COLLEGE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: A MAGICAL SEASON FOR EC WOMEN AS THEY ADVANCE TO EMPIRE 8 SEMIS (2023-02-22)

By Brian Fees
Southern Tier Sports Report
It’s been a history making season for the Elmira College women’s basketball team.

They made the Empire 8 Tournament for the first time since 2006-07 and on Tuesday they made their first appearance in the tournament in over 15 years a success, beating Houghton 65-58.

The Soaring Eagles will now head to the Empire 8 semifinals on Friday at St. John Fisher.

“It’s awesome,” Elmira College coach Thad Phillips said. “We haven’t been here as a program for a long time, so for our girls to experience all the success they have experience, it’s awesome, I’m super excited for them.”

Just the experience of being in the tournament is already something that will help the Soaring Eagles.

“Can’t get better if you aren’t in the gym,” Phillips said. “This is a chance to get better, again we get an extra week of just getting better.

“Everybody’s goals is to win a championship and there is kind of an order of things. Typically you don’t go from where we were last year to winning a conference championship. You have to learn how to win in a conference championship, so for us to have that opportunity right now as young players, to play in a playoff game, to handle the stress, that pressure of playing in that packed house will only help us get better.”

It’s a very young Elmira College team, loaded with freshmen and sophomores, including sophomore Desiree Roy, who had a dominant game in the quarterfinals, notching 18 points and 17 rebounds in the win over Houghton.

Roy was named firs-team all-conference on Tuesday, the first first-team selection since Jessica Zoltowski did it from 2010-14. She is also the first player to earn back-to-back Empire 8 honors since Danielle Cleary did it between 2014-18.

“First time for all of us,” Roy said. “I definitely think we built a lot of chemistry last year, coming into this year, so I had high hopes for us.”

Sophomore Olivia Ayres, a former Section 4 standout at Tioga, is happy to be part of this team.

“We are very excited, first time in a while,” she said. “We really grew as a team and we worked really well together as well.”

While it’s a young team, there is one player that’s been on the team, waiting for this opportunity for a long time. Taylor Albrecht is a fifth-year senior on the team.

‘I have been waiting for a long time for this,” she said. “I knew with this group we could do it. I started getting a hint last year, because the way the girls acted, the way they came in with a good mindset going into this year, they were more experienced.

“It feels like everyone is definitely coming together, everyone enjoys playing with each other, coming with the experience, it’s completely different seeing it.”

For Albrecht this is bitter sweet. She waited her whole career to get to this point, but an injury ended her season. With tears welling up she talked about how everyone on the team still supports her.

“It’s awesome because everyone still sees me as their teammate, so even cheering them on I know they will do great things,” she said.

The younger players want to be able to send Albrecht off on a high note.

“We want this for her, she deserves this,” Roy said. “She’s been here a long time and she’s been a great leader for this group, she definitely deserves this and we want this for her.”

The team has really grown as the year has gone on. Not only did the team win five of their final eight games, even the losses showed the improvement the team was showing. The first time they played St. John Fisher and Nazareth this year they lost by a combined 181-77, the next time they played the two teams the combined score was 151-120.

“I have not had a game this year where we have not showed up and compared and for me as a coach if we show up and compete every day I am always proud of them,” Phillips said. “To have that success, along with going out and doing it the right way, tremendous.

“That’s the hope, you want to be playing your best basketball at the end of the year as you go into playoffs. We’ve had some great games. We’ve had to adjust some as far as personnel goes. Losing Taylor Albrecht hurts us, she’s a great role model for our girls. She’s a great leader for us, and we’ve had to learn to play another way because of it, but they have responded to every challenge we have put forth.”

The players have seen the growth through the year.

“We know we can beat all the teams, we are going to push ourselves as hard as we can,” Ayres said. “We have beat everyone besides Naz and Fisher, at least once, so we know we can do it. We are always competing, so we are always pushing each other.”

The players know that when faced with a challenge they work to respond.

“I think that just shows how competitive we are and it shows we know we can do it,” Albrecht said. “It shows from our loss to Fisher the first time to our loss the second time it gave us such a better outlook on the program and we all felt a lot better after.”

For Phillips a lot of the success starts with the attitude of the kids.

“We teach we want girls to come in and be coachable, we want girls to come in and be great teammates and we want girls to come in and work hard,” Phillips said. “And, for the most part, all year long, and pretty much every dame this team has shown up and worked extremely hard and when you work that hard you do get better.”

Last year was  tough at times, the team had lower numbers later in the year, but that also gave the group that returned this year a chance to bond.

“We definitely minimized the distractions and focused on what we had to do and helped one another,” Roy said.

The smaller numbers last year made it hard to practice five on five all the time, this year bigger numbers have made practices more competitive, and made all the players better.

“Last year at the end of the year we would have eight, nine, maybe 10 in practice, so if you had an injury or anything like that you missed out, you couldn’t run full court,” Phillips said. “We have 13 girls here today, we have a girl in class, we have a girl hurt, we can still run all our stuff and do all our stuff, so just having that depth, just having that bench is huge. And, it’s been that way all year.”

The players have seen what the bench has brought to games all year long.

“It’s nice, because we are able to have rotations and everyone is able to get in and play, it’s not as tiresome for our bodies,” Roy said. “Everybody has to work for their spot and work hard.”

Albrecht knows how crucial the players on the bench have been all year.

“To us everyone is important, everyone has their role, we are all family here, it doesn’t matter if you are sitting on the bench, it’s all the same to us and all the way everyone cheers you on, you wouldn’t know who is the bench player and who is not.”

And, having more players brings more players to push each other every day in practice.

“I feel it’s going to bring more competitiveness to our team as a whole.”

Now, Albrecht is one of those players on the bench, and she’ll be cheering as loud as anyone.

“I have given them a bunch of pointers (Albrecht said of talking to the younger players), I know they have it from here,” Albrecht said. “Always one of the louder ones (Albrecht said of herself), can never beat Anna (Ward).”

Phillips has been proud of the bench all season long.

“Our bench in general has been awesome all year long,” he said. “It’s a vital part of our program. Not everybody gets to play, unfortunately, it’s college basketball. But, our bench plays a key role in a lot of games where we have pulled an upset, or won some games late in the game, it’s because our bench has either produced on the floor, or some girls who haven’t been on the floor bought into being cheerleaders and being supportive of the teammates. And, Taylor’s not going to be any different from that.”

This team knows it’s a special group this year.

“On and off the court we are all really close,” Ayres said. “We always hang out.”

And, this is a special year.

“I’m hoping it’s a big thing for the girls,” Phillips said. “I genuinely am. They have worked so hard, to have them have success, I am happy for them. I am happy for our school to have us have success as a women’s basketball program. I am happy for the alumni who have worked so hard and haven’t been able to participate in those and they get to live vicariously through us, it’s a family here and I’m just happy we are a part of it and continuing to get better every day.”

For the players being in the Empire 8 playoffs is special.

“I’m excited to be in this position and I hope we can take it as far as we can,” Roy said. “We keep hearing we are making history so to make history with this team is something to celebrate.”

“I am excited to see what everyone can do, it’s different for all of us, including coach himself,” Albrecht said. “It’s great to see, we are such a young group that a lot of people doubted us, but we never had doubt. I knew we could do it.”

The Express know that they aren’t the favorites in the tournament, but that just drives them more.

“Being the underdog is kind of awesome, even though we are underdogs, I think everyone is not thinking about it like that,” Albrecht said.

Every game the team plays in the tournament means more experience for the young players, and each game also means more days in practice to prepare for the games.

“It definitely helps the younger group because they get to be together longer,” Albrecht said.

“We are working hard in practice, taking time for recovery, we want this,” Roy said. “It helps to build relationships, because that’s what it’s all about, relationships and learning, so for us to have this time together strengthens our bond and depends our bond.”