I have to admit I’m partial. When looking back on Saint Louis University athletics in the last year, most of my fond memories either happened on a court or over a net. Being the beat writer for the volleyball and men’s basketball team will do that to you. Regardless of the sport, though, it seemed I was seeing the same story, just in different phases.
When Anne Kordes came to Midtown five years ago, she inherited an afterthought. SLU volleyball had been nowhere and was headed nowhere fast. She brought in five young women, Sammi McCloud, Whitney Behrens, Whitney Roth, Bridget Fonke and Sally Warning, who completely changed the trajectory of the program.
In four years, Kordes and her Fab Five have visited the NCAA tournament three times and have been named champs of the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament two times, in addition to three regular season titles. The squad also garnered the program’s first-ever national ranking.
The culmination of Kordes’ hard work came on Aug. 29, 2009, at Chaifetz Arena. The Billikens took on No. 1 Penn State in front of a record 6,106 screaming fans. If you weren’t there, my words will not be able to describe the atmosphere that evening. Truly, it rivaled the most intense basketball game. While the results weren’t favorable, the Bills fell 29-27, 25-18, 25-14, SLU showed the nation that they were finally there.
Seeing the Fab Five leave SLU is tough; it’s certainly hard to say that it’s one of my favorite moments of the year. But getting to see those women play their hearts out each and every day, to strive for nothing less than excellence, is one of the finest moments of the year. I commend the entire club on another successful year.
Kordes now re-enters the building phase, something fellow coach Rick Majerus is all too familiar with.
Majerus is absolutely right when he says that the men’s basketball team had an excellent year. A team that was predicted to finish 12th out of 14 teams and ended up finishing fourth and winning over 20 games and was snubbed by the NIT? Yes, that would qualify as an excellent season.
There are too many moments to recall from this year’s basketball season. From Kwamain Mitchell’s late-bank to force OT against Dayton, to Cody Ellis showing how it’s done Down Under, and all the Willie Reed jam-times in between: Where does one start with favorite moments?
And let’s not forget the head coach himself. Against Wisconsin-Green Bay, in overtime, Christian Salecich was subjected to a poor call (it really was a terrible call). The resulting scene will forever remain in my mind: Majerus walked over to the assistant sports information director, grabbed his laptop and proceeded to slam it twice on the scorer’s table. Then he watched UW-GB shoot two foul shots next to the cheerleaders. It was certainly a memorable scene.
