Thursday, March 04, 1999
Norse believe in each other
Cottrell leads NKU women on stat sheet
BY MARK SCHMETZER
Enquirer contributor
The stat sheet shows a major reason for Northern Kentucky University women's basketball success: the injection of talent by Michelle Cottrell.
After all, the 5-foot-11 freshman forward from Boone County High School leads the Norse in scoring with an 18.5 average and rebounding with a 9.0 average.
But there's much more behind the Norse's 27-2 record, 19-game winning streak, No.9 national ranking and top seed in this weekend's NCAA Division II Great Lakes Regional Tournament, which NKU will host at Regents Hall.
“I think the big thing is we believe in ourselves and in each other,” said 16th-year coach Nancy Winstel. “It's an amazing thing to see what you can accomplish when you do that.
“We're really a nice little life lesson. I know it sounds screwy, but that's how I feel about it. When you believe in yourself and in what you're doing, good things happen.”
The Norse play the winner of tonight's game between Bellarmine (21-8) and Grand Valley State (22-9) Friday night at 7:45 p.m. Tonight's other first-round game matches 23-5 Northern Michigan and 18-8 Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, with the winner facing No.2 seed Michigan Tech (27-2), the nation's fifth-ranked team, Friday at 5:30 p.m.
The regional final is scheduled for Saturday at 7:45 p.m., with the champion advancing to the Elite Eight March 17-20 in Pine Bluff, Ark.
Besides getting the players to buy into her philosophy, Winstel considers the experience of her five seniors invaluable. Three of them — 5-8 guard Katie Kelsey, 5-11 guard-forward Julie Stanley and 5-9 guard-forward Shannon Roddy — have played in all 29 games. Kelsey has been a four-year starter, while Stanley moved into the lineup as a sophomore.
“This is what happens when you have a veteran squad,” said Winstel, the Great Lakes Valley Conference's Coach of the Year. “Those players have been through the tough times. They came here, and they were thrown into the fire as freshmen and sophomores.”
Said Kelsey: “I think it helps a lot, having so many people with so much experience. Knowing this is our last year and that every time we lace up our shoes might be the last time makes it all even more exciting. You want to give everything you can to make it last as long as possible.”
NKU's seniors certainly helped the rest of the team stay focused, getting past the controversy of former player Jaime Garner's discrimination lawsuit against Winstel and Athletic Director Jane Meier that clouded the opening of the season. Garner dropped the lawsuit two weeks ago.
“Coach Winstel just wanted us to not talk or even think about it,” Kelsey said. “We just kind of accepted what happened, and we tried to forget about it. We stuck together as a team.”
The emergence as forces of Cottrell and Michele Tuchfarber (Mount Notre Dame) also helped.
Cottrell led the league in field-goal percentage (.614), was named the Most Outstanding Player of the GLVC Tournament, and earned first-team All-GLVC and Freshman of the Year honors. “Michelle was the missing link,” Winstel said.
Tuchfarber, a sophomore guard who leads the nation with a .538 three-point percentage, hit a three with eight seconds left to beat Bellarmine 74-72 in the GLVC tourney finals. She was named second-team all-league.
They also helped overcome the loss to a knee injury eight games ago of 6-1 senior center Shannon Smith, whose 17.2 scoring average is second on the team. Smith, another first-team all-league pick, is listed as probable for this weekend.
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