Women’s Basketball Enter 2015-16 Season Ranked No. 10 in WBCA Poll

Coming off the best season in the program’s NCAA Division II history, Fort Hays State Women’s Basketball has been slotted No. 10 in the WBCA Division II Preseason Poll, released on Tuesday (Nov. 3). The Tigers finished at No. 8 in the poll last year, going 30-4 overall and making the NCAA Tournament Central Regional Final.

Fort Hays State earned its first-ever MIAA Championship in women’s basketball last season. The Tigers finished conference play at 18-1 to earn the crown. FHSU went on to earn the No. 1 seed in the Central Regional of the NCAA Tournament, which it hosted at Gross Memorial Coliseum in Hays. The Tigers ousted a pair of NSIC teams, Minnesota State-Mankato and Wayne State (Neb.), before falling to rival Emporia State in the regional final, a team the Tigers defeated twice in the regular season. Emporia State is the WBCA’s top team entering 2015-16, tabbed at No. 1 in the preseason poll.

Fort Hays State and Emporia State met four times during the 2014-15 season. As the No. 6 ranked team in the nation, FHSU knocked off No. 2 Emporia State by 10 points in Emporia and then won by the same margin just over a week later in Hays as the No. 3 team in the nation, while ESU held the No. 6 ranking. FHSU went on to win the MIAA Regular Season Championship, but ESU would take both meetings in the postseason. The Hornets ranked No. 10, defeated the No. 4 ranked Tigers by three points in the MIAA Tournament Final, then knocked the Tigers out of the NCAA Tournament in the Central Regional Final by five points. The Hornets were ranked No. 9 and the Tigers were No. 6 in the final epic battle of the season in front of nearly 5,000 fans at Gross Memorial Coliseum.

Fort Hays State has also been tabbed a top-10 team by Division II Bulletin (preseason No. 5) and HeroSports.com (preseason No. 4). Emporia State has been picked No. 1 by both of those polls as well. HeroSports.com Top 25 Preview, Division II Bulletin Preseason Top 25

Fort Hays State and Emporia State will meet just once in the regular season this year on December 5 in Hays.

Missouri Western and Central Missouri are schools from the MIAA referenced in the receiving votes section of the poll.

The Tigers return three of five starters from last year’s team, which includes guards Beth Bohuslavsky, Chelsea Mason, and Paige Lunsford, but lost two solid defensive players in Kate Lehman and Keriann Shaw. Lehman was an All-America First Team selection by four organizations as a force both offensively and defensively while Lehman and Shaw were both members of the MIAA All-Defensive Team.

Guard play will be a strong point for the Tigers as Jill Faxon and Nikola Kacperska also return, giving FHSU four of its top five scorers back from last year. Faxon had a tremendous year beyond the 3-point line at 41.1 percent, while Kacperska’s gritty play was key down the stretch for the Tigers when Bohuslavsky went down for a few games with an injury. Bohuslavsky has been a steadying force for FHSU at point guard with one of the nation’s top assist/turnover ratios in each of the past two seasons. Mason is the top returning scorer after averaging 12.5 points per game last year with a total of 76 3-point field goals made. Lunsford is the top returning rebounder after averaging 4.1 per game last year.

Elle Stein and Sarah Pimentel return in the post for FHSU after seeing significant action in 2014-15, where they’ll join a handful of newcomers looking to help the offensive production down low.

The Tigers open the 2015-16 season in Marshall, Minn., where they’ll take on Upper Iowa and Southwest Minnesota State, November 13-14.

Below is the WBCA Division II Preseason Poll for 2015-16.

Others receiving votes: Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania 63; University of West Florida 61; Lander University (S.C.) 50; Albany State University (Ga.) 48; Missouri Western State (Mo.) 48; Harding University (Ark.) 45; Stonehill College (Mass.) 41; University of Colorado – Colorado Springs 41; Western Washington University 39; Franklin Pierce University (N.H.) 37; Virginia State University (Va.) 34; Benedict College (S.C.) 30; Shaw University (N.C.) 30; Bentley University (Mass.) 27; Cedarville University (Ohio) 25; Wayne State University (Mich.) 23; Johnson C Smith University (N.C.) 22; Kentucky State University 22; Philadelphia University (Pa.) 22; Holy Family University (Pa.) 21; University of Central Missouri 17; California State University – Dominguez Hills 14; Gannon University (Pa.) 13; University of Charleston (W.Va.) 7; University Of Sioux Falls (S.D.) 7; Texas Woman’s University 4; University of California – San Diego 4.