{"id":61852,"date":"2021-11-02T09:57:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T14:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=61852"},"modified":"2021-11-02T09:58:34","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T14:58:34","slug":"tiger-women-look-to-build-on-last-years-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=61852","title":{"rendered":"Tiger women look to build on last year\u2019s success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>BY RAEGAN NEUFELD<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The memory of a historic season is fresh in the minds of many as the Fort Hays State women\u2019s basketball team is looking to continue their success from last year, which resulted in an MIAA championship.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really difficult to come off of a MIAA championship and repeat because we have 13 other teams trying to do the same thing,\u201d Head Coach Tony Hobson said. \u201cWe\u2019ll do the best we can and see where it takes us. I\u2019m hoping that our two seniors will be able to get us going early in the year and bring the others along.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"2021-22 FHSU Women&#039;s Basketball Preview\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LrhdazqYsEc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Senior Whitney Randall mentioned their hopes for a repeat when asked about team mentality.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe want to be the one team who wins back-to-back because ever since our conference started there hasn\u2019t been a back-to-back championship, so our goal is to be the first,\u201d she said.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along with the championship, the Tigers won 20 conference games last season, a feat that tied the conference record and earned the team a first-place ranking in both the MIAA coaches and media preseason polls. While the ranking is definitely an accomplishment, several of the players acknowledged that the placement does not guarantee anything.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to be ranked number one,\u201d said Katie Wagner, a second-year freshman due to COVID-19 extended eligibility. \u201cBut then again that doesn\u2019t really mean much until you can prove it.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t really think the preseason rankings really mean a whole lot,\u201d Randall added. \u201cCoach always says that it doesn\u2019t give us an extra win in the book, we all start at 0-0 no matter what our ranking is.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Randall and Jaden Hobbs, who are both from Alva, Oklahoma, are the only seniors on this year\u2019s roster. This is the fifth season for both of the players, as the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to players during the pandemic.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think I\u2019m really fortunate that it worked out for me. I\u2019m really excited and ready to go out on a high note hopefully,\u201d Hobbs said regarding the extra year of eligibility.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Randall and Hobbs return with plenty of experience, two other key players for the Tigers were just freshmen last year. Wagner played in all 26 games and appeared in the starting lineup four times. Olivia Hollenbeck also played in each game, starting in 23 of them, and earned All-MIAA Honorable Mention at the end of the season.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe made it far last season,\u201d Hollenbeck said, \u201cWe were happy with how we did but not satisfied, so we\u2019re excited to see what\u2019s next.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re just a bunch of girls that work hard,\u201d Wagner added. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to start some games.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for preparation, Hobson said that right now the team is focused on learning their material and staying healthy and strong.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe other thing is to not take anything for granted,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t assume that because we were good last year we\u2019ll be good this year. It\u2019s a totally different season. Even though we have a lot of the same kids, everyone else is in the same boat and it will be a tight race.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fort Hays opens the season on November 7th by traveling to the University of Connecticut for an exhibition game against the Huskies. The team will play two more road games before their first home game on November 19th, where they will be playing St. Cloud State at 6 P.M.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stay tuned to TMN for a look at the men&#8217;s basketball team next week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY RAEGAN NEUFELD The memory of a historic season is fresh in the minds of many as the Fort Hays State women\u2019s basketball team is&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":61853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7349,3395],"tags":[2372,3448,13357,14402,14132,14226,9,103,182,12485],"class_list":["post-61852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-womens-basketball-sports","tag-fhsu-basketball","tag-fhsu-womens-basketball","tag-jaden-hobbs","tag-katie-wagner","tag-olivia-hollenbeck","tag-raegan-neufeld","tag-sports","tag-tiger-media-network","tag-tony-hobson","tag-whitney-randall"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/5H1A9459.jpg?fit=6720%2C3776&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61852"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61855,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61852\/revisions\/61855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}