitive this year, and their main goal will be a NCAA tournament birth, with a consolation prize being another trip to the National Invitational Tournament.
The regular season will kick off Nov. 14, as they will face cross-town rival UC San Diego in the JCP at 7 p.m.