2021-2022 Women's Basketball Season Review

The 2021-2022 Eagle women's basketball team fought through a strong schedule and COVID interruptions to match their win total from the previous year. After a difficult regular season, the Eagles were able to peak at the right time to finish in third place at the MCCC tournament.

The Eagles season was challenging from the start, as practices and their first three games were canceled due to several members of the team not being available as they were competing at the NCCAA women's volleyball and soccer national championships. That made for a short first half of the season, as the Eagles were only able to play four games before Christmas break.

Coming out of the break, the Eagles were able to have some semblance of normalcy, but couldn't quite seem to find a rhythm due to a strong schedule, injuries, and illness. Despite those challenges, the team persevered, with everything coming together at the right time in the conference tournament. 

After a tie for fifth place during the regular season, the Eagles faced off against #4 Manhattan Christian College for the first round of the tournament. Despite having fallen to Manhattan twice during the regular season, the Eagles found their offense in their third matchup with the Thunder, scoring a season high 83 points to advance to the tournament semifinal game. The Eagles dropped that match to the overall #1 seed in the tournament, Ozark Christian College, but rebounded with a ten point win over Calvary University to finish out their season with a win and third place finish at the tournament.

The team was recognized by the conference as recipients of the 2021-2022 sportsmanship award, and Rachel Kleczka was a second team all conference selection. Regionally, Kleczka was a second team NCCAA II North Region selection and Makenna Laib was an Honorable Mention selection. Kleczka and Laib were also recognized for their work in the classroom as NCCAA Scholar Athlete recipients. 

The Eagles return a strong core of players, and will look to build on their late season success in the 2022-2023 season.