WOMEN’S BASKETBALL — Their star All-American is back, but the UCSD Women’s Basketball team has work to do. With the loss of several key players, the Tritons will need to find their identity to find success.
“I think there will be a process of us growing, and figuring out different roles and different responsibilities,” head coach Charity Elliot said. “It’s going to take us a little time to get situated and figure things out, and I’m OK with that.”
Leading scorer and All-American guard Chelsea Carlisle returns for her junior season, but the Tritons will need to find a way to replace all-conference players Annette Ilg and Tiffany Hunter as well as forward Erin Noonan. The three graduated seniors started all 30 of the Tritons’ games last season, and the Tritons had three more departed players appear in at least 20 games last season.
With Carlisle, however, the Tritons hope to fill the gaps and remain competitive.
“I think when you have a kid like Chelsea Carlisle on your team, you always have a chance,” Elliot said. “She makes so many things happen. What I’m most proud of for her this year is her leadership development and her distribution. She can do so many great things, but she draws so much attention defensively, it’s nice to see her looking and finding opportunities to get everyone involved.”
Junior center Laura Freidenberg joins Carlisle as the only other returning starter, although junior guard Daisy Feder and sophomore guard Emily Osga — now starters — earned minutes in nearly all of the Tritons’ games last season. However, the Tritons are a very young team, with no seniors and only four juniors on the roster.
“I think the biggest thing this team lacks is experience,” Elliot said. “We had so much experience last year, especially at the guard spot. We had players that had been in the league three years and knew what to expect.”
As last year’s leading scorer and one of the few juniors on the squad, Carlisle’s teammates will no doubt look to her for leadership this year, and she believes the drop-off from last year won’t be as great as expected.
“I think we have all the tools we need,” Carlisle said. “The freshmen are soaking things up, they’re eager to learn and that’s all you can ask. We’ve done things in practice better than we did last year. So far, it’s looking good.”
The Tritons are coming off a season that ended in disappointment despite strong performances for most of the year. UCSD went 25-5, won every one of its home games and was ranked as high as seventh in the national rankings. The Tritons’ only regular season losses came against Humboldt State, Chico State and Cal State Monterey Bay, all on the road. Humboldt quickly turned into a foil for the Tritons, as the Lumberjacks ousted UCSD from both the conference and NCAA tournaments. After the Tritons won their first 14 games of the season, UCSD fell 84-80 at Humboldt for its first loss of the season. The Tritons avenged that loss with an 86-51 pounding of the Lumberjacks in the final game of the regular season, but could not find a way to win in the conference tournament two weeks later. Despite the loss, UCSD received the No. 2 seed for the West Region of the NCAA Division II Tournament, but was upset in the first round by seven-seed Humboldt State.
The Tritons have had a rough start to the season, going 2-5 through their non-conference schedule. The squad was ranked No. 11 nationally in the preseason, but has since dropped out of the polls. However, they recorded two straight blowout wins at the UCSD Thanksgiving Classic over the weekend, scoring 90 points against Western New Mexico and Notre Dame de Namur.
Predictably, Carlisle has been the leading scorer thus far, averaging 18.6 points per game. Osga, Feder and Freidenberg have all averaged 11 points per game, and sophomore forward Erin Grady has shown flashes of her ability to play as a starter.
The Tritons open their conference schedule against Cal State Monterey Bay on Dec. 3 at 5:30 p.m. in Seaside, CA.
Readers can contact Liam Rose at [email protected].
