GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- The Tusculum University women's basketball team is ready to begin its 2021-22 season when the Pioneers visit Belmont Abbey College to take part in the South Atlantic Conference/Conference Carolinas Challenge on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 12-13. Tusculum will play the host Crusaders on Friday at 5 p.m. before facing North Greenville University on Saturday at 3 p.m.
The Pioneers won their second consecutive South Atlantic Conference Championship tournament title in 2020-21, and won their first NCAA Division II Tournament game in 11 years before being eliminated by eventual Southeast Region champion Belmont Abbey in the region semifinals. Tusculum finished with a 19-4 overall record and in second place in the SAC with a 15-3 record for first-year head coach Meagan Price, including nine straight wins to open her Pioneer coaching career.
This season, Price will need to replace two key starters who were lost to graduation, point guard Marta Rodrigues and center Maddie Sutton. Sutton enjoyed a stellar senior season in which she averaged 17.3 points and a school and SAC-record 14.6 rebounds per game, while leading Division II with 20 double-doubles and 335 total rebounds. Sutton was a first-team All-SAC selection, a Division II Conference Commissioners Association first-team All-America and a Women's Basketball Coaches Association honorable mention All-America selection, as well as the SAC Tournament Most Valuable Player. Rodrigues started all 23 games at point guard and averaged 39.0 minutes per game, finishing with 7.1 points and 5.7 assists per game.
Eight new players join nine returnees on the 2021-22 Tusculum roster, including four transfers, but eight players on the Pioneer roster have one year of college basketball experience or less. Price is optimistic that the experience of the veteran players will provide influence to the younger players as Tusculum prepares to open its season against Belmont Abbey.
"I am really looking forward to this season. Our strength of schedule will give us experience in the first semester to prepare our team for postseason play," noted Price, whose squad plays five of its first 10 games against 2021 NCAA Tournament participants. "Our team is really young and it gets me excited for the next three to four years."
Tusculum was picked fourth in the SAC preseason coaches poll and is receiving votes in the WBCA Division II preseason poll. The Pioneers finished the 2020-21 season ranked 18th by the WBCA. The only team to ever win three straight SAC Tournament championships is Presbyterian, which did so in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
The top returning scorer for the Pioneers is preseason second-team All-SAC guard Jalia Arnwine. Entering her fifth season at Tusculum, the 5-7 grad student from Knoxville, Tennessee was honorable mention All-SAC last year after averaging a career-high 13.6 points per game. Arnwine hit a career-best 54 three-pointers in 23 games last year, and ranked in the top 10 in the conference in both total threes made and three-pointers per game (2.3). Arnwine, a member of the SAC All-Tournament Team last year, is 190 points shy of becoming the 20th player in school history to reach 1,000 career points.
Senior guard Mya Belton started 15 games last season and ranked ninth in the SAC with 39 three-pointers. She shot 40 percent from three-point range in five postseason games, and the 5-10 native of Blythewood, South Carolina enters the season with 80 career three-pointers.
Sophomore Jenna Kallenberg comes to Tusculum after playing her freshman season at Western Kentucky University, where she played in 18 games and averaged 1.1 points per game. The 5-10 small forward from Knoxville, Tennessee scored more than 1,000 career points at William Blount High School and was a three-time All-District selection.
Junior forward Alyssa Walker reunites with high school teammate Kallenberg in the Tusculum frontcourt. The 5-11 native of Maryville, Tennessee played two seasons for Western Carolina University, averaging 4.4 points and 3.4 rebounds as a freshman and 2.3 points and 1.9 rebounds as a sophomore while playing a total of 45 games, including 24 starts.
Junior Sophie Henry is penciled in at point guard for the Pioneers after sitting out last year as a redshirt following her transfer from Trevecca Nazarene University. The 5-6 native of Sevierville, Tennessee averaged 14.5 minutes per game in her lone season at Trevecca, after helping Gatlinburg-Pittman High School to two TSSAA state tournament appearances.
Senior Brianna Dixon was honorable mention All-SAC last season after averaging 10.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game. Dixon was fifth in the SAC in minutes per game at 36.3, and the 5-11 forward from Decatur, Georgia averaged 7.3 points and 7.3 rebounds during the SAC Tournament.
Off the bench, graduate transfer Chloe Warrington is expected to step in and contribute after playing the last two seasons at Fort Lewis (Colo.) College. The 5-11 native of Phoenix, Arizona averaged 7.8 points per game for Fort Lewis last season and ranked second in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in three-point percentage at 44.4 percent (28-for-63). Including two years of junior college at Phoenix College and her two years at Fort Lewis, Warrington has made 182 three-pointers in 95 career games.
Guard Elle Hutchinson will return to the Pioneer lineup this season after taking a medical redshirt last year. The 5-8 grad student from Cairns, Australia averaged 4.4 points and 1.4 rebounds in 27 games during the 2019-20 season, after playing two years at Young Harris College and averaging 5.1 points per game. Junior guard Kirsten Click was expected to provide long-range shooting off the bench after ranking third in the SAC in three-point percentage last season at 45.1 percent (23-for-51), but the 5-8 native of Amelia, Ohio was lost for the year in preseason due to injury.
Senior Deidre Cheremond is back after playing in 15 games last season, averaging 3.7 points and 1.5 rebounds per game. The 5-8 forward from Cape Coral, Florida shot 81.5 percent (22-for-27) from the field for the Pioneers, who won all 15 games in which she appeared. Freshman Myajae Eubanks is a 6-1 forward from Murfreesboro, Tennessee who was a member of a state championship team at Riverdale High School in 2018.
More backcourt depth is provided by junior guard Jordan Rogers, who averaged 2.8 points per game in 13 contests last season after transferring to Tusculum from Texas Permian Basin. The 5-5 guard from Grand Prairie, Texas averaged 8.6 points per game during her lone season at UTPB. Freshman Lexi Patty averaged 15.3 points per game for Heritage High School, and the 5-9 native of Maryville, Tennessee was a four-time All-County honoree.
Sophomore guard Averie Price played in seven games for the Pioneers last season, and the 5-9 native of Lebanon, Virginia averaged 1.4 points per game. Sophomore Natalie Crooke, a 5-5 guard from Orlando, Florida, joins the program from Lander, where she averaged 3.3 points in 18 games for the national semifinalist Bearcats.
Also joining the Pioneers this season are freshmen guards Tessa Gibson and Maddie LaFrance. The 5-5 Gibson comes to Tusculum from Silverdale Baptist Academy, where the Cleveland, Tennessee product was All-State and All-Region after averaging nine points, 4.5 assists and 3.2 steals per game. LaFrance, who stands 5-9 and hails from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, drilled 194 career three-pointers in her career at Central Dauphin High School and led the state in three-point shooting as a senior with 67 in 20 games at a 43 percent clip.
"Watching our growth in preseason has been fun," observed Price. "Our newcomers have to step into huge roles early on both ends of the floor. The standards are high for our returners and newcomers, coming off our back-to-back SAC championships."
Tusculum's home and conference opener is against defending SAC regular-season champion and preseason favorite Carson-Newman on Wednesday, Nov. 17 at Pioneer Arena, the first of 22 conference games on the 28-game schedule. The regular season concludes on Saturday, Feb. 26 at Anderson, with the SAC Tournament beginning the following week.
