The women’s basketball team will open the regular season when it faces off with College of Charleston in Reynolds Coliseum Friday at noon.
The Wolfpack will welcome new faces to the starting lineup in its season-opener against the Cougars. While senior forward Brittan Strachan may have been one of the Pack’s top contributors last year, she rarely got the opportunity to start. After collecting only 13 starts over her first three seasons, Strachan will look to step up for State in her final season.
“It’s really exciting to get the chance to start this year,” Strachan said. “On the other hand, it’s a completely different level of responsibility for me. This year I have to be ready to go immediately when the ball is tipped. It’s exciting, but I feel a little more pressure.”
Another new face in the starting lineup this weekend will be freshman forward Kody Burke. Burke hails from Northridge, Ca. and started in the exhibition game against North Greenville University on Sunday. Coach Kellie Harper said Burke’s instant rise to the starting lineup was no fluke.
“The plans right now are to start the same girls that started the exhibition,” Harper said. “We will have Kody Burke in the lineup to start. She has done everything we wanted her to do during the preseason, and we feel comfortable starting her. She is a great basketball player who just so happens to be a freshman.”
Friday will also provide about 1,000 elementary school children with a chance to learn about more than basketball. The team will be hosting “Education Day with the Pack,” which will bring children from Johnston County Schools to Reynolds not only to watch the Pack play, but also learn from Harper and other members of the team.
“We want our program to be accessible to the fans,” Harper said. “We want to get our program out there. We wanted to do an education day where we could invite school kids to come out and see the girls play. We have nearly 1,000 kids scheduled to come to the game. Hopefully they will learn something, and hopefully we are creating new fans.”
Though the team has been geared toward getting better since the summer began, redshirt junior Emili Tasler knows there is still room for continued improvement.
“I think this weekend, we should be able to find out a lot more about the team,” Tasler said. “We have a lot of good people that we will need to step up, like our freshmen. We are all going to need to come in and play well this weekend.”
Tasler also said she loves the way the team has worked together this offseason to improve as a unit.
“The chemistry for this team is great,” Tasler said. “We don’t have any issues with each other, which is always a big thing. Everyone wants to work hard, and I think that helps us to have a winning mentality.”
Harper knows this weekend will present a different type of challenge than the one her team faced in the exhibition win over North Greenville Sunday.
“The regular season is here,” Harper said. “You don’t get a second chance at these games. Each one of them means something to this program, so it is time to go out there and get it done.”
