Grinnell Basketball-Softball Connection

At Grinnell we value multi-sport athletes and their impact on our teams. For basketball, we have a history with athletes also being on the softball team! This past weekend, two ballers helped the softball team beat Monmouth in their first conference win of the year! First-years Jordan Matosky and Alissa Hirsh played critical roles on the field and in the batters box to help the Pioneers beat the Fighting Scots 2-1.

It is exciting to see two phenomenal athletes kicking butt on two teams!

Congrats to Jordan, Alissa, and Coach Reckamp for the great win this past weekend!

Strength: Pioneer Style

The transition from high school to college basketball usually includes an increase in work done in the weight room. As a program we view lifting as performance enhancing and injury prevention (especially knee injuries!).
In the post season, we prioritize lifting and individual skill development. The team continues to train together (under the guidance of our elder athletes) during the spring both in the weight room and on the court!

Our strength and conditioning coach helps to put together an out-of-season lifting program for our women! We use Olympic style lifts (Squats and Cleans) as well as unilateral and body weight exercises.

Over the last few years the Pioneers have gotten much stronger and we have seen the results on the court! As we think about next year- we know that strength, conditioning, and skill development will be essential as we kick butt in the MWC!!!

Going to the BIG EASY!

Each year the Women's Coaches Association holds their annual conference in association with the Division I Final Four. This year the event will be held in New Orleans!

Although I was looking forward to watching Baylor play for the national championship, I'm still excited to go and see the games, learn from fellow coaches, and get new ideas for the upcoming season.  Exploring New Orleans won't be bad either!

This year I also have the opportunity to present a talk at the Division III Roundtables. I'm going to be speaking about how to create a championship culture within your team, using many ideas that we've tried with the Pioneers in the last few years! I'm excited to share my ideas with other coaches and get their feedback!

Post Season Honors!

Senior co-captain Tolu Alabi was selected as a 2nd Team All Conference Honoree for the 2012-2013 Season. Tolu led the Pioneers with 13.4 ppgs, 7.5 rpg, and 33 steals on the year!

Tolu will graduate in May with a degree in computer science and will work at Goldman Sachs after graduation in Salt Lake City, UT.

Academic All District 1st Team Honors!

Senior co-captain Tolu Alabi discusses her recent honor with Grinnell SID Ted Schultz. For the past four year's Tolu has been a model scholar-athlete for the Pioneers. She is at the top of our computer science department as well as being our team's leading scorer and court leader. This honor is well deserved! Way to go Tolu!!!

MWC Player of the Week!

Over the past two weeks the Pioneers have racked up individual MWC honors with two athletes being named MWC Performer of the Week. Alissa Hirsh was honored after leading the team in a win over Knox with nine assists and 17 points. Michelle Briggs was honored after having big scoring/rebounding games against Ashford and St. Norbert College. These are the first Performer of the Week Honors for the Pioneers this season! Congrats to Alissa, Michelle, and the Pioneers for their great accomplishments!

Also, check out Alissa's interview with our SID Ted Schultz!

On the Road Again

We are currently on our way to Jacksonville, IL, to compete in the first of two road games this week. Posting a 2-2 record so far this winter break- we are looking to repeat victories at IC and Ripon to finish up this portion of our season.

We have had strong wins against Beloit and Lawrence in 2013, with our two losses coming to undefeated Cornell and Carroll University. We will see Cornell again at the end of the season in Darby!

The Pioneers have had a wonderful winter break. We've had some well-played tough loss, some sound victories, and many memorable off-court moments during the last three weeks. We cooked pasta for the Grinnell community meal, we've held two youth clinics, and this week, we'll have our 3rd annual talent show.

The Pioneers start classes this coming Monday. With only ten games left, the season is flying by!!!!

Both our IC and Ripon games will be broadcast online! Check them out!

Returning Home!

Tonight we get to compete in Darby! After 3 consecutive home games, we are returning home!

Our St. Norbert loss taught us a lot:
1. We are good enough to compete with a previous conference champion.
2. We need to know how to close out a game with a lead.
3. What we do in practice we will do in game: therefore we need to be excellent everyday.

I'm proud of how the Pioneers responded to these lessons and how they prepared for our game against Illinois College tonight!

Check out the live coverage on our website! Live stats too!

So much to tell....

So much has happened with the Pioneers since our last post, including a 2-1 start in conference play and TWO OT wins this past weekend! We are 3-1 in our last four games, including a HUGE non-conference win versus Wartburg College (a team we hadn't beaten in 12 tries until this year)!

Last night we traveled to Monmouth to play our third game in four days and came away with a hard-fought loss. Despite the L, I was very please with our team's performance- we had out lowest turnovers on the season, and did a great job defensively (kept Monmouth 30 points lower than their scoring average). With fresh legs, I know we will have a chance to beat them at home in January!

We are a week and a half out from finals so the Pioneers are busy on the court and in the classroom. We have one more game this week as we travel us to St. Norbert this Saturday. Game time is at 1 pm!

Home Opener: MWC RECORDS!

Although we didn't get the W yesterday, the Pioneers played very well against a talented Benedictine team. We played really smart defense and had a huge bench contribution!

Michelle Briggs had eight block shots and earned the MWC record for career blocks!!! She has a total of 250 blocks (and at least 21 more games to go)!!!

The Pioneers open with MWC play on Wednesday at Knox College (the system!). As always, it will be broadcast online!