After Kristen Kaczynski’s desperation heave with one second left in the ECAC Championship Game against SUNY Geneseo last season fell short, the Rensselaer women’s basketball team has been waiting for another chance to better themselves in the upcoming year.
The Red Hawks finished as the runner-up in the ECAC tournament with 18-9 overall record and 10-4 in the UCAA.
Fortunately for the Red Hawks, their wait is over; they will begin their season this upcoming weekend at the NYU tournament at New York University.
Rensselaer enters this weekend’s opener against Cazenovia with an extremely positive outlook for not just this individual tournament but for this entire season.“We have very high expectations,” Rensselaer women’s Head Coach John Greene stated. “We should without a doubt be in a position to win our conference tournament and get to the NCAA tournament.”
The Red Hawks are shooting to secure a spot in the top four in the UCAA regular season standing which would gain RPI a spot in the UCAA tournament.
However, Greene will not be satisfied with a mere top four finish. He feels this team has a real shot at winning the conference in the regular season.
“We want to win our conference so we can host the UCAA tournament,” Greene said. “We want to win the UCAA tournament and then go as far as possible in the NCAA tournament. This is our main objective on the season.”
And the Red Hawks have a legitimate chance to accomplish these lofty pre-season goals.
Rensselaer only lost three players from last year’s team while at the same time they are returning their two most talented players in senior Kaczynski and junior Kaitlyn Saunders.
“Kristen or Kaitlyn led the team in every offensive category last year,” Greene said. “We are hoping for the same type of season or better from both of them this year.”
Saunders is an extremely explosive and quick player who helps pace the Red Hawks’ transition game.
“Kaitlyn does a lot for our team,” Greene said. “She has improved her shooting and is a great defender. She gets a lot of steals and is the best on our team at drawing charges.”
Kaczynski on the other hand is just simply the classic all around player. She is one of the team’s four captains and is the consistent and smart player who has improved over her three years at Rensselaer.
“Kristen has improved her shooting even more, and her defense and team leadership in unmatched,” Greene said. “She is the ideal captain,”
The Red Hawks’ other three captains are all seniors. Jacqueline Ferrari, Alyssa Comis, and Caitlin Vestal all are solid players and Greene is looking for them to play well and be excellent leaders for this year’s squad.
“We are looking for other players to step [up] and be consistent,” Greene said. “Caitlin is slasher and more a finesse type player who brings a different element to our team while Jackie is just a hard nose aggressive player and we hope she can have a great senior season. As for Alyssa we are looking for her to be more offensive minded. She is crucial to our transition and a great floor leader.”
Experience is something this year’s women’s basketball team is most undoubtedly blessed with.
Next to the four senior captains, the team also has two other seniors, Moira Sherry and Kelly Choppy, all of whom have received considerable post season experience over the last two seasons.
Greene is hoping that the understanding these players have of what it takes to win will help Rensselaer continue to do what has brought it success over the last two seasons; play great defense.
“Our tough half court man-to-man defense is our bread and butter,” Greene said. “We are going to mix in some zone and traps mainly to keep the other teams guessing.”
Greene, in his third season at the reins for Rensselaer, has quickly developed a reputation for having team who plays great defense and plays hard all the time.
Despite the success the Red Hawks have had over the last few seasons Greene is still looking to make some changes on offense this season.
Greene will be trying to manage a smaller, more athletic team.
“We are going to try to push the ball more this season,” Greene said. “We want the game to be more up-tempo and we want to get to the basket more often and draw some fouls. One of our goals for each game is to get to the free-throw line 25 times.”
Greene is also hoping that as the season goes on players like juniors Amy Morin and Stephanie Pelletier, sophomore Jessica Woodman, and this year’s freshman class—Destany Eagles, Nicole Van Slyke, Kristi Baranowski, and Sarah Bowie—will add some more depth to this year’s team.
Greene is excited with the improvement of Morin, Pelletier, and Woodman who have started to grasp the team’s defensive and offensive philosophies and are quickly developing into solid players.
Greene believes the freshmen class has extremely high potential and he is hoping they will be able to contribute to the team at some point this season.
However, all the questions will begin to be answered and expectations will begin to be met or missed starting this Saturday at New York University.
The Red Hawks have an extremely difficult pre-conference schedule with teams such as New York University, Williams, Salem State, and Middlebury.
Greene is confident that this schedule will only help prepare his team for the difficult conference schedule that opens at home against Hamilton on January 16.
“We have players with the ability and work ethic to get us through this tough schedule,” Greene said. “We have the ability to be successful and this schedule will help get ready to do some damage in the UCAA and the NCAA tournaments.”
