The Women’s Basketball team is off to a 2-0 start after last weekend’s victories over Ave Maria University and Virginia Intermont College.
Senior forward, Moriah Hodge, and Junior guard, Illyssa Vivo, started the games last weekend beginning the Spartan’s season on a winning note. Hodge, a Cincinnati native, scored 15 points in the opening game against Ave Maria. Vivo, from Miami, contributed 11 points as well, rounding out the final score of the night at 70-55. This success continued into the Spartan’s second game taking a 73-49 victory over Virginia Intermont.
Both Hodge and Vivo began playing basketball at a young age with active families to support their love of the game and their drive for success.
This love and drive has prevailed through their lives translating into competitiveness and therefore a very competitive team within itself this year— much different from last year.
“In our practices are more competitive. We are fighting for a position or starting position or whatever it may be. It just makes our team better because if our practices are harder that’s going to make us improve in our games,” says Hodge.
The change in the competitive level of the team can be seen all around. Vivo continued, “Everybody’s more intense and competitive. We’re just more willed to win.”
A win’s a win but, there is always room for improvement—a statement that holds true to the Spartans. Hodge shared “We won but I think we could have done a lot better than how we played.”
Assistant Coach Caitlyn Mitryk agreed, “We’re just excited about getting off to a good start, definitely a confidence booster for the girls but, I think they know they still have a lot to work on… But once they learn to play with each other and build that chemistry, it will be very difficult for other teams to guard our offensive capabilities.”
With preseason Sunshine State Conference rankings released in October, the Spartans were tabbed at the No. 3 spot on the board.
“[The ranking] showed that people expect us to still be on top so we’re just proving we deserve it,” Vivo confidently declared.
The SSC has seen the turnover of the Spartan’s team with new transfer students and freshmen.
This most likely gave the team the No. 3 rank, matching up with the successful history of the Spartans Women’s Basketball tradition in the conference.
“We brought in all these kids,” Coach Mitryk said, “and on paper they look good but they definitely have to perform”
Both Hodge and Vivo are looking forward to the remainder of the season to see how the team will correct errors made last weekend.
Specifically, Vivo shared, “I’m definitely looking forward to San Diego. We’re supposed to have some good competition out there.” The team will travel to the west coast over Thanksgiving Break to participate in a tournament hosted by the University of California, San Diego. “We play two of some of the top-ranked teams in the nation. It’ll be a good tournament.”
Every team has goals for its season about where they want to be when everything is said and done. The athletes all share common goals for the team: “win every home game and get to the conference tournament, win our conference, hopefully make it to the [NCAA] tournament,” declared Hodge.
Vivo, in agreement with Hodge, strongly stated, “Our goal is not to lose at home, at all, and we want to get to the conference championship for sure.”
Both athletes demonstrated extreme confidence in their goals and are determined to live them out.
The Women’s Basketball team went to the NCAA Division II tournament six consecutive years but failed to continue the streak last season.
This really affected Coach Mitryk, “That hits home. You always want to get back to that point and that success. Personally, I want to get back to that, back to the NCAA tournament and contend for a national championship. We have the individual skill to do that but I think we still need to develop our chemistry more.”
Overall, this team is very confident and up for any challenge they face this season.
The disappointments from last season have fueled the fire for success. Coach Mitryk said it best with an optimistic outlook on the season, “There’s a lot of talent, a lot of offensive firepower… but our work’s not done.”.
Mary Lee Gibson can be reached at mary.gibson@spartans.ut.edu.