USD Women's Basketball 1997-1998

Previewing the '97-98 Season

2

This year Head Coach Kathy Marpe enters her eighteenth season at the helm of the USO women's basketball program. As she has done the previous 17 years, Marpe is stressing to this year's squad the importance of goals and learning from past experiences. Marpe wants her players to improve upon last year's misfortunes and have more desire this season to get back to the top of the West Coast Confer– ence standings. "Our goal is to build on the effort we put in last year and learn from the experi– ences to strive to make improvements and reach another level of success this sea– son," says Marpe. "We want to continue to play a tenacious defense and keep our quick tempo offense. The key elements to winning games this year will be in how successful we our in forcing other teams to alter their style of basketball." The Toreros will have a young lineup in '97-98 with a total of eight underclassmen and only three seniors. Last year's leading scorer senior Nailah Thompson and sophomore Susie Erpelding are the two main components of this year's team and are a prime example of blending youth with experience. Thompson, who is the most experienced returner, is a two-time All WCC Honorable Mention selection. Though Thompson will be out until January with a foot injury, she should be ready for con– ference play that begins January 9 at San Francisco. Erpelding, in her freshman season last year, was the only player to start in every game in '96-97. She was also the team's second leading scorer and WCC's leading freshman scorer (10.3 ppg). The two other seniors on this year's squad are guard Pat Sencion and center Justine Tuhakaraina. Sencion was a pleasant surprise for the Toreros last year, entering the starting lineup for the final 12 games of the year and averaging 4.7

Susie Erpelding led all wee freshman scorers last season and ranked 13th overall in the wee. points per game. Sencion battled knee injuries through her first three seasons at USO. Tuhakaraina ranked second on the team in blocks and played in 23 games. Bouncing back to rejoin the starting lineup this year will be junior Kari Ambrose, who was injured with stress fractures in both legs last year. Ambrose led the team at the point guard position two seasons ago and averaged 9.3 points and 3.2 assists per game. Another junior, forward Maggie Dixon has only missed one game over the past two years and averaged 3.4 points and 2.7 rebounds per game last season. Three sophomores who saw plenty of action last year are Amanda Bishop, LaKia Alexander, and Jessica Gray. Gray was the

only other player to play in all 27 games and was the team's third leading rebounder (4.9 rpg). Alexander missed just two games in her freshman season and scored in all but three games. Bishop entered the starting lineup last year after the injury to Ambrose and was one of the team's floor leaders. She ranked second on the team in free throw percentage (73%) and assists (43). The Toreros lost six from last year's squad, but Coach Marpe feels she has two gems to step in immediately. Freshmen Jamie Lucia and Jennifer Tuiolosega should see plenty of action in their first years at USO. Tuiolosega was the Los Angeles Times-Orange County Player of the Year last season playing for Ocean View High and also selected to the Orange County Register's All County Team. Tuiolosega aver– aged 20.2 points (ranking her fifth in the county) and 4.5 assists per game while guiding Ocean View to a league title for the fourth straight year. Lucia led Roseburg High in scoring (12.0 ppg), rebounding (10.0 rpg) and blocks (2.0 bpg) during her junior year. She was an All Southern Oregon Confernce selection for two years as well, but is bouncing back from a stress fracture in her ankle suffered during her senior campaign. Marpe will look for her 200th win at the school and 300th win overall this season as the Toreros embark on another tough schedule. USO has 12 non-conference games including road games against Long Beach State, UCLA, and Denver. The Toreros home schedule includes their home opener versus Toledo (Nov. 21) as well as hosting Fairfield, San Jose State, Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Lehigh. The Toereos open (Jan. 9) and close (Feb. 21) conference play with San Francisco and face three teams back-to-back (Portland - Jan. 17 &22, LMU - Jan. 31 & Feb. 6, St. Mary's - Feb. 11 & Feb. 14). The West Coast Conference Tournament returns to

Nailah Thompson was the Toreros leading scorer and wee Honorable Mention selection in 96-97.

Santa Clara this season and runs February 26 - March 1.

1997-98 University of San Diego Toreros Women's Basketball Media Guide