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| Lindy La Rocque (left), Kate Paye and Tempie Brown (right ) welcome the freshmen to the Farm. |
By Judy Richter
It would be
an understatement to say that associate head coach Kate Paye is enthusiastic
about the upcoming Stanford women’s basketball season.
“We’re
going to see a lot of improvement” by everyone with more up-tempo play. “Our
team is really hungry,” Kate said by phone recently.
The players
arrived for the June 25 start of summer school on June 23 and had dinner
together that night to begin to foster the camaraderie that’s so important to a
team’s success.
Among those
arrivals were the three freshmen: guard Jenna Brown and twin forwards Lacie and
Lexie Hull.
Upperclassmen help freshmen
Although
the team doesn’t officially assign upperclassmen to serve as big sisters to the
freshmen, “everybody is taking them under their wing,” Kate said. They’re
helping the newcomers both on and off the court. The freshmen have “a lot of
big sisters right now,” she said.
Adjusting
to Stanford play and life, the “freshmen are doing awesome,” Kate said, adding
that they’re mature and serious about basketball. They’ll contribute right
away.
“Our fans
are going to enjoy watching our three freshmen.”
Coaches set goals for summer
The
coaches’ goals for the team this summer are to see everybody improving and
staying healthy, to acclimate the freshmen and to “lay the foundation for a
championship season.”
Conditioning
is another major focus. In past summers, the players spent six hours a week
with the coaches and two hours a week with strength and conditioning coach
Brittany Keil.
New rules
now have them working with the coaches for four hours and with Brittany for four
hours. “It’s been great,” Kate said.
Thirteen of the team's 15 players are on campus. The exceptions are senior guard Alexa Romano and junior guard Anna Wilson.
Alexa spending summer in Peru
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| Alexa |
Alexa, an
anthropology major, is spending most of the summer with an archeological
project in Peru.
Anna is at
home in the Seattle area “trying to regroup” after two seasons marred by
injuries. She has been cleared to play and is working with a skills coach. Kate
praised her good attitude and high energy even when she had to sit out.
While
working out with the team and taking a class, senior center Shannon Coffee has
an internship with Stanford medicine. The human biology major is helping with a
research project involving mouth guards and concussions in football.
Senior
forward Alanna Smith is taking classes while awaiting word on whether she’ll
play with a team for Australia, her homeland.
Five helping with hoops camp
In addition
to everything else, five players are helping at head coach Tara
VanDerveer’s summer hoops camp.
They are junior
forward Nadia Fingall, junior guard DiJonai Carrington, sophomore forwards Maya
Dodson and Estella Moschkau, and sophomore guard Kiana Williams.
The team’s two
most recent grads, guard Brittany McPhee and forward Kaylee Johnson, have
activities in the area. Britt has a job for a company doing medical research
near the campus and is hoping to play professionally overseas. In August,
Kaylee will start to work for a Silicon Valley law firm before applying to law
school.
The
freshmen and Nadia are playing in the San Francisco Pro-Am program at Kezar
Pavilion. Jenna will play with the USA team in the FIBA Americas U18 championships
in Mexico during the first week of August.
Coaches go recruiting
All four
coaches were to be on the recruiting trail during the second week of July.
“Recruiting is going well,” Kate said.
While the
coaches are gone, the players will continue to work on their skills and play
pick-up games.
Summer
classes end Aug. 16 followed by two days of finals. The players will have some
time off before returning for the start of fall classes on Sept. 24.
“We have
some exciting players. … I see a lot of players taking that (big) jump” from
the past season, Kate concluded.
