Anyway you cut it last season was a hit for the Jimmie women's basketball team.
With a new coach and essentially a new team, Jamestown College won 21 games and came within one win of the national tournament.
Despite the obvious successes, head coach Greg Ulland said his team fell short of their ultimate goal, and they plan on remedying the situation this season, starting tonight when they play the first of back-to-back games against Canadian schools in Mayville.
"I look at last year as a good season, but not a great season and the reason for that is because the expectations for this program are to get to the national tournament," Ulland said. "This program has a tradition of success built by Lawrie Paulson and Mark Wiest and we're trying to build on that and keep it going.
"This isn't a 1-hit wonder here. We want to keep developing that rich tradition and keep this program where it needs to be and that's getting to the national tournament."
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There's certainly every reason to believe they'll do that.
They return their top six scorers from last season and are bolstered by the return of all-conference guard Kellie Schuneman, now a senior, who missed all of last season with a knee injury.
Schuneman will start at the 2-guard spot, opposite of point guard Hannah Steele, who exploded on the scene last year to earn all-conference honors as a freshman, averaging 12 points, and 5.6 assists per game, which was among the best in the NAIA.
Bridget Schuneman, Kellie's sister, had a breakout sophomore season, averaging 14.4 points and 6.8 rebounds and the 6-foot post led the globe in field goal percentage at a staggering 67.8 percent. Bridget will not play this weekend due to back problems. Losing a player of her caliber would be a big blow to most teams, but the Jimmies can slide in Kayla Roemmich (8.2 ppg, 5.1 rpg) who would start for pretty much everybody else.
Athletic sophomore Casey Geffre (9.3 ppg) and former Blue Jay Amber Ramlo (9.1 ppg, 7.6 rpg) round out the talented starting five.
They're also deep again.
Carly Jensen averaged nearly 7 points per game as a freshman and will come off the bench. Ulland has another loaded freshman class -- six of them are on the varsity. All have earned minutes he said with Kaeli Kraska and Kadie Savage -- both Minnesota girls -- showing the most so far.
Scoring was rarely an issue last year -- they averaged nearly 80 points per game. Defensively, they were solid too, but that has been an area of emphasis in preseason practices.
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Eyeing the A.I.I. standings -- Association of Independent Institutions -- will be a new focus for the basketball programs, like it is for many of the other teams in the post-Dakota Athletic Conference era. They'll play a DAC schedule one more year, but earning a trip to the A.I.I. tournament in Madison, S.D. -- hosted by Dakota State -- is the goal.
"Every game is important, that's really what we've tried to stress to the girls," Ulland said. "We want to put ourselves in the best position we can as it relates to the A.I.I, and that means we need to win as many games as we can."
They have lofty goals and the players to make it happen.
"The girls have a chip on their shoulder. They're playing with a sense of purpose and really seem focused on making sure we take care of our business," Ulland said. "They're playing with more of an edge and that's exciting."
Sun sports editor Dave Selvig can be reached at (701) 952-8460 or by e-mail at daves@jamestownsun.com
