The Augustana women’s basketball team enters the 2025-26 season feeling rejuvenated. After finishing their 2022-23 season with a narrow defeat to Millikin University in the CCIW championship game, the team sputtered in 2024 with a 13-14 record and in 2025 with a 10-15 record. 

Despite the decline in wins, the team brings back many key athletes, all of whom are ready to tip off their season on Saturday, Nov. 8, at Monmouth College.

The team brings back seven out of their top eight point-per-game scorers from last season. Specifically, they bring back their top three scorers, including senior Cali Papez, junior Paige Melton and sophomore Audrey Erickson. 

Papez, the leading scorer from last season, averaged 11.3 points and 7.8 rebounds. Even while missing time due to injury to start the year, these stats catapulted her towards a second-team All-CCIW nod, but the work didn’t stop there. 

While it is nice to earn those honors, it is not enough for the ambitious Papez.

“It gives some validation for all the hard work I’ve put in, and also just motivates me to keep getting better and make that first team this year,” Papez said. “Most importantly, though, I can use the hard work I’ve put in to help my team be successful too.”

The high return rate this season is a welcome change from the previous few seasons, when there was a lot of roster turnover and fluctuating experience levels. This season, the team brought back 13 out of 18 players, losing three seniors and two underclassmen. This is a noticeable improvement from the previous season, when the team brought back only eight players and lost six. 

The fluctuating levels of returnees and playing experience make a huge difference in how a coach can manage his rotation and how the team can improve in the future. For Head Coach Mark Beinborn, this year’s return in production allows the team to get back to winning basketball together. 

“We didn’t have a ton of depth and experience the last two years, since last year we were playing a bunch of freshmen,” Beinborn said. “Cali [Papez] also missed the first seven or eight games of the year, which created some challenges for us. Last year was just getting that experience. I expected them to put in the work, get better, continue to grow together, and they’ve done that.”

Though the Vikings finished last season with a 10-15 record, the team’s identity and play started to shift as the season went on and players got more comfortable. While no team wants to end the season with losing three out of their last four games, their last loss, on senior day, was against the nationally ranked Illinois Wesleyan Titans, who had not lost a game to that point. 

An 11-point loss showed improvement against one of the best teams in the country compared to the 37-point loss the Vikings had against the Titans earlier in the season. Another instance of improvement occurred against Wheaton College. After a narrow 2-point defeat at the Carver Center, the Vikings stormed into their gym and defeated them 58-53, once again showing their growth.

“Last year, we looked at the way we finished versus the way we started,” Beinborn said. “We were two different, totally different teams. It’s just building off the way we ended the season, even if we lost two of our last three, but we played Wesleyan, who hadn’t lost all year, and Carroll was the number two team in the league, and we battled them in the closer games than we did before.”

Before the team’s season opener on Saturday, Nov. 8, even with all of the returnees, one of the biggest aspects of their offseason and preseason training has been getting to know each other better. While it might seem cliché to some, for team members like junior Paige Melton, it is how they will trust each other and win basketball games.

“We’ve been trusting each other really well, and we understand what everyone does,” Melton said. “Obviously, there are people who are better shooters, there are people who are better defenders, and people who are better at posting up. We understand each other’s roles, and since we know each other better and we trust each other, we can kind of play into those.”