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Mustangs Announce Recruits

Morningside College women’s basketball head coach Jamie Sale has announced the names of seven high school recruits who will join the Mustangs next season.

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Six Records Fall During 2007-08 Season

Morningside College’s women’s basketball team broke six school records and tied two others during the 2007-08 season.

The record-setting performances helped lead the Mustangs to a 33-4 record, a fourth consecutive Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) regular season championship, and the semifinals of the NAIA Division II National Tournament. The Mustangs won the GPAC regular season championship with an 18-0 record to become only the second team in history to win the nation’s premier NAIA II women’s basketball league title with an unblemished record.

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Gass A Repeat First-Team All-American

Dani Gass, a 5-10 junior guard from Sioux City, has been named to the 2008 NAIA Division II Women’s Basketball All-America First-Team announced on Tuesday.

Gass, named to the All-America first-team for the second year in a row, averaged 12.0 points and 8.1 rebounds per game for a Morningside team that finished the season with a 33-4 record and reached the semifinals of the NAIA Division II National Tournament. The Mustangs were the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) regular season champions with a perfect 18-0 league record.

In addition to Gass, the Mustangs’ Autumn Bartel and J.J. Hall were named NAIA Division II honorable mention All-Americans.

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Four Mustangs Named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes

Morningside’s Autumn Bartel, Mackenzi Mendlik, Kristi Tighe, and Brittany Williamson have been named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes in the sport of women’s basketball.

Student-athletes must be of at least junior status and have a minimum GPA of 3.50 in order to be eligible for Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete honors.

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Mustang Season Ends In Semifinals

Cold shooting by Morningside combined with a sizzling shooting performance by its opponent proved to be a bad combination when the second-ranked Mustangs lost 93-69 against No. 3 Northwestern in a highly anticipated NAIA Division II Women’s Basketball semifinal on Monday in Sioux City’s Tyson Events Center/Gateway Arena.

Northwestern, which handed the Mustangs three of their four defeats this season, will take a 34-2 record against No. 1-ranked College of the Ozarks (35-1) in Tuesday’s National Championship Game at 6:30 p.m. The Bobcats have been the national runner-up each of the past two years.

The bright spot for the Mustangs, who bowed out at 33-4, is that they will return all five starters and all but three seniors next year from this season’s GPAC championship squad. Northwestern, meanwhile, will graduate all five starters from a team that was built to win for this season.

Morningside shot just 34.2 percent for the contest and finished with its second lowest scoring total of the season. Northwestern drilled 57.4 percent of its attempts, including a torrid 15-for-22 effort for 68.2 percent to dash any Mustang comeback hopes. The Red Raiders’ 93 points were the most the Mustangs allowed all season.

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Mustangs Place Two On All-GPAC First-Team; Sale Is GPAC Coach Of The Year

Dani Gass, a 5-10 junior guard from Sioux City, and J.J. Hall, a 5-9 sophomore guard from Exeter, Neb., have both been named to the All-Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) Women’s Basketball First-Team as selected by the league’s head coaches.

In addition, the Mustangs’ Jamie Sale has been named the Hauff Mid-America Sports/GPAC Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year after he guided the Mustangs to the GPAC regular season title with a perfect 18-0 league record. Sale’s Mustangs will take a 30-3 record and a No. 2 national ranking into the NAIA Division II National Tournament to be held March 12-18 in Sioux City’s Tyson Events Center/Gateway Arena.

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Mustangs Ranked 2nd In The Nation

Morningside College moved up to No. 2 in the final NAIA Division II women’s basketball poll released on Feb. 27.

The Mustangs, who had been ranked third in each of the previous five polls, went 2-0 last week to stretch their winning streak to a school-record 25 games and finish the regular season with a 28-2 record. One of the wins was an 88-86 triumph against a Northwestern College team that had been ranked No. 2.

Morningside won the Great Plains Athletic Conference’s (GPAC) regular season championship with a perfect 18-0 record to gain an automatic entry in the upcoming NAIA Division II National Tournament.

The Mustangs will host Dordt College to a 6 p.m. contest on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the GPAC’s post-season tournament.

Morningside is one of four teams from the GPAC ranked in the NAIA Top 10. Northwestern is ranked third, Hastings College is ranked fourth, and Concordia University is ranked 10th.

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Gass Is GPAC Player Of The Week

Dani Gass, a 5-10 junior guard from Sioux City, has been named the Hauff Mid-America Sports/Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) Player of the Week after she helped lead the Mustangs to a pair of victories last week to wrap up the GPAC’s regular season championship with a perfect 18-0 league slate.

Gass averaged 18.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists, and 3.0 steals per game and made 20 of 24 free throw attempts for 83.3 percent in the two triumphs.

She matched her season’s scoring high with 21 points to go along with 10 rebounds and nine assists when Morningside edged Northwestern College 88-86 in last Wednesday’s showdown between a pair of national powers that each entered the contest with perfect 16-0 records in the GPAC. Gass scored 16 points, including 14 in the second half, to go along with eight rebounds, eight assists, and four steals when the Mustangs defeated Dordt College 72-70 last Saturday. She made 10 of 11 free throw attempts in the second half, including a pair of gift shots with 1:04 left in the game to break a 70-70 tie.

Morningside, ranked third in the nation in the NAIA Division II ranks, will take a 28-2 record and a school-record 25-game winning streak into the GPAC’s post-season tournament. The Mustangs, who have already qualified for the NAIA Division II National Tournament as the GPAC’s regular season champion, will host a quarterfinal round game on Thursday between the winner of Tuesday’s first round contest between Briar Cliff University and Dordt.

Mustangs Announce Recruit

Nicole Pothen, a 5-8 senior guard at Bethlehem Academy High School in Faribault, Minn., will enroll at Morningside College next fall and compete for the Mustangs’ women’s basketball team announced Morningside women’s basketball head coach Jamie Sale.

Pothen is averaging 15.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 3.1 steals per game so far this season.

As a junior she received All-Gopher Conference honors and was named Bethlehem Academy’s Most Valuable Player. Pothen averaged 16.8 points and 4.5 rebounds per game during her junior campaign. She also had a whopping 120 steals for an average of 4.6 per game and 64 assists for a norm of 2.5 per contest.

Pothen had seven scoring performances of 20 points or higher as a junior, including a season’s high 24 points in outings against Waterville-Elysian-Morristown and Leroy-Ostrander. Her top rebounding effort of the season was a 10-board haul against Medford/El Shaddai. Pothen had a season’s high 12 steals against Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton.

She also received All-Gopher Conference laurels as a sophomore.

Pothen will join a Morningside women’s basketball team that is currently ranked No. 3 in the nation in the NAIA Division II. The Mustangs were NAIA Division II National Champions in 2004 and 2005 and Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) champions in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Bartel Receives Academic All-District Recognition

Autumn Bartel, a 5-8 junior guard from Cherokee, Iowa, has been named to the 2008 ESPN The Magazine College Division Academic All-District VII women’s basketball third-team as selected by College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Bartel has a 3.85 cumulative grade point average (GPA) and is majoring in biology. She is the leading scorer with an average of 12.3 points per game for a Morningside team that has a 23-2 record and is ranked third in the nation in the NAIA Division II. Bartel has scored 987 points during her Morningside career to put her 13 points shy of becoming the 18th women’s basketball player in Morningside history to score 1,000 career points.

Student-athletes must be of at least sophomore status and have a minimum GPA of 3.20 in order to be eligible for ESPN The Magazine Academic honors.

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