The University of Illinois Springfield women’s basketball team will not look the same when it takes the court later this year.
That may come as a surprise to those who follow the Prairie Stars. When the season ended, it looked as if UIS would return seven players. However, only senior forward, Cassie Wolfe, senior guard Courtney Knuckles and junior Meredith Marti will be back.
When UIS coach Chad Oletzke learned following postseason interviews that Carly Goede, Nicole Collins, Jamie Cuny and Gwen Zehner weren’t returning, he set out to overhaul the roster. He has unveiled 10 new players. Nine are transfers.
“We pretty much had to re-work the roster with three returners,” Oletzke said. “The ones that aren’t returning ... it wasn’t that we didn’t ask them to come back. They had things happen in their personal lives and they decided not to come back.
“We had to really touch every position to get deeper and stronger.”
The story was reported by The State Journal-Register on June 25, 2014.
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