by Kirby Boehm
The Capital University women’s basketball team is putting together an impressive season under the guidance of head coach Dixie Jeffers. The team is one game out of the top spot for the OAC regular season championship, which would be the 12th under Coach Jeffers in her 27 years at Capital.
The team is full of youth and includes only two seniors, Cookie Geroski and Jamie Canton. The Crusaders rely on contributions from juniors Monica Heckman and Shelby Sheets, along with underclassmen Simonne Gage, Kristen Thompson, Lauren Stefancin, Jenna Erwin, and Nina Napolitano.
Even with so many youthful players, Geroski points out that every player on the team each has their own role to fulfill. Gage and Geroski fill out the guard positions, acting similar to a quarterback in football orchestrating the team, while forwards Canton, Heckman, and Thompson control the paint and rebounds for the Crusaders.
“Everyone on the team realizes that they each have their own job to do” Geroski said. “Once the team realized this we have been playing solid team basketball.”
This brand of team basketball, as Geroski put it, has been extremely successful for the Crusaders as of late and they have won five of their last six games. This has created a great deal of momentum heading into the final month of the season and the Crusaders have put themselves in a position to control their own destiny.
The Crusaders’ goal is to win the regular season OAC championship, but Geroski says Coach Jeffers reiterates the fact that the OAC tournament is just as important. The winner of the OAC tournament receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, making winning it that much more important.
“Obviously we would like to win both conference championships, but to do that we just have to focus on continuing to get better and play our best basketball.”
In the three conference losses on the year the Crusaders felt like they had two opponents on the court with them. They were not only competing against the other team, but that they were in a constant battle with themselves as well.
“In those three losses we feel like we beat ourselves more than anything,” Lauren Stefancin, freshman guard, said. “We were our own worst enemy out on the floor.”
As the team moves forward, there is a unifying theme that the whole team supports 100%. Last week as the team was preparing to face off with Marietta, they learned a team mates life had changed drastically.
Shelby Sigman, sophomore, had received the news that her brother Payne was in a terrible car accident and was in the hospital. Sigman left the team to return home to her family. To show their support for the Sigman family, the next game the team took the court with “Play4Payne” written on their shoes as they defeated Marietta 74-72.
“I know everyone says the line that a team is like their second family, but that really does describe this team,” Geroski said. “When a teammate goes through something like that, it puts everything into perspective and we wanted to make sure Shelby knew she had all the support in the world. It really unified us and brought us closer together over the past week.”
Moving forward into the final month of the season, the Crusaders have five of their final seven games at home. After playing so many road games in a row, the Lady Crusaders return to a familiar setting as they close in on the last stretch of conference play.
This doesn’t come without complications for the Crusaders as a burst pipe underneath the floor has caused standing water to settle underneath the playing surface. The court now has a giant bump right were the home team exits the locker room and runs onto the floor.
“We aren’t really sure what is going on with the floor,” Geroski said. “We’ve heard we may have to play our home games at another venue, but we are just focusing on what we can control.”
The Crusaders feel that their success has come somewhat unnoticed this season. In contrast to the men’s games were they have a student section to cheer them on, the women’s team mainly plays in front of parents with students sprinkled throughout the gym.
Geroski points to this as something that the team uses as motivation as they continue to improve, but doesn’t list it as a major distraction for the team.
“Right now we have the blinders on and we are focused on playing great basketball and picking up as much hardware as we can along the way.”
kboehm789@capital.edu
