For a coach with four NCAA tournament appearances, five conference Coach of the Year awards, and nearly 500 career wins, Dianna Nolan can’t help but be disappointed with the 12-17 season her team recently completed, or with the 20 point loss to Marist in the MAAC tournament semifinals that ended it.
Yet after she wrapped up a meeting with her returning players in which she handed out paperwork on next year’s opponents (including Duke and Villanova), a light-hearted optimism began to show.
Nolan’s Stags, who will sorely miss two 1,000-point scorers (Janelle McManus and Cathy Dash) and a rock-solid post player (Katie Hammerer) have something going for them that not many teams do: four freshmen, all of whom will become sophomores and undergo the physical and mental developments that come with age, contributing significantly to the team’s success.
“We took our lumps this year,” Nolan said, “but we’re getting rewards next year and down the road.”
The freshmen quartet is led by All-Rookie team selection Sabra Wrice, a lightning quick guard who Nolan expects to play the point next year and lead the team on the floor. Wrice and fellow freshman Meka Werts will make up a backcourt that, along with McManus, may have been the best in the MAAC this year.
Nolan points out that the Stags’ hot streak in the middle of the season, during which they won five out of seven, came to an end when Werts left the team for personal reasons. But Werts is certain to be back next year, as is forward Stephanie Ryan and center Stephanie Czeria, both of whom saw plenty of playing time and got their share of touches as freshmen.
“I think we really learned each other well as the season went on,” Wrice said. “With the four of us playing a lot, it took us a while.”
The freshmen join sophomore Candice Lindsay, the 2004 MAAC co-Rookie of the Year, as the most promising pieces of the Stags basketball puzzle. But upper-class post players Ivanna Podrug, Yvette Rutherford and Claire Faurette will need to play well for the team to succeed.
“Whether its individually, or by a committee,” Nolan said, “we’re going to have to have more of an inside presence.”
Much of the inside presence on this year’s team was provided by Dash and Hammerer, just as much of its scoring was provided by McManus, who torched Loyola for 25 points on senior night, then went on to hit a game-sealing jumper with less than 15 seconds to go in the MAAC quarterfinal win against Siena.
That shot will serve as the lasting memory of this departing class. Defending league champion Marist was too much for the Stags in the conference semis, and handed them a dejecting 69-49 loss on their way out the door.
The game left an understandably sour taste in Nolan’s mouth. But just as coaches must do every year at this time, Nolan turned her mind to the positives and looks to build on them as she enters her 27th season at Fairfield.
“The next morning,” she said, “I woke up feeling good about things.”
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