Women’s Basketball Quotes - 2009-10 Media Day Conference Call

Renee (Freeman) Drake - Geneva

I’m following in the footsteps of a legend and I’m thankful for the opportunity to play under and fortunate to also assist him. Las season was below par for us and our goal this year is to return to the roots of our success and improve upon last season. I haven’t had too much time to look at what we got so I’m still trying to get to know the team. We have four seniors returning and their experience and leadership is important to us.

We’re expecting a lot of key minutes from our underclassmen. Our goals this year is to grow as a family and work our butts off every day.

Kristen Zawacki - Saint Vincent

Our expectation is to be competitive versus the rest of the PAC conference. We have 16 active players, none of which are seniors. The rest of the squad consists of five juniors, four sophomores and seven freshmen. We have big expectations and the girls so far this year are already making a big impact in practice. They’re young but they’re learning quickly, gaining experience on the practice courts.

Our target goal in recruiting this year was to improve our inside game and I think we did a good job in adding depth, talent and hard workers to our inside game. The leadership has been great from the juniors and sophomores, which has helped our freshmen along. The chemistry is there and it’s an exciting thing for me as coach to see players who work hard and want to do better.

Mark Katarski - Chatham

Our conference has really raised up over the years and Geneva and Saint Vincent are great additions to the conference. There are no guaranteed wins or guaranteed losses this coming year. We kept progression a season ago, and we are encouraged by our progress over the past four years. We went out to California and won a tournament there.

As we get healthy, we are hopeful to get better and continually compete in this conference. We are also looking forward to competing in the very first game of the season with a midnight tip-off November 15.

Rosanne Scott - Westminster

Coming off a season like last year where we were under .500, our attitudes have changed noticeably and it’s a pleasure for me to go to practice and see that hunger. We brought in eight freshmen who are really pushing our upperclassmen for a spot. Team chemistry is going to be key as we head into tip-off. The work ethic that started this summer has definitely continued through now and we’re looking forward to bouncing back.

Sam Jones - Waynesburg

This year we’re returning four started and the bulk of our offense last year. We tried to address our depth issue in recruiting with 10 new kids on the team and we are excited about that depth coming into this season. This year, I’m not going to make any guarantees expect that we plan on getting better and coming out fighting. We are excited to get going and looking forward to opening day.

Angie Zeuch - Thiel

As for our team, we have a lot of new faces this year as we graduated a lot of key players. I’m proud of our freshmen who are stepping up. Outside one senior, we are mostly sophomores and freshman, though they are catching on quickly to a new coach and I couldn’t be happier with their work. All in all, it’s going to be a good year and we have some challenges to overcome this year.

Sarah Harris - Grove City

To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed the first few weeks as our team has doubled in size over the off-season. Our challenge is melding essentially two teams together. Our question also is how to fill positions of those lost to graduation. We are returning about 80 percent of our team. The thing I look for is how you do on both sides of the ball; if you can’t play defense, I don’t put you on the floor.

Size is still an issue for us, but with a few additions, we’re able to move players to their natural positions where they feel more comfortable. Two other things that stand out: every player in the program has played for me and we’re all comfortable with the system in place and the depth of our returners. Our newcomers need to learn how to pick it up but they will quickly get it from our returners.

This is a fun group to work with and it’ll be exciting to see what kind of identities develop throughout the season.

Rebecca Upton - Bethany

I would like to make a guarantee that we will be different than last year. We have three returning starters from last year and they’ve really stepped up to lead. We young; with the exception of one junior, we are mainly freshmen and sophomores. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. We expect a lot out of each other. We have a lot of chemistry and we hope that will translate onto the court. I’m excited about the kids we have and the upcoming season.

Jina DeRubbo - Washington & Jefferson

We are always happy when this time of the year comes around. We’ve had a lot of success last year and our kids are excited about returning to that success this year. The preseason has been tough and our upperclassmen have taken ownership of this team. We’re looking to get a lot of experience to our juniors and sophomores this season and find ways to fill gaps and build on experiences from last season. Our team is working incredibly hard and we’ve had some intense practices. We have a few tough games to start this season and we’re hoping to just stay healthy.

Brian Neal - Thomas More

We’ve had a pretty good run over the past couple of seasons. We lost four starters, and five of our 6 best players. What I like to think is that the turnover is what makes college sports so interesting. To describe us at the moment, we’re a little smaller. More cerebral, quicker mentally and very athletic. We have a tough start to the season, against more experienced teams and right off the bat we start on the road. I think this will give us an opportunity to see what we have and adjust accordingly.

Men’s Basketball Quotes - 2009-10 Media Day Conference Call

Jeff Santarsiero - Geneva

Last year we experienced something we’re not use to. We had a very young team, at times having three freshmen on the floor at once. Another thing was that we weren’t satisfied with the defensive effort, but I’m pleased with the effort so far. One thing about posting a losing season is that it makes you hungrier. We’ve had great practices and we have everyone back from our starting lineups, which is a plus. We also had a great recruiting year.

D. P. Harris - Saint Vincent

This is a transitional period for us; we lost four tremendous seniors that will be difficult to replace. We’re really looking forward to this coming season, as well as next year when we are able to compete for the conference championship.

Tim Loomis - Thiel

We are really different than last year. We lost six of our top eight players last year. In spite of all that, we are much more of a team that I like; much more athletic and younger. We will be different--more pressing, much more defense oriented and overall much better this year. We have six freshmen and four are ready to start at anytime. We are excited about this year; last year was one of the toughest I’ve ever gone through. These kids have a lot of heart and we’re counting on our freshmen and transfers to also step it up. We’re looking for improvements as we go down the road and will be competitive this year.

Frank Ferraro - Waynesburg

It’s been very enlightening lately. This is a great conference and competitive night in and night out. We lost three starters from last year; we’ve changed our complexion a little but not tremendously. We have a great core of nine returning and we’re adding different responsibilities to our players this year.

We are relying on players from last year, especially those who came off the bench. We are also folding in newcomers into the line and expect three or four to play significant roles this year. We started to address our other issues as well, such as size. We had a pretty good off season, many of our players taking to the weight room, and that will all come to fruition as we progress in the season.

Steve Lamie - Grove City

About our roster, of the 15 we have, seven will be returners. Over half of the team is newcomers; none of which have seen a college game. We’re working on getting on the same page. What I love is the leadership from our veteran players. The key is our senior leadership and it’s vital that we have them.

Glenn Gutierrez - W&J

What I know about this year’s team--they are working extremely hard and I’m impressed with our efforts, especially from our young guys. We are finding out who we are and which way we’re going. From what I know of the conference, we’ll be able to compete. We’ll play hard and after that, I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do.

Larry Ondako - Westminster

We’re really young. We scrimmaged last night (10/27/09) with 10 healthy guys. We scrimmaged early because I wanted to see what we have. We have a really nice freshmen class who has an ability to work. Big thing we’re looking forward to is to be good by Christmas and by mid-January.

Andrew Sachs - Bethany

I’ve been watching film from the past few years and this will be a competitive year. We lost six of our top eight players but are retuning two great players and leaders. We’re pretty young and have a great ten days of practice so far and the kids have really embraced the new system. All we can hope to do is be better by January than we are in November.

Jeff Rogers - Thomas More

We’re excited about things here at Thomas More. There’s a lot of excitement around the program and that allowed us to grow. We graduated the core of our team last year--four starters. We’re returning one who we’ll look to for leadership. We’re excited about it; there won’t be a lot of changes on how we do things. Having been here a couple of years, we have a solid junior class coming back and I’m looking to get them some experience. This is a tough conference and my gift in the first year is to have the first seven of eight games on the road.