Krista Schuur

Staff writer

The women’s basketball season is now half finished, resulting in a 9-3 record before the start of the second semester.

With a devastating one point loss to rival Central, and another heartbreaker to Luther, the storm women hope to be back on top for the second half of their season.

Head Coach Brian Niemuth seems to be in good spirits even after the loss to Luther.

“I am happy with where the team is at with a 9-3 record, but I know they can improve themselves,” said Niemuth.

With the team playing to the best of their potential, he has extreme confidence that they will be in the front of the race for the conference tournament title.

Some major challenges the storm had to face was an eight game sequence on the road. Niemuth stressed how important the last two road games were in the sequence against Cornell and Coe. The Storm stepped up to that challenge by bringing home those two very important wins on Jan. 11 and 12.

One of many key players this season is senior captain Michelle Stover. After the two losses to Central and Luther, Stover spent many hours contemplating what was going wrong and what could be done to get back on the right track.

“I think that we just need to be more consistent and make sure we play a full 40 minutes of good basketball instead of just in spurts,” said Stover.

She is currently 5th in career scoring at Simpson. Stover said that the record book is not atop priority.

“This is a great honor and I will appreciate it more when I graduate, but for now I don’t really think about it much,” said Stover.

Although the Storm women are extremely competitive, they don’t forget to take a little time for having fun together. Over Christmas break the team returned to a yearly tournament in California.

They played some very tough competition against Claremont who was in the NCAA tournament last year, and La Vern who was picked to win the California division. They came out with a win in both instances. Not only did the Storm come out with a few wins, but they also spent time at Universal Studios, Hollywood and Santa Monica.