Loss overshadows Senior Day

East Stroudsburg Warriors 83
Kutztown Golden Bears 72

Recap:
Despite already knowing they were eliminated from the PSAC playoff race, the women’s basketball team gave it their all in the team’s regular season finale. Unfortunately for them, playoff-bound East Stroudsburg played an outstanding game and was able to come away with the 11 point victory.

Key Stat:
838. The game was meaningless with both team’s postseason fates already set, so why not focus on some history. Mercedes Van Wagner will one day be a member of the Kutztown University Hall of Fame and she added to her already outstanding resume today. In her last game as a Golden Bear, the senior center hauled in 11 rebounds to give her 838 for her career, a new KU career record. She is also KU’s all time block leader and one of 11 ladies to score 1,000 career points.

Key Moment:
As much as I’d like to ignore the disappointing end to the season and focus on the positives, the moment of the game that really turned the tables was pretty clear. KU trailed by 20 with 9:16 left in the game before they went on an 8-0 run that stole them the game’s momentum and got them to within 12 with 7:00 to play. Right when it seemed like the Golden Bears were about to wheel in the Warriors, a timeout was called. It is officially listed as a media timeout, but the referee appeared to gesture as though KU coach Janet Malouf called for it. Regardless of who called it, the timeout proved to be costly as ESU came out of the timeout strong with a 5-0 run that put the game away for good.

Golden Performance:
As mentioned, Van Wagner was stellar, hauling in 11 rebounds. She also scored 12 points, which marks yet another double-double, one of dozens in her successful career at KU. Van Wagner was 6-of-6 from the free throw line and also recorded a steal and block. She will be missed.

Not-So-Golden Performance:
No one on KU played a particularly poor game, so there aren’t many negatives to point out in that regard. The most disappointing thing about the game to me was the fact that Molly Brown played just 8 minutes. Playing in her final game, the senior center managed 3 boards and 4 points on 1-of-4 shooting. It was unfortunate that coach Malouf didn’t allow her more minutes, especially since it was a meaningless game. Brown struggled with injuries throughout her four-year career and never saw consistent minutes because of that. However, she stuck with it and has done a decent job off the bench for KU when she has been healthy. It was really upsetting to me to not see her play more than 8 minutes. Even though they are both centers, Van Wagner and Brown certainly could’ve played at the same time, similar to how they did last year.

Impact:
ESU will head off to Millersville for the playoffs, while the Golden Bears will begin planning for 2008-09. KU will lose Mercedes Van Wagner, Rachel Weidensaul, and Molly Brown to graduation, so they will need to find a way to replace that size. Rachel Wisemiller will likely step into the starting lineup for Weidensaul and Coach Malouf apparently has at least two freshman forwards set to step into significant playing time. Chauntelle Schroeder and Claire Sitarz will also be expected to step into significant minutes in the front court in an attempt to replace the production of Van Wagner. KU will return 3 starters in Meredith Starr, Lara Dellegrotti, and Melissa McQuade. McQuade was superb as a freshman and will be expected to be the top scoring threat for KU in 2008-09. Dellegrotti will enter her senior season looking to carry the torch in the back court and will be counted on to distribute the basketball and hit three point buckets. Starr did a decent job handling the ball as a freshman and will need to improve in her sophomore campaign. Wisemiller, Melvin, and Dovey will also likely be big parts of the KU rotation next year.

The Golden Bears finish the season with an 11-16 overall record. They went 4-8 in the PSAC East, the worst divisional mark put up by a Janet Malouf team since her arrival in 1994-95. In Malouf’s first eight years at KU, her team’s posted a 64-32 record against PSAC East opponents. Since that point, KU has gone 32-40 over her last six years.