A new season of Saint Louis University women’s basketball brings
many new faces to the game. With seven returning seniors from last
season’s team, the freshmen will have to adjust to college play
quickly and the older players will have to step it up.

“The three seniors, Stephanie Solomon, Angie Lewis and Kirsti
Holloway are responsible for educating the rest of the team. That
means when you have a day off, you still can benefit from time in
the gym and when the season starts you have to come ready to play,”
said women’s basketball coach Jill Pizzotti.

Pizzotti is really looking for leadership from her seniors on
the team.

“The three of them have all started at some point and have
played several minutes, they bring experience with them that the
freshmen don’t have.” Pizzotti said.

The team is young with eight freshman added to the roster, but
one, Kerry Rapp, will redshirt for this season.

“Star Jackson was our point guard last year and averaged over 36
minutes a game. She is going to be hard to replace,” Pizzotti
said.

Shea Kenny will most likely take over as point guard.
From last year’s team, Kirsti Holloway will be one of the wing
positions, but the other is up for grabs.

“Yanique Javois and Tyler McIlwraith are fighting it out to see
who gets the other starting wing position,” Pizzotti said. “Both
bring a lot of talent, but neither has experience at this level of
play. One of them will start, but both will see a lot of minutes.
We have some young guards and they need to understand what it takes
to play at this level.”

Last season was the first time the team had made it to a
postseason tournament.

The Bills took part in the NIT tournament where they were
eliminated in the first round, losing to Iowa 93-64.

“It’s a big challenge getting a postseason bid and, it puts
pressure on you to win because you want to get to the post season
again,” said Pizzotti. “Getting to the postseason is the end result
of all our challenges, but so much has to fall into place for us to
get there.”

“Our goals are getting to post season play by making 75 percent
of our free throws and holding our opponents to 58-60 points a
game,” said Pizzotti. “We also need our girls to score in double
digits. We have to get it done and make our shots.”

The preseason conference standings rank SLU as 10th out of 12,
but that doesn’t have Pizzotti worried.

“We can compete with any team in this league. We don’t pay close
attention to preseason polls. Last year they had us at 11th and we
finished fifth,” said Pizzotti.

The Bills already won their first two exhibition games, beating
Lewis 72-62, with five players in double digit scoring, Holloway
with 14 points, Solomon with 12, Lewis with 11 and Lakrisha Brown
and Krystle Hatton both with 10.

For their second exhibition game they defeated
University of Missouri- St. Louis 85-57–this time with four SLU
players in double digits. Lewis had 20, Yanique Javois had 14,
Holloway had 13 and Solomon had 12.

The regular season opener is against Bradley University on
Friday Nov. 21, at 5:30 p.m. at the Bauman-Eberhardt Athletic
Center.

“This will give plenty of time for the students to come to the
game before going to the men’s game later that night. It really
helps to have a crowd when we are playing,” said Pizzotti.

Tickets to women’s basketball games are free for SLU students
with a SLU ID.