The Augustana women’s basketball team began their season this past Wednesday against UW-Platteville in a 71-40 loss that saw the Augustana offense struggle, only hitting 24% of their shots throughout the game. That trend continued in their home opener to kick off the Hyatt Place Tournament, as they lost 54-41 against St. Mary’s (IN) while only being able to muster up a 21% shooting percentage.
Heading into this season, Head Coach Mark Beinborn knew the shoes his players would have to fill. A varsity roster housing ten new faces, nine of which being first-years, was going to have to find a group of women who were willing to step into the leadership role in the absence of their three seniors from the previous season. Luckily, Beinborn feels he has plenty of leaders sitting on his roster right now.
“Returner-wise, Emma Berg is getting more vocal, feeling more comfortable with her role as a senior,” Beinborn said. “Carly Stone has also been phenomenal as far as stepping up and talking and being a leader, and obviously another junior with Kadence Tatum, another team captain for us. As far as First-Year, Audrey Erickson is an absolute leader. She started for four years at Alleman and was a leader for four years.”
In Augustana’s second matchup in the Hyatt Place Tournament against Edgewood, those four made sure that they made their presence felt, especially First-Year guard Audrey Erickson, as she would finish with 15 points, nine assists and nine rebounds, falling just short of a triple-double in her third collegiate game.
Augustana went to their locker room following the first half with a 35-21 lead, only for that lead to balloon in the second half as they would finish with their first win, 73-47.
That game would also see major contributions from juniors Carly Stone and Kadence Tatum, both of whom were barred by injury for the entirety of last year. Tatum appears to be the swiss-army knife of the team, as there is nothing that she can’t do when out on the court. Through three games, she sits at 4.3 points and rebounds, two assists, and 1.3 steals per game, as well as being the tempo-setter of the offense and the Vikings’ “stopper” on defense, showing up in whatever role she’s needed in.
Stone looks to step into a similar role this season. In last year’s offense, Carly played more of a guard or small forward role, seeing as Augustana housed one of the best post-games in the CCIW. However, this year, with the absence of multiple big players, one of those being the injured Cali Papez, who is hopefully set to return soon, Stone has been pushed into more of a stretch-four role. If you ask Stone, she is more than happy to fulfill that task.
“I’m kind of expected to be an all-around player this year, and I feel like that suits me,” Stone said. “I don’t like being stuck in one role, and I think that with the girls we have, we’re super versatile, so it’s great. It’s not like one person’s this while one person’s that. We just play off of each other.”
As the year kicks off, more and more players will have to step into roles they are likely unfamiliar with. With such a loaded roster this year, they will either have to adjust to it or sit down and let whoever’s behind them try to figure it out. With a roster filled with youth, this team will face its fair share of adversity as it takes on several teams ranked in the top 25, teams with much more experience than them.
While this team lacks the experience that others may have tenfold, the experience that this roster does hold is vital to its success, especially in a year that will only see two seniors leave following its conclusion. One of those seniors, Ashley Lang, noted that what this roster lost in talent the year prior, they have been able to more than make up for in the experience they bring to a Vikings squad looking to bounce back after a middling year.
“For those returning, they have filled so many roles and are showing so much leadership for those coming in,” Lang said. “I think we have amazing leadership on our team between some of our captains and our seniors. We definitely show that we want to be leaders, and we have high expectations for everyone to continue building, and we’re certainly going to build off that and keep growing.”