Last season, the Fort Lewis College women’s basketball team surprised many in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference when the Skyhawks went 21-7 overall and 16-6 in conference play behind breakout seasons from a young roster.
The Skyhawks won’t sneak up on anyone this season and have their sights set on an RMAC championship.
“We have high expectations for ourselves. We expect to be competing for a conference championship – that’s our goal,” said FLC head coach Jason Flores, who is entering his seventh season leading the women’s program. “In this conference, if you do that then you put yourself in position for the national tournament.”
FLC returns all but one player from last year’s roster who saw significant playing time, and will have senior Astrea Reed back in the lineup to help guide a highly touted freshman class after she used a redshirt last season.
“I’m super excited to be playing with this group of girls,” Reed said. “Last year was difficult because I wanted to be out there with them, but supporting them on the bench was just as fun. I loved watching them play.”
Leading the freshman class is Vivian Gray, a 6-foot-1 freshman from Argyle, Texas, who was the No. 27 recruit in the nation. She picked FLC over top Division I programs such as Baylor, Oklahoma and Texas.
Gray has the ability to dominate the game in a variety of ways and is a double-double threat every night. She has the size and physicality to bang with bigs in the post and a smooth turnaround jumper that’s nearly impossible to block, can step out and hit midrange jumpers, and the passing ability to find teammates when a double team comes.
“I think we have a lot of potential, especially if we keep working hard and coming together as a team,” Gray said. “Our team chemistry is really good, and we have a lot of potential.”
Reed, who averaged 13.7 points per game and was an All-RMAC selection in 2015-16, is one of three Skyhawks who have earned All-RMAC honors during their careers.
Last season, Briana Clah was named first team All-RMAC after she scored 14.4 points per game and shot 34 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. Alyssa Yocky also returns after she earned second team honors after she scored 12.5 points and grabbed 9 rebounds per game. Both Clah and Yocky have been named to the preseason All-RMAC team heading into the season.
The Skyhawks also will have Kayla Herrera, last year’s RMAC Freshman of the Year after she posted averages of 13 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game. Herrera said she has already noticed a difference in the team this season.
“I feel like we’re a more mature team. We all have the same priorities and know what we want to do this year to get farther this season,” Herrera said. “We’re so much closer as a team after last season. It’s gonna be a great year.”
Clah and Yocky, however, won’t be available for the Skyhawks for at least the start of the season. Clah sprained the medial collateral ligament in one of her knees during a recent practice, and Yocky is still recovering from heel surgery during the offseason.
Flores is hopeful Yocky could make her season debut in December but said Yocky’s recovery could take longer than the team initially thought.
With Clah and Yocky sidelined for the foreseeable future, the Skyhawks will lean on Gray, Herrera, Reed, senior Kelsey Wainright and the freshmen class during the early part of the season.
Along with Gray, the freshmen class of Tanisha Begay, Sydney Candelaria and Hanna Valencia – all products of New Mexico – could see an uptick in minutes early in the season.
“I’m really excited about the recruiting class we brought in with really good players across the board,” Flores said.
Begay, a 5-foot-8 guard from Shiprock, can stretch the floor with her 3-point shooting; Candelaria, a 5-foot-8 guard from Albuquerque, can score from all levels and play lock-down defense on the perimeter; Valencia, also a guard from Albuquerque and the tallest of the three freshman guards at 5-foot-10, has a quick first set and can finish in the paint or dish the ball to the open player, and her length allows her to guard multiple positions on defense.
“It’s just a matter of molding everything together and we have the talent to do it,” Flores said.
“It’s exciting. This is a really good group to coach. As a coach we’re never happy early, but that’s OK. It’s our job to make them better. We have a lot to work with and that’s a good thing.
Standing in the way of FLC and a conference title is Colorado State University-Pueblo, which earned the top spot in the RMAC preseason poll. FLC was picked second in the poll followed by Regis, Colorado Mesa and Metro State University-Denver.
The ThunderWolves went 28-4 overall and 20-2 in the RMAC last year and advanced to the second round of the NCAA South Central Regional.
Pueblo returns all of its starters from last season, including Molly Rohrer, a 6-foot-3 junior who was last year’s RMAC player of the year, and Katie Cunningham, a 6-foot guard who won the RMAC defensive player of the year award last season.
Pueblo will be transitioning to a new head coach after Jim Turgeon, last season’s RMAC coach of the year, accepted the head position at the University of Denver.
“Coach Turgeon went to Denver, so it’s a new coach and new system, but they have the talent,” Flores said of Pueblo.
“After that I think it will be the same as you’ve seen the past few years and we’re gonna be in that mix. I think the top few teams will all be within a few games of each other. ... It’s going to be a great league, which is fun because night in and night you you’re going to have to play hard.”
The Skyhawks will have an exhibition game against the University of New Mexico on Nov. 5 in Albuquerque. They’ll get their regular season underway on Nov. 10, hosting the University of Texas-Permian Basin for the Conference Challenge Event at Whalen Gymnasium.
kschneider@durangoherald.com
