By Logan Bronkema

The Indiana Wesleyan University women’s basketball team has been seeded No. 1 in the NAIA polls for the past 30 weeks. This is now an ongoing record for the Wildcats.

IWU’s record currently stands at 26-1. The Wildcats are energized after coming off an exciting win against No. 3 ranked St. Francis.

According to Emma Stahl (so), this year’s Wildcats “have a little bit different of a style with the same concepts and fundamentals. We really lean on our defense, which has always been a tradition with coach Brooks, but I think we are a little faster than last year and not as big, so we really look to push the ball up the floor.

“It’s an honor to be at the top of the rankings, but it also gives us a target, so we have to come out every game and forget about the rankings and just play our game.”

Players mentioned that the rankings don’t mean a lot to them since their main priority is winning one game at a time.

“Coach [Brooks] never talks about us being No. 1,” Sarah Hagey (fr) said.

The players said they need to maintain their level of play going to the postseason in order to avoid a disappointment.

“Coach has said that February is not the month to lose. With every game we win, it’s one more game we get to play with our seniors,” Jess Brown (fr) said.

With the leadership that Claire Rey (sr) and Paige Smith (sr) exemplify, the team isn’t quite ready to say goodbye.

In order to make sure that they make it past conference to nationals in Sioux City, Iowa, the Wildcats say they must take it one game at a time.

“Even though we are under a lot of pressure, we look forward to the challenges and fun times that lie ahead,” Brown said.

If the Wildcats are seeded No. 1 in the conference tournament, all games will be held at Luckey Arena. If they win conference, they will have an automatic bid to Nationals.

Until late Wednesday night, the Indiana Wesleyan University women’s basketball team was undefeated through 20 games. A heartbreaking 62-55 loss against Saint Francis dashed hopes for the team’s first undefeated season in years.

The last time the Wildcats had been undefeated so late in the season was the 2006-2007 season, which ended in a NAIA National Championship and a perfect 38-0 record.

But coach Steve Brooks and his team aren’t jumping for joy at their success so far this season, which had also included receiving the No. 1 ranking in Division II of the NAIA.

“It’s January. There’s a lot of basketball yet to be played. [The No. 1 ranking] makes the target on our back bigger; it doesn’t make it smaller,” said Brooks. “We are going to have to be mentally tough, and we are going to see teams’ best efforts. It shouldn’t really affect anything we do.”

Defense and placing an equal value on each game have been topics of emphasis for the Wildcats.

According to forward Paige Smith (sr), “One of our goals is always to be one of the best defensive teams in the nation. … The way that we go about getting stops and playing together on defense really strengthens us as a whole.”

The Wildcats allow their opponents just a shade more than 45 points per game, a number that looks more like a football score than a basketball score.

“[Defense] has been our mainstay. Our kids have bought into the idea that, in the women’s program, our DNA starts on the defensive end,” said Brooks.

This quick and active defense doesn’t take games off, either. Every opponent is treated equally and with serious preparation.

“Coach tells us that any team can beat any other team on any given day. We don’t get big-headed, and we know that each team has a chance to beat us, so we set the pace and we go out and attack first,” said forward Katrina Blackmon (so).

Blackmon, who transferred in from Wright State University in fall 2012, she said also noticed a difference in the camaraderie of this Wildcats team from other teams with which she has played with.

“I like that we know how to get personal with my teammates without being annoyingly personal. I don’t mind spending time with my teammates,” Blackmon said. “We are just a really close-knit team.”

While the Wildcats, with their stingy defense, consistent preparation and team chemistry, could find it easy to base the success of their season solely on their ability to win the Crossroads League and the national tournament, Coach Brooks doesn’t like to think too much about those things.

As Brooks said, “Our goals are not to win the conference championship or get to the national tournament. Those are destinations. Our goals from the very beginning have been: ‘How do we come in every day and get better?’ and ‘How do we improve?’ … If we don’t take care of business on a daily basis, none of that is going to happen.”

Coming into the fall 2012 season, expectations were tempered for the Indiana Wesleyan University women’s volleyball team. Yes, it would be good, and possibly contend for the Crossroads League Championship, but it would not compare to the 2011 team that finished with 36 wins against just six losses and featured a host of extremely gifted seniors.

But boy, did the Wildcats prove those expectations wrong.

With an overall record of 35 wins and two losses thus far, heading into the NAIA National Championships, the team ran roughshod through the Crossroads League, winning both the league and tournament titles.

Head coach Candace Moats was pleasantly surprised with her team’s success this season.

“I knew I had student athletes coming back that had high-level skills, but I was reflecting more on who I lost than who I had,” Moats said. “I was really surprised by the performance, even in the first weekend [going 4-0 in the Lee Invitational]. We went out with the desire and hope that we would be a good team and pull together.”

And a good team they became, thanks to an unwavering desire to achieve their three intangible team goals.

“No. 1 was to build and maintain a cohesive spirit within our team. The second one was to be selfless leaders, especially within our upperclassmen and those who had gone to the Athletic Department Leadership Summit,” said Moats. “Our third goal was to play and work really hard.”

Setter Yui Iwase (sr) thought the attention to these goals played a big role in the team’s success.

“We all came into preseason ready to go. I think we really had our eyes on the prize with our goals,” Iwase said. “[This season] has exceeded my expectations, not that I had low expectations by any means, but I think our record shows the hard work we’ve put into it, so we’re just reaping the benefits of that.”

Moats said the little things the team did throughout the season were also big factors in their success.

“As a student athlete, it takes a lot more work off the court to manage your sleeping habits, your nutrition and your academics,” Moats said. “We think that those tangible things that you always wish for will come if you do the intangible things like taking care of yourself and your character.”

Middle blocker Kristin Predajna (fr) has enjoyed being on a team that is not only skilled, but cares about the intangibles like team chemistry and cohesiveness.

“My teammates give me good advice, and if I’m down, they give me support,” said Predajna. “Stine [middle hitter Kristine Egebrecht] gives me great advice, and the other upperclassmen also help me with when and where to hit the ball.”

As for the NAIA Nationals starting Nov. 17, the main tangible goal the No. 7-ranked Wildcats are focused on is getting out of pool play, which requires placing in the top two teams of the four-team pool. Last year, the team failed to get out of their pool. But Moats is hopeful that this year will be different.

“We have an advantage this year because we are going back, and we can’t claim this to be our first experience. We now understand what has to be done,” Moats said.

The Wildcats are seeded second in their pool, and are slated to make it into tournament play.

As Iwase put it, “I don’t think the goal of getting out of pool play is too far out there at all.”

But like the rest of their season, winning games isn’t the only thing the Wildcats are concerned with doing at Nationals. Moats has the team thinking bigger.

“Obviously, we would like to keep our poise as we are playing. We would like to keep a strong witness for the Lord as we have tried to do every match,” Moats said. “And we definitely want to stay together as a team.”

The Indiana Wesleyan University women’s basketball team looked to begin another promising season with a 62-44 win over IU – South Bend on Saturday. The team is currently ranked fourth in the country, according to the NAIA preseason rankings.

However, the players are not letting that pressure them.

“Honestly, we really do not look at rankings a lot,” said guard Claire (Freeman) Ray (sr). “It is nothing the coach really mentions. We like to concentrate as a collective team and how we can improve no matter what the ranking.”

Head coach Steve Brooks, who has been with the team for 14 seasons, had similar feelings.

“Probably the kids will feel a little bit of pressure, but I hope not because that ranking is just a preseason ranking. It is really based off of what was done last year and we really try hard not to think about what is in the past,” said Brooks. “We want to focus on right now and here as what we can do as a team with this group. This is a different team. We have eight newcomers, and so I hope there is not a lot of pressure, and I hope we do not get caught up in all that stuff. I just want them to come in each day and play to their best.”

As every season comes and goes, so do players. This season is no exception.

“We lost four seniors that were a great part of the team and this program, but we had a lot of kids come in that are great basketball players, and we really just like to look to the future and not really worry about the past,” said Ray. “So as a team we have been coming in and working really hard, and we have been able to put good practices together, and that’s really what we are concerned with.”

Each season’s team is unique.

“We really do not like to compare years,” said forward Paige Smith (sr).

“This year is a year entirely in its own and this is a completely different complexion of team and group of girls. We prefer to look at it as being as good as we can be and as good as this group can be, not in comparison to any group before it.”

Every year there is improvement to be made, but it varies on the area.
“I think right now consistency in our practices is something we need to work on,” Brooks said. “We have had some really, really good practices. We have had some practices that were maybe better than any we have had in two years, and then we have had some just awful practices where we have just been really inconsistent.

“I think that our dynamics are strong as a team. I think we have a lot of kids that can shoot the ball and hopefully that becomes a weapon for us in the future,” said Brooks.

“Really, we just want to get to play games, like going against other people and getting to play with our best friends and teammates,” Ray said, “just enjoying it and the fun that we find in that.”

“They work extremely hard and they really are true representatives of what the university stands for,” Brooks said. “First and foremost spiritually, and then academically and the last piece, athletically.”