By: Con Marshall
CSC Sports Information
Both Chadron State College basketball teams will open their seasons at home in the Chicoine Center on Friday night.
With good reason, there’s lots of interest in both teams. Fans are wondering if the men’s team can match or even improve upon last year’s success, while they also are anxious to see how the women’s team does with a new coach at the helm.
The Lady Eagles, now guided by Travis Brewster, will tip off their season against College of St. Mary from Omaha at 5 o’clock Friday, followed by the men’s team coached by Shane Paben going against Texas A&M International from Laredo.
The CSC men also will be at home again at 7 o’clock Saturday to play Texas A&M-Kingsville. Ironically, after spending most of Saturday in a bus headed south, the CSC women will be playing A&M International in Laredo at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Interest in the CSC men’s team perked up last year when the Eagles had their first winning season in 21 years while finishing 19-10 overall and going 16-7 in the RMAC. While point guard and team captain Marcus Jefferson graduated and Isaiah Wyatt, who shot 47% from 3-point range, transferred, five of the remaining mainstays have returned and Coach Paben has brought in at least a half dozen newcomers who had been solid community college players.
It’s the same strategy he used to remake last year’s team.
The returnees include first-team all-RMAC choice Josh Robinson, second-team all-conference pick Bryce Latimer and Porter Anderson, the college’s 6-foot-7 Homecoming king who gives the Eagles a sturdy presence down low. The trio combined to shoot 53.3% from the field and 78% from the free throw line last winter.
Jarrett Taylor, who was the team’s second leading 3-point marksman a year ago and is someone Paben calls a full-fledged team player, is expected to be a starter again. The coach added that alternate center Martin Poznanovic has improved.
It will take some time to get acquainted with the newcomers.
The Eagles won a pair of exhibition games the last weekend of October and players such as Jalen Patterson, who scored 37 points in the two games, along former Casper College standout Dalton Peterson and highly-regarded recruits such as Trey Ballard, Raul Nunez and Julio Phillips saw considerable action.
Paben said he has high expectations for this year’s team. He said it has more “length,” a rather new term for height, and will have excellent depth.
“I hope we’re better, but we’ll have to wait to find out for sure,” said Paben, who is in his fourth year with the Eagles.
This will be the third year in a row that the CSC men have opened the season against the Texas teams and they have yet to beat either of them. In 2021-22 when the games were in Chadron, International won 82-75 and Kingsville prevailed 84-74. Last year in Texas, the games were closer but the outcomes the same. The International Dustdevils won 71-66 and the Kingsville Javelinas won 82-76 in overtime.
International, which finished with an 18-12 record last year, does not have any of its top five scorers back, but Matt Okoye, who scored 10 points in last year’s opener has returned along with John Achebe, who was a full-time starter a year ago.
Kingsville was 21-12 in 2022-23. It returns 5-9 guard CJ Smith, who was the team’s top scorer for the season with an 11.2 average, along with 6-7 Kavon Booker, who averaged 6.8 points and a team-high 5.3 rebounds.
The Javelinas will play at South Dakota Mines on Friday night before visiting the Eagles.
Not much other than the name of the head coach will have changed on the game programs for the Chadron State women’s team this winter. When Travis Brewster was named the head coach last summer it was too late for him to add recruits.
Since arriving, he’s not complained the situation, just dedicated himself to helping the 14 players he inherited improve. He said he’s been pleased with their work ethic and willingness to absorb his strategies.
Noting that individual players spend 95% of their time on the floor without the ball in their hands, he said team unity and finding ways to help one another have been points of emphasis. He calls it “small ball.”
While the Lady Eagles won just four games last winter, the cupboard was not completely bare. In particular, he is pleased that one of CSC’s all-time greats is on the roster. Shay Powers, a 5-10 junior in eligibility, has scored 899 points and grabbed 395 rebounds during the last 2 ½ seasons. That includes the 13 games the team played in 2020-21 during the COVID pandemic and did not count as a year of eligibility.
Last winter, Powers, who has a knack for taking the ball to the basket and either make a field goal or draw a foul, shot a school-record 55% from the field while averaging 16.5 points and 6.9 rebounds. She was among the 10 players who earned first-team all-RMAC honors, and just the third CSC coed to receive that honor this century.
Brewster knows Powers will be target of special defenses and is striving to find ways to take advantage of that. He said the other starters will include junior Olivia Waufle, crowned the CSC Homecoming queen about a month ago, along with Allison Olsen, Kyra Tanabe and either Megan Counts or Liberty Line, all sophomores.
Both Olsen and Tanabe played about 26 minutes a game last year, while Waufle averaged about 16 minutes. Junior Kadyn Comer will also see considerable action in the backcourt, the coach noted.
Injuries left over from last year have prevented 6-footer Claudia Dollinger and promising redshirt Bria Delmont from practicing so far, but it’s hoped they’ll be available by January.
The Eagles have not played their Friday night opponent, College of St. Mary in Omaha, since joining the RMAC in 1990, but trail 13-4 in the all-time series. The Flames are an NAIA team and have already played three games—defeating Waldorf College of Iowa 67-63 and losing to York College 69-37 and to Peru State 84-46. Their top player apparently is sophomore Sidney Anderson, who scored 78 points in the three games.
Once the Eagles have arrived in Larado, they’ll encounter former teammate Samiyah Worrell, who played the last two years at CSC, graduated in May and is using her “COVID season” to play for Texas A&M International. She was Chadron State’s second-leading scorer behind Powers both seasons, averaging 11.8 and 10.1 points, respectively.
Last year, after Worrell received honorable mention all-RMAC, former Coach Janet Raymer noted that Worrell “can take over a game.” She was the team’s leading 3-point shooter both seasons. Last winter she was 39 of 143 (27.3%) from behind the arc.
The Lady Dustdevils also have Rai Brown in their lineup. A year ago when International thumped the Eagles 73-46 in Chadron, Brown scored a game-high 22 points and averaged 19.2 for the season.
Last weekend, International won all three games by wide margins while participating in a classic at Simon Fraser University in Canada. The Dustdevils defeated Alaska-Fairbanks 83-47, Central Washington 82-64 and Simon Frasier 82-75. Brown scored 26 points against Central Washington. Two other players tallied 20 and 25 points in the third game. Worrall scored 11 points twice and 10 once.