When you taste success, all you want is more of it, and that’s exactly how the Shenandoah University women’s basketball team feels. After losing the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship game and suffering a crushing one-point defeat in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament to wrap up last season, the Hornets don’t just want another tournament bid. They want more.
And with all five starters returning from last season, Shenandoah coach Melissa Smeltzer-Kraft is eager to see this year’s team take the next step. “I think the way the season ended with quote-unquote, ‘Being unsuccessful in the ODAC championship and then that NCAA game,’ I think we are out to leave it all out on the floor and leave no stone unturned this season,” Smeltzer-Kraft said last week. “The goal is always to compete for the ODAC.
I think we realized last year we can compete nationally. We belong. It isn't a matter of imposter syndrome.
When we got to the NCAA Tournament, we were hand-selected to go, and I think that kind of has a carryover as the messaging into this year. “The freshmen have hopped in, and they're reading the message board the same way. But there's a lot of kids in that room that are still ticked off and are motivated by the way it ended, myself included.
” Shenandoah was picked to second to finish second in the ODAC in Tuesday's preseason coaches poll. The Hornets earned six first-place votes for 137 points, just one point shy of Washington and Lee.
