VSU women open 2022-23 season against No. 11 Eckerd

Nov. 10—VALDOSTA — Looking to build on last season's run to the Elite Eight, the Valdosta State women's basketball team tips off the new season at home against nationally-ranked Eckerd Friday evening.

The game was originally scheduled to be played in West Palm Beach, Fla., but was moved to Valdosta due to the evacuation order for Palm Beach Atlantic ahead of the tropical storm scheduled to impact Southeast Florida later this week. As a result, Eckerd will play a neutral site game against West Florida Saturday, Nov. 12 at 4 p.m., at The Complex.

"We've talked about how our expectations don't graduate just because players do," Head coach Deandra Schirmer said. "We've talked about how we're building a program that's not just about certain players and we've had phenomenal players that have come in and out. We also have phenomenal players that are returning this year and we've brought in some really good players, so it's really about keeping the culture alive and I think that we've been so fortunate to have the success that we've had and we're so fortunate to play for Blazer Nation and we're excited for another year. We're excited to compete to be Top 25 and stay in that realm of success.

"There's definitely a hunger. Losing the way we did in the Elite Eight, there's a bitter taste in our mouths. This whole summer, it's kind of about...we have something to prove. Yes, we had a good season but that's not the ultimate goal. There's a big push for we're not finished, kind of unfinished business and you really feel that from our returners. That's what's driven our preseason so far."

The Blazers lost some key pieces off of last year's team, most notably two-time WBCA First-Team All-America center Kwajelin Farrar and All-Gulf South Conference forward Nicole Heyn.

Schirmer welcomes back eight players from last season and added the services of four transfers — junior Kalifa Ford (Oklahoma Baptist), junior Emma Martin (Utah Valley University), junior Aleisha Curry of (Santa Fe College in Fla.) and sophomore Kate Tanner (Butler).

Ford, a 5-10 wing, comes to VSU after playing three seasons for the Bison. Last season, Ford started 25 games and averaged a team-high 17.4 points per game and 9.1 rebounds per contest. She was the only Great American Conference athlete to finish in the top eight in the league in field goal percentage (4th; 47.5), scoring (5th; 17.4) and rebounding (2nd; 9.1). The All-GAC First Teamer finished the season with 13 double-doubles, earning her a spot in the top 25 in all of NCAA Division II.

Tanner, a 6-2 center from Melbourne, Australia, played in 18 games with three starts last season as redshirt freshman for the Bulldogs. She played one season at Miles Community College in Miles City, Mont., where she averaged 7.5 points per game and 9.5 rebounds per contest. She helped lead her team to the round of 16 at the NJCAA National Tournament as well as the MonDak Conference and Region XIII Tournament championships.

Martin, a 5-11, guard from Richfield, Utah, played two seasons for the Wolverines and appeared in 19 games last season, along with 24 as a freshman in 2018-19. In high school, Martin earned first team all-state by both the Desert News and the Salt Lake Tribune, while leading the state of Utah (all classifications) in 3-pointers with 75 made, marking fifth all-time in a single season. She also is fifth all-time in career made triples with 179.

Curry, a native of Lehigh Acres, Fla., played in 2019-20 for the Saints, playing in 28 games with 26 starts. Curry earned NJCAA Honorable Mention All-America honors and was named the Mid-Florida Conference Player of the Year. Last season, she played in 22 games with 18 starts, going 108 of 204 from the field (.529) and averaged 10.2 rebounds per game.

With Ford, Tanner and Curry, the Blazers hope to replicate much of the scoring punch and rebounding prowess they lost with Farrar and Heyn departing.

Among the returners will be starting point guard Tamiya Francis, guard Jirah Ards, wing Taylor Searcey, forward Lili Long, spark plug India Jordan, forward Kayla Frey, guard Shanice Nelson, sharpshooter Kendall Bollmer and guard Grace Beyer.

"With recruiting, that was a big focus for us — we needed to replace a lot of scoring inside, we needed to replace a lot of rebounding," Schirmer said of the loss of Farrar and Heyn. "Also, we talk about not only are you graduating up in years every single time, but you should be graduating in experience and we should be expecting more out of you. You should have more responsibility. Some of the players that maybe didn't get as many minutes are going to be able to come out and kind of prove themselves as well. That's the mark of a good program when you're developing players to go from maybe getting sparse minutes their freshman year and playing pretty dominantly their next year and transitioning to maybe an all-conference role. We really want to develop the players that we have here and then also bring in some really talented players and I feel like we've done that. We've brought in four transfers. Two were Division I transfers, one was an all-conference transfer averaging 18 points and nine rebounds, and then the other one was an all-conference junior college transfer. We've tried to kind of stack the deck a little bit, but as you know, Kwajelin and Nicole, they're irreplaceable. It's still going to be a learning phase when we first start off the year."

In addition to being ranked in the WBCA Top 25, the Tritons are projected to win the Sunshine State Conference. Last season, Eckerd went 21-5 — reaching the NCAA South Region semifinals and finishing 24th in the final WBCA Top 25. The Tritons ended the season ranking seventh nationally in field goal percentage defense (.339) and eighth in scoring defense (54.9).

The Tritons return eight players from last season, including the entire starting lineup. Sunshine State Conference Player of the Year Maya Price and SSC Defensive Player of the Year Lauryn Vieira return, along with Sofia Persson who earned second team all-league honors and was named to the All-Newcomer Team.

"Our big focus going into our first game is we know we're going up against a high-caliber team. We're playing the No. 11 team in the country as our first game," Schirmer said of Eckerd. "We want that. We want the challenge. We want to use that as a measuring stick of where we're at and where we need to be. We know that it's going to be a competitive weekend, but we're also hoping that we can use that challenge and use that high competition level to set the tone for how we want to play the rest of the year in high impact games, championship implication games. That's what we want to be in all throughout the season. It'll be no different to start it off."

Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m.

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.