INDIANAPOLIS – Entering the third year of the Steve Tierney era, the Alderson Broaddus women’s basketball program is looking to make even more strides heading into the 2016-17 campaign.
By virtue of a tiebreaker, the Battlers were left on the outside looking last year when the G-MAC Championship rolled around.
This year, AB has aspirations of making the six-team playoff bracket and improving on a 4-10 league record fashioned last season.
“The kids are working hard and we’re trying incorporate more pressing opportunities for them playing full-court basketball getting up and down,” Tierney said. “They have to be in shape and they’re doing alright.”
“You always want to be better than you were the previous season, which we feel we can,” he added. “We’ve got a really good a chance to be better than where we were predicted to be this year.”
The Battlers were picked eighth in the G-MAC Preseason Coaches Poll presented by Under Armour and they will be out to prove the league’s coaches wrong.
Departed senior scoring threats Rachel Ashley and Sydney Shaffer combined for over 20 points per game as the top two offensive weapons on the floor. They will both be missed as all-conference caliber players and tough to replace.
Shaffer was a three-point deadeye and knocked nearly 40 percent of her attempts from long range as a senior. Ashley shot over 52 percent from the field while leading AB with 11.7 points per contest in her final season.
That just might put more of the offensive burden on senior guard Lorin Clark, who has been a dime-dropping delight while running the Battlers’ offense. Clark averaged 5.2 assists per game as a junior to finish as the league leader and one of the nation’s best.
Clark is now 12th all-time in the conference in assists and has a chance to make up considerable ground and move into the top two or three if she can duplicate last year’s pace.
“We had a lot of scorers last year; I wasn’t a main scorer, but I’m going to try and score a little more this year,” Clark said. “We’ve got some new girls this year and it’s me getting the ball to them and they do the rest.”
Junior Jordan Parker and senior Haley Robb are both two upperclassmen who stepped up their game in league play and together, combined for about 15 points per game. They will be counted upon for additional contributions.
Tierney will have a lot of new faces out on the floor this year and specifically mentioned a transfer from Fairmont State, Tatiana Nikitina, a 6-2 forward from Russia. She can be a front court threat as a scorer and playmaker at the forward position; the Battlers are expecting big things from her.