Fighting Scots start a new basketball era without Jones

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Last Saturday evening, surrounded by an ESPN camera crew, Monmouth College women’s basketball coach Dennis Mann had one final opportunity to watch one of the best players in Fighting Scots’ history in action.

But after the NCAA Woman of the Year Award ceremony had concluded in Indianapolis with his star player, 2003 graduate Melissa Jones, being honored as one the top 10 women athletes in the nation, Mann headed back to campus to officially start an era that no longer includes Jones. All the former East Moline player did in her career was lead the team in scoring and rebounding in each of her four seasons and earn four straight All-Midwest Conference selections.

“Melissa was a tremendous role model and a great example of what Division III athletics is all about – not just athletics, but academics also,” said Mann. “But we’ve done enough things at this point of the preseason that new leaders are emerging. Marie Webster and Elyse Lambert are our captains, and they’ve done a nice job with all the preseason things. Marie is our only senior, and she’s doing things you’d expect a senior to do.”

While Jones was Monmouth’s unquestioned star for nearly 100 games, the Scots will have more of a “leader by committee” approach this season. Even with Jones on the court, sophomore center Lisa Curry (8.3 ppg, 5.2 rpg) led MC in scoring in four games last year, and Elyse Lambert (6.6 ppg, 3.2 rpg), a junior forward, earned that distinction in two contests. Guards Courtney Scherrer (5.5 ppg) and Webster (4.8 ppg) each hit game-winning shots in their first seasons as Scots, and those four veterans will be counted on to provide an experienced nucleus early on until Mann gets a feel for the nine newcomers on the squad. All four of them started approximately half of Monmouth’s games last year.

The other returner from the Scots’ 8-15 season (6-10 in the Midwest Conference) is sophomore guard Karissa Murray (4.6 ppg).

Once Monmouth is into the season, Mann could go with an all-veteran lineup of Curry and Lambert down low, Scherrer at the point and Webster and Murray on the wings. However, Murray is still competing with the Fighting Scots’ volleyball team, so freshman Mallery Mulvihill (Palatine) is her likely replacement.

“All of our new players are working hard and playing good defense,” said Mann. “The big thing with Mallery is that she offers the most offensively out of the group.”

In addition to losing Jones to graduation, this year’s Scots will also be without Galesburg’s Michelle Flaar, the only player who started all 23 games last year, who has been slowed by injuries and decided not to play her senior year. Flaar’s career stats were 263 points (4.9 ppg), 154 rebounds and 49 steals in 53 games. Starter Tiffany Baughman (5.5 ppg) was also lost to graduation.

Even though all five players in Monmouth’s potential starting lineup are returners, some – if not all – of them are going to have increase their scoring averages, which totalled 29.8 points per game last season.

A strong contender to do that is Webster, a skilled outside shooter who also has the quickness to get to the hoop.

“That’s one of the reasons we’ve moved Marie out to the wing,” said Mann. “At the point, her scoring was kind of restricted last year.”

Curry, too, has the potential to blossom into a double-digit scorer after earning All-State honors at Stark County High School.

Besides Mulvihill, half of the other eight newcomers will be very familiar faces to local fans. Freshmen Lindsey Brown and Rachel Jenks are former Warren High School stars, and two Alexis products, Janella Johnson and Ashley Sims, have joined the team as junior transfers. Sims, however, is battling a knee injury, and her return date is not known.

Other freshmen on board for the Scots are Becky Dixon (Rockridge), Kathleen Hamilton (Savanna), Laura Jahn (Stagg) and Elizabeth Martin (Highland Park).

“We’ll be chosen in the bottom half of the standings,” said Mann of the upcoming MWC coaches’ poll. “On paper, we won’t look like one of the powerhouse teams. Like always, we’ll get picked low and we hope to finish in the middle, but we’ll have our work cut out for us this year.”