Marked by culture shift, GW volleyball has sights set on conference title

By Sean Hurd

The GW volleyball team is experiencing a culture shift.

After having its best season in 14 years and coming within two sets of what would have been the program’s first Atlantic 10 Championship in 15 years, gone are the days where making the podium at the end of the season is good enough.

Ask any returning player on the GW roster, and they’ll tell you that they expect to be hoisting an A-10 tournament trophy on the Smith Center floor in November.

“I think the returning players have set the bar really high,” senior libero Maddy Doyle said. “We’re doing a great job of saying ‘this is GW volleyball’s standard and doing poorly at something is not going to fly, that’s not acceptable here.’”

After totaling 473 digs last season, Doyle has an opportunity to make history as one of the best libero’s in program history. Although she currently sits 12th in all-time career digs, she is just 264 digs away from tying Suzana Manole (1997-2000) for second all time with 1,435 career digs.

Doyle has been with the program through its trials and tribulations. From finishing 7th in the conference in 2012, to reaching the A-10 semifinals in 2014, to the team’s championship appearance last year. Despite a promising upward trajectory, the team won’t be satisfied without the conference title.

“Across the board everybody feels like we got close but we didn’t accomplish our goals,” head coach Amanda Ault said. “I think that’s been carried into this season that we feel like there is unfinished business.”

Despite losing members two members of last year’s front line in Landon Garvik and Kelsey Newman, who earned A-10 All Conference first team honors, Ault has a slew of incoming talent in the form of six newcomers who she said will add substantial depth on offense.

The six new faces on the GW roster include four freshman (Alexis Lete (New Albany), Kelsey Clark (Mother McAuley), Hanna Justesen (Elmwood-Murdock), Gillian Kane (Franklin Regional) as well as two transfers in junior Maddie Brown who transferred from NC State, and Kristel Moor a sophomore transfer from Auburn. Both Brown and Moor are eligible to play immediately this season.

Ault says the new class has made quite the impression, especially the incoming hitters – leaving very little doubt about the ability to fill in any holes from last season. Ault says the incoming hitters in Moore, a 6-foot-2 middle blocker; Lete, another 6-foot-2 middle blocker, and Clark a 5-foot-11 outside hitter will definitely see action on the front line.

As of Tuesday, Ault says she has yet to announce a starting lineup, but added that it is likely that four members of the new class will earn starting positions.

“For every position, there is a battle in the gym every day, and they are going after it” said Ault who holds a 68-50 record through four years as the head coach of GW. “It’s good, if you have that competition on a daily basis it’ll help you in the long run.”

What is definite about GW’s starting lineup will be its core trio in junior middle blocker Chidima Osuchukwu,  senior setter Jordan Timmer and Doyle –each of whom are coming off career seasons. The team also returns seniors Natalie Leger and Maggie Skjelbred, juniors Loren Williams and Emily Clemens (currently out with an injury),  and sophomores Emily Newell, Christina Porada and Aaliya Davidson.

Osuchukwu, who is entering her junior season having led GW with 411 kills last year and being named an AVCA All-America Honorable Mention, is likely to become a focal point in the gameplans of GW’s opposition. It’s a test that Osuchukwu welcomes, adding that it forces her to expand her skillset as a middle blocker.

“I have to be more versatile in the way I attack the ball,” Osuchukwu said. “I’m going to have to do different things in order to get results. Changing up things isn’t scary for me, it’s just a necessity that has to happen.”

Osuchukwu and the rest of the roster had a short amount of time and a handful of two-a-days to make those necessary adjustments, but they won’t have an opportunity to work out the kinks against lesser competition in their opening week. GW will start the year on the road Friday against the University of Michigan, a team that finished with an RPI of 48 in 2014.

After ensuing matches against formidable opponents in West Virginia and Oakland to round out the weekend, GW will host its home opener Tuesday against Pac 12 power Oregon. The Colonials’ match against the Ducks will undoubtedly be GW’s biggest in recent program history. Another notable match will come on the road against Pittsburgh on Sep. 19.

A non-conference schedule as top-heavy as GW’s can strike a sense of intimidation into a program that hasn’t been to an NCAA tournament in 15 years.

Photo courtesy of GW Athletics

For a team that admittedly is still trying to find the right connection on the floor after only playing together for three weeks, the Colonials are approaching each of its tough non-conference matches not as challenges, but opportunities.

“We have nothing to lose when we play these guys,” said Timmer who led GW with 12 double-doubles last season. “We just need to go out there, be confident and know that we’ve put in hard work – we’ll take each game one at a time.”

GW will also have a unique opportunity in the conference championship in November. For the second time in three seasons, the A-10 tournament will be held at the Smith Center – something that hasn’t happened in Foggy Bottom in 24 years when GW hosted the tournament in 1989 and 1991.

Having lost to the Flyers on their home floor last season in what was the first championship game for everyone on the roster, the Colonials feel they now are now in the right position to finish atop the conference in 2015.

“Last year, I think that we were capable of winning the title game but it was the first time we had been there so we were not as comfortable as we could be this year,” Timmer said. “This year, we’ve learned from the past. If we keep pushing, we’ll make this year our year.”

With NCAA Championship debut, Drouin-Allaire represents promising shift in gymnastics program

Photo courtesy of GW Athletics

By Sean Hurd

It had been 13 years since the GW gymnastics team last qualified for a bid to NCAA Regionals.

The year was 2002. The Colonials, led by senior all-around star and future GW Hall of Famer Devin McCalla, were fresh on the heels of their fifth straight Atlantic 10 conference title and were making their 10^th Regionals appearance in 12 years.

In 2002, Cami Drouin-Allaire was just five years old. A year removed from moving to Shoreham, N.Y. after living in a small suburb of Montreal, Canada for four years, Drouin-Allaire’s mother had put Cami in a local gymnastics program where she thought her daughter could take up the activity, interact with other girls, and learn the national language. When the Drouin-Allaire’s moved to the states in 2001, Cami only knew how to speak French.

“I started gymnastics not speaking a word of English,” Drouin-Allaire said. “Not knowing how to do gymnastics and not knowing how to speak the language made it seem not as bad for either one.”

As Drouin-Allaire began to hone her skills in the sport of gymnastics, and the English language, GW gymnastics had hit a troubling rough patch. After joining the East Atlantic Gymnastics League in 2004, the Colonials failed to finish better than fourth in their conference in each of the next 10 seasons – unable to amount a 20-win season after doing so nine times between 1993 and 2002.

At the helm of the team at both the peak and dry spell was Margie Foster-Cunningham. A five-time All-America and national champion as a gymnast at Penn State, Foster Cunningham has since become the longest tenured coach at GW – the 2015 season marked her 31^st year with the program and 30^th as its head coach.

While Foster-Cunningham said her team remained competitive and was able to “hang in there” during its down years, she said the program suffered as a whole due to University funding. When GW qualified for Regionals in 2002, the team operated on eight scholarships, although 10 were allowed by the NCAA.

As tuition at the University steadily increased, the program saw no increase in its scholarship allocation. Meanwhile, the NCAA raised the maximum amount of scholarships available to women’s gymnastics from 10 to 12.

“We’ve been functioning on six scholarships compared to the rest of the country,” Foster-Cunningham said.

But in 2014, the athletics department changed its scholarship allocation for the program, granting the full 12 scholarships allowed by the NCAA. After finishing the 2014 season 15-17 and placing fifth in the EAGL, just one season later, the Colonials finished 22-8-1 and earned their first EAGL championship in program history. In addition to attaining its first 20-win season since 2001, GW also qualified for NCAA Regionals for the first time since the 2002 season.

“That is what you’re seeing, kind of a return to, I play with 52 cards and so do you,” Foster-Cunningham said.

With the ability to attract top recruits, Foster-Cunningham has begun to rebuild her once dominant program. But thanks to back-to-back talented freshman classes, she’s a bit ahead of schedule.

This season the team featured a large seven-member freshmen class, which made up 40 percent of the roster. One of the seven freshmen, a 5-feet-2 all-around gymnast from Long Island, NY, was Drouin-Allaire.

Since building her gymnastics foundation as a child, Drouin-Allaire had since become an elite competitor in the Level 10 gymnastics circuit, the highest level of competition in the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics Program. In 2012, Drouin-Allaire was the Level 10 New York State Champion and received a bronze medal  on vault at Junior Olympics Nationals. In 2014, she was the Level 10 Regional Champion.

Drouin-Allaire arrived at GW at just 17 years-old, after graduating a year early from Shoreham-Wading River high school. The admittedly shy and reserved gymnast was the youngest member on the Colonials roster.

“She was young, she was really young,” said Elena Corcoran, a co-captain and one of just four seniors on the roster this season. But despite being the youngest in the program, Drouin-Allaire displayed a maturity and ability that quickly erased any doubt Corcoran may have had about the underclassman.

“I remember thinking ‘this girl is so solid’,” Corcoran said. “She does not act like a freshman and she does not practice like a freshman.”

Drouin-Allaire continued to defy freshman norms all season long. Along with teammate and fellow freshman Jillian Winstanley, the reigning EAGL rookie of the year, the two played instrumental roles in the team’s success as its only two all-around performers – a lofty request for a freshman.

While both produced head-turning performances during their freshman campaigns, it was Drouin-Allaire who qualified for the NCAA Championships as an individual in the all-around. When she competes at the Championships this weekend, she will be just the second GW gymnast in program history to compete in the competition since J.J. Tolhurst did it 21 years ago in 1994.

Drouin-Allaire’s character traits fit the bill for a gymnast in a sport where the mental component weighs equal, if not more to its physical. Both Foster-Cunningham and Corcoran described Drouin-Allaire as being composed, focused and analytical with a tight mind and short-term memory – which collectively both agreed are a rare combination to see in a freshman.

“[Cami] is probably one of the most composed young competitors that I’ve ever had,” said Foster-Cunningham who added that Drouin-Allaire’s potential as a gymnast ranks in the top one percent out of the hundreds of gymnasts she’s coached in her career. “She doesn’t let the outside environment change who she is. She’s fearless and she knows how to get the job done.”

Drouin-Allaire’s ability to remain composed and focused was no better illustrated than during the team’s performance at Regionals last weekend. GW traveled to Auburn, Alabama in a Regional that featured four prominent programs in No. 5 Alabama, No. 23 Iowa, No. 17 Minnesota and the home team, No. 8 Auburn. The venue was loud, with crowds cheering predominantly for the two Alabama programs. It was an atmosphere unlike any other that the Colonials had encountered all year.

The event due up for GW was the balance beam, arguably the most mentally challenging event in the sport. With a rotation of six, Foster-Cunningham had a choice of who she wanted to start the beam program, which included Corcoran, who started on beam last year as a junior.

Foster-Cunningham instead elected Drouin-Allaire, who had filled the position all year, to take what the head coach described as, “the hardest spot in a team lineup to put anybody in, let alone a freshman.” Drouin-Allaire had been tasked with the challenge of setting the tone for her teammates in the program’s most important meet in recent history.

“Going through my mind I was just trying to do what I always do every meet, just hit the routines as best I can,” Drouin-Allaire said. “Sometimes I was just like ‘wow it’s really loud in here,’ especially on beam.”

Despite the high-pressure environment, Drouin-Allaire would produce her fourth best performance on beam of the season, hardly to the surprise of her head coach.

While Drouin-Allaire has found success in all four events she competes in, her best event is the vault – she is one of the best vaulters in the nation. Drouin-Allaire’s vault routine is the Yurchenko full twist, a routine that requires ample height, distance and form whilst twisting. Drouin-Allaire took up the routine two years ago and has nearly perfected the maneuver in that span.

“She comes off the table and the repulsion is instantly 30 inches off the horse,” Foster-Cunningham said. The head coach added that after Drouin-Allaire performed her vault at Regionals, three-time Olympian John Roethlisberger, who was doing the color commentary for ESPN, labeled Drouin-Allaire’s vault as “perfection.”

Drouin-Allaire, who once called vault her one of her worst events, tied the GW program record for best vault score of 9.95, a record that hadn’t been touched in seven years. To prove her feat wasn’t a fluke, Drouin-Allaire scored 9.95 on vault on three different occasions this season.

Photo courtesy of GW Athletics

At the end of the regular season, Drouin-Allaire was named a second team All-America on vault by the National Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches Association, making her the first in program history to receive All-America honors. In addition, Drouin-Allaire also won the 2015 EAGL vault title during the conference Championships in late March.

Despite having such a successful year, Drouin-Allaire says she hasn’t quite been able to optimally reflect on the season.

“When I do think back on this year and how successful of a year it’s been…it’s nice to be able to see that all of my hard work has paid off and that it has led to success,” Drouin-Allaire said.

With the NCAA Championships just days away, Drouin-Allaire’s practice schedule remains unchanged, as Foster-Cunningham and her assistant Barry Kistler critique and polish Drouin-Allaire’s performance before heading to Forth Worth, Texas

“That will be my goal for Cami going to Nationals, do what you’ve done all season,” Foster-Cunningham said. “I have every confidence she’s going to do that, she’s going to represent GW, breaking through that glass ceiling with a very small group that is there. We’re putting GW on the map again.”

Along with the coaching staff, Drouin Allaire will be accompanied by her captain in Corcoran. Corcoran qualified for NCAA Regionals as a freshman and has experience competing as an individual – an experience she described as being a far-cry from regular season team competition. Corcoran said her job is to make Drouin-Allaire’s atmosphere “a little more normal” – she’ll have a teammate by her side.

Drouin-Allaire and Winstanley are at the head of a class that could mark the beginning of a culture shift for the program. While the team will lose four important senior leaders from this year’s team including Corcoran, overall the team remains largely intact heading into next season.Of the 24 routines over four events that GW performs at any given meet, only five of the 24 routines were performed by seniors. Of the seven All-EAGL selections this season, six of the seven selections were awarded to either freshman or sophomores.

The program is in a position to initiate another run similar to that of the prosperous programs of the past, and Foster-Cunningham is excited for what the future holds.

“It’s going to be fun for the next four years,” Foster-Cunningham said. “Just with what we have in the pipeline with recruits coming in, this group leading the charge. They’re in it to make big strides. It’s going to be a good story for the next four years, I’ll tell you that.”

With the departure of Savage, Colonials lose most assertive offensive threat

By Sean Hurd

The core four is no more, the chapter abruptly closed – the long awaited storybook ending headlines archived without hitting the press.

And no this does not mean there is now a “terrific trio.”

After successive announcements from sophomore Nick Griffin and freshman Darian Bryant declaring their intent to transfer from GW made few waves, Colonials fans were left confused and shocked when the athletic department announced that junior guard Kethan Savage was also on the way out – the school citing that Savage’s departure was due to him wanting to be a full-time point guard.

Savage joins a short list of other key Atlantic 10 players who have announced their intent to transfer since the conclusion of the season. The list includes UMass guard Derrick Gordon who was recently named the eighth best transfer by ESPN and Fordham’s Eric Paschall, the reigning A-10 rookie of the year.

Savage’s career at GW was one of many peaks and valleys. As a freshman who saw action in 29 games, Savage struggled, averaging 3.1 points and 1.7 rebounds per game. He was often viewed as the weak point of the 2016 class and the core four. But Savage’s freshman campaign quickly became an afterthought after his performance on the floor during his sophomore year saw an almost meteoric rise. In 19 games, Savage averaged 12.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists and almost two steals per game and he was dubbed as one of the most improved players in the country.

Just as Savage’s stock continued to rise, his season was cut short after he fractured his foot in the final seconds of a game against St. Bonaventure. Savage’s dream season had come to an abrupt end, as he was unable to return to the floor for the Colonials.

Savage was primed for a career year in 2014-15 after returning from injury, and was projected to be one of the top 100 scorers in the country. But Savage’s projected standout year fell shy of the mark.

Savage was bogged by inconsistency for much of the season – on some nights playing like the best player on the court for either team, and other nights playing as a non-factor in the Colonials offense. Savage watched his shooting percentage fall from 51 percent his sophomore year to 40 percent this past season. With increased minutes, Savage’s point total decreased to 11.7 points.

Savage’s bread and butter, his ability to get to the rim, often seemed forced as opponents anticipated his wing-side penetration by clogging the paint, which lead to unwarranted shot attempts. But with that, what was a sure thing with Savage every night was that he would always be the Colonials’ most aggressive offensive threat, with a willingness to score on a team that often lacked any sense of offensive urgency. In a handful of games this season, Savage seemed to be the only player on the GW roster who wanted to score, which lead to him having to create for himself – warranted shots or not.

Savage also continued to thrive in transition, where his ability to get out on the break and finish emphatically above the rim opposed his calm and quiet demeanor off the court.

On the opposite end of the ball, Savage was often criticized by head coach Mike Lonergan for his inability to commit on defense, and he was benched because of it – losing his starting spot to freshman Yuta Watanabe (though his minutes barely wavered). Some of Savage’s best games of the season would come off the bench, most notably in the NIT when Savage led the team in scoring against both Pittsburgh and Temple. Against the Owls, in what was now his final game as a Colonial, Savage notched a career high 25 points on 56 percent shooting.

With the departure of Savage, GW added its name to the list of A-10 programs that have, for better or worse, seen a change to its program in the brief period since the conclusion of the season. The most recent change, which made national headlines Friday morning, was the departure of VCU head coach Shaka Smart, who left the Rams after six seasons to become the head coach of Texas.

Smart was one of three coaches to leave the A-10 since season’s end. George Mason fired Paul Hewitt, replacing him with former Bucknell coach Dave Paulsen two weeks later. Fordham parted ways with longtime coach Tom Pecora, hiring Jeff Neubauer for the position who ended his 10-year stint with Eastern Kentucky to coach the Rams.

With Savage on the roster, and the movement taking place within the A-10 seemingly benefitting the Colonials, GW appeared to be sitting in the driver’s seat to make a run at its first tournament win since 2007 in the 2015-16 season. However, the loss of Savage may cause the Colonials to get lost in the conference shuffle. GW has lost its second best scorer from last season, its most assertive offensive player, and a three-year starter. As the roster currently sits, GW’s depth chart is bleak, as freshman Paul Jorgenson is now the only bench player who averaged more than four minutes and 0.5 points per game.

While GW will add junior transfers Matt Hart and Tyler Cavanaugh, it’s now expected that Lonergan will aggressively navigate the offseason transfer list in search of a graduate transfer that will be able to contribute immediately to a team that is now in desperate need of depth.

For Lonergan, Savage marks his third player to transfer from the team this offseason, and the fifth player in two years. Lonergan’s entire 2017 recruiting class, which consisted of Miguel Cartagena, Skyler White and Griffin, are gone. But losing Savage in particular is a bit of a head scratcher. After all, Savage was the guy that Lonergan wanted at the end of games to have the ball. For a player with such a high stake in the team, it’s perplexing to think that Lonergan allowed Savage to leave because of a position discrepancy that could have been attempted to be accommodated at the very least.

As transfer season picks up and GW becomes a major player in the various transfer recruitment wars, Lonergan and his staff will have work to do to repair a basketball culture in foggy bottom which went from optimistic to uneasy.

Softball team’s season dependent on arms of young pitching staff

By Sean Hurd

Much like last season, the softball team’s success this year will rely on the arms of its pitching staff.

But after an injury to the team’s ace seemed to cloud its early hopes of redemption, it appears that the pressure to bounce back from last year’s disappointing showing will fall on a player that wasn’t even on last season’s roster – freshman Sarah Costlow.

Within GW’s opening week, the team’s rotation went from one of experience and optimism to one of greenness and inexperience after junior right-hander Meghan Rico was sidelined with a back injury within the first five games of the year.

Take out Rico’s two previous years of experience and the remaining rotation had pitched a combined 25 innings between them, all of which belonged to Costlow’s rotation-mate, sophomore Paige Kovalsky.

Costlow, along with Kovalsky have done an impressive job of weathering the storm caused by the exit of Rico thus far, but have hit a bit of a skid at the turn of conference play.

GW (14-13) has dropped five of its last six games, including being swept by A-10 foes La Salle and St. Bonaventure. Each of those six games was started by the freshman Costlow.

Costlow, a rookie out of Riverside, Ca., holds a record of 11-11 with a 4.10 ERA and will assume the role of innings eater previously held by Rico last season and Courtney Martin in 2013. On Mar. 17, Costlow was dubbed the A-10 pitcher of the week.

As of Mar. 26, Costlow led the Atlantic 10 conference with 22 appearances and nine complete games (Costlow recorded her tenth against St. Bonaventure this weekend), and was second in the league in wins. Head coach Stacey Schramm has done her best to wipe away Costlow’s inexperience tag, as Costlow has pitched a league leading 105 innings already this season. At the same time, Schramm hasn’t had much of a choice when it comes to deciding who will take the hill on a daily basis. Like last season, GW’s pitching depth sits at just two.

Opposite Costlow is Kovalsky, who has emerged as another bright spot for GW after she sat out most of last season with a broken thumb. In 14 appearances, Kovalsky is 3-0 for the Colonials. After pitching just 25.1 innings all of last season, Kovalsky has pitched 44.1 innings this year, and as of Mar. 26, ranks seventh in the conference in opponents batting average at .244.

GW’s short-handed rotation, while not unfamiliar to Schramm and the Colonials, is not common among A-10 rosters. Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Saint Bonaventure all, for the most part, rely on a two-woman rotation – with the Bonnies wielding the same freshman-sophomore duo as the Colonials in Josie Borysevicz and Kristen Hickling.

But of those understaffed rotations, the Colonials have come out on top statistically, as GW’s young duo has fared well against early opponents – even stringing together an eight-game winning sheet during which Costlow and Kovalsky allowed an average of just 2.25 runs per game. The tandem has not done it without some help from its supporting cast, a Colonials defense that currently ranks second in the league in fielding defense.

While on paper it appears that both Costlow and Kovalsky have answered the call to step up in Rico’s absence, it’s tough to conclude that the duo can maintain this success into conference play. The plain truth is that the Colonials haven’t beaten a formidable opponent all season. As of Mar. 27, GW’s defeated opponents hold a combined record of 42-155, with GW’s best win to date coming against a 9-13 Marist ball club. As GW begins to play more formidable opponents in the coming weeks it’ll be of note to see how the rotation responds.

Additionally, as Costlow continues to start consecutive games at a time and log heavy innings for the Colonials, fatigue could settle in as GW finds itself in the thick of conference play. How the freshman responds could very much be the difference between the Colonials falling on the right or wrong side of playoff contention.

While it may not be with the personnel they expected, the Colonials are competitive with their budding rotation, but only time and tougher competition will reveal whether GW is a contender come April.

Hannah Schaible, women’s basketball’s X-factor

By Sean Hurd

Sophomore guard Hannah Schaible is the women’s basketball team’s X-factor and has been all season long.

Wading in the tall shadows of the team’s identity, frontcourt mates Jonquel Jones and Caira Washington, it was often easy to overlook the contributions Schaible made over the course of the year. But without Schaible, arguably GW’s leader in the backcourt, the Colonials may not have had a reason to gather on NCAA Selection Monday.

As GW prepares for its opening round matchup against Gonzaga in their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2008, Schaible’s contributions may be relied on a bit more as the team plays much more superior defenses who may be capable of containing or slowing down the Colonials’ powerful frontcourt – leaving a window of opportunity for Schaible to make some noise.

Schaible finds herself in a role similar to a five-hole hitter in a baseball lineup who after watching the opponent pitch around the cleanup batter (in the case of women’s basketball Washington and Jones) steps to the plate and makes the defense pay. But the five-hole hitter still needs to produce, and often times, Schaible has done just that for GW.

Although the Colonials are deep and can find production and success from different sources on any given night, it’s hard to predict progress on the national stage without consistent production from their starting three-guard.

Schaible, along with returning guards Chakecia Miller and Shannon Cranshaw, and newcomers Lauren Chase and Brianna Cummings collectively faced the large task of replacing the nightly production of since graduated backcourt tandem of Megan Nipe and Danni Jackson.

On the floor, the group has been led by Schaible, and together the collection of GW guards have done an impressive job of replacing the two sixth-year guards and erasing the notion that there was any doubting the backcourt in the first place.

Schaible alone has made huge strides since her freshman campaign, where she has seen an increase in points per game, assists, steals, blocks and field goal percentage – all while averaging close to a minute less than she did a year ago.

Schaible is a stat sheet stuffer, a player that has the ability to fill multiple roles for head coach Jonathan Tsipis and perform exceptionally in different aspects of the game. And while she doesn’t dominate a particular category, she does everything well. Within that has come her identity on the floor: a hard working, scrappy, blue-collar player who more often than not gets the job done.

Schaible’s role on the Colonials may be a bit of a change of pace from what she’s used to. The 5-foot-9 Orlando native was a standout performer at her high school where she was not only a star basketball player but an exceptional flag football player (her high school coach calling her “Hannah Joe Montana”), who led her team to a state title and back-to-back state finals.

Schaible’s proficiency in other sports has translated to her versatility on the court as Schaible has seemingly brought her physicality from the gridiron to the basketball court. If Schaible is not driving into the lane or pulling up for a mid range jumper she’s diving on the floor for loose balls or mixing it up in the paint and crashing the glass for a rebound.

Her numbers reflect her all around play. Schaible is the only player on the roster to average at least nine points, five rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 2.1 steals per game. She ranks only behind Jones for games where a player has scored at least 10 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished two assists – Schaible’s done it five times this season. In addition, Schaible is the only GW guard to record a double-double, she has two.

Schaible came up big for the Colonials in Richmond in the Atlantic 10 tournament, playing a big role in the Colonials three-day journey toward its first tournament win since 2003. Over three games, Schaible averaged 12.3 points, eight rebounds and 2.7 assists. Schaible, along with Jones and Washington were awarded All-Tournament Team honors.

Schaible’s versatility allows her to focus on other areas of her game if another aspect isn’t particularly clicking on a given night – making it rare for her to have a “bad day” on the floor. This was no better illustrated than GW’s tournament championship against Dayton. Despite shooting 3-12 from the field and totaling just seven points, Schaible dominated on the boards – grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds.

Schaible, along with Jones and Washington, were awarded All-Tournament Team honors.

Schaible’s All-Tournament honors was the first time she was recognized in tandem with her teammates Jones and Washington, but if her all around play continues to help drive the play of the Colonials, she’ll quickly become a regular focus of conversation.

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