Stronger Together: A Recap of ICC Women’s Basketball
By Alex Staab, 4/22/19
It’s hard. It’s hard to compile a roundup on the impressive ride the ICC Women’s Basketball team took its fans, team members, and support staff on. 32 (consecutive) wins after an impressive regular season and regional tournament run, the Cougars entered the National Tournament as the top seed overall with a (31-1) record.
Oh, and by the way, entering the 2018-2019 campaign, only four players were returning, nine new.
It becomes such a special season when you put it into a perspective such as that one. A team that can be as loose as possible, jamming out to select songs on road trips, but at the same time, can finish a season with a record of (32-3), and walking off the bus, only to beat some awfully impressive teams. And their coach, who continues to leave quite a mark on this storied program. Karrie Redeker has been through a lot this season, battling Stage 2A breast cancer.
Role model? Pillar of strength? However you’d like to phrase it, one would hope that fulfills the kind of person that Coach Redeker is.
It’s been a long road for her, but you fast forward to the present, and as of this story being sent to press (April 9th), Coach Redeker is just 19 days away from her final day of treatment and 4 days removed from the second-to-last treatment.
And, in case you didn’t know, she’s a pretty good coach as well. Redeker completes her sixth season at ICC with 332 career wins at the helm of the Cougar program, having won her 300th career game in the 5th Place Game of last season’s National Tournament.
Let’s go back to the fact that there were only four returning players to this team, but it wasn’t just the number four. All four made an impact, to go with a sophomore transfer.
You may want to start with an All-American. Abby Coates, a sophomore from Metamora, has quite the resume. Garnering interest from NCAA Division-I programs like Wichita State and Eastern Kentucky, the WBCA All-American was a tough stop. Very few, if any, games saw Coates neutralized by the opponent.
Possibly the most notable statistic, her 62.6% field goal percentage was just 1.3% shy of being tops in Division-II. Come season’s end, Coates added a 2nd-team All-Conference nod to her list of accomplishments but was surprisingly left off the recently announced NJCAA All-Americans list, which is comprised of a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd team.
The sharp-shooting Emma Henderson, a sophomore from Tuscola. Henderson is one of those shooters, where if any space is given, you’re going to regret it as a defender.
She was one of the leading proponents to a season that saw 191 threes fall through the hoop, perhaps a higher number than anticipated, considering the Cougars weren’t always the dominant three-point shooting team. Yet, that didn’t stop Henderson from being responsible for 72 of those 191, just about the team high, all the while shooting 38.3% from behind the arc, the second best in the category from the Cougars squad.
Madison Faulkner, from a quality Rochester program, had a great all-around game this season. She could be relied on for a good move down in the post, while occasionally popping out for a three-pointer. Faulkner was one of five ICC players who would add up to 100 or more field goals made on the season. She would bring in 127 rebounds, another impressive figure; only one of five Lady Cougars to bring in over 100 boards.
Despite suffering an injury during the Holiday Tournament and a re-injury later on, Faulkner remained true to her game and remained as poised and as good of a player as she was before the injury even initially happened.
Hailing from Costa Rica, Kathy Pinnock-Branford wraps up her third season with the program after redshirting. The talented guard was dishing out a team-high 4.5 assists per game, and her assists to turnover ratio were one of the best of the team as well at 1.9.
Pinnock-Branford did score 201 points this season but was responsible for so much more.
A leader, a captain, just one of those special kinds of players that one can just tell how well she can take on such a role. Pinnock-Branford may also be involved in one of the more emotional moments of the season.
It came on Sophomore Day when she was honored by having the Costa Rican National Anthem prior to the usual introductions, and there were certainly some tears shed during the course of the anthem’s playing, both from Pinnock-Branford and those in attendance.
It took all of one season, and although brief, the impact that sophomore transfer (Vincennes University) Marquitta Easley made was quite spectacular. One of the team’s top scorers and overall quickest players, even some of the toughest teams on ICC’s schedule were having trouble trying to stop her, and yours truly has even come across multiple opposing coaches mentioning how the scouting report can only do so much with a player like Easley.
She would score an impressive 438 points, good for 12.5 per game and third on the team. It is certainly hard to let go of such an impactful player who the Cougars were only able to have for a single season.
For now, although, it is time to say so long to a memorable group of players, the numbers are switched. The Cougars will go from four returning players to a hopeful maximum of nine returning players. In other words, plenty to look forward to in 2019-2020.
The following are named by yours truly only, and not a decision of anyone within the Women’s Basketball program and/or ICC Athletics staff:
- Play of the Year: Summer Stoewer game-winner vs. Lincoln Land (3-2-19)
- Game of the Year: #1 ICC def. #5 Lincoln Land, 71-70 (3-2-19)
- Performance of the Year: Summer Stoewer 33 points at Lincoln Land (2-9-19)
- Newcomer of the Year: Marquitta Easley
- Freshman of the Year: Summer Stoewer
- Player of the Year: Abby Coates