Ron McHenry is set to begin his 19th season as the head man for the Washburn women’s basketball team.

His squad has been picked to finish fourth in the Preseason MIAA Coaches Poll. This comes after finishing 11-8 in the conference last season and 20-10 overall. Washburn ended last season hosting the first round of the MIAA tournament beating Southwest Baptist before falling to Pitt State in the quarterfinals to end their season.

Washburn will look to the experience of their four returning starters led by last year’s second team All-MIAA junior Reagan Phelan. Joining Phelan will be fellow juniors Alexis McAfee and Cara Donley along with senior Taylor Blue. Denesia Smith will be one of the players looking to fill that remaining starting spot as she had her season end prematurely last season due to injury.

Blue is confident in her team and is excited to improve from last season.

“I think this season we have a pretty good chance to win our conference! We are deep on the bench this year and have mostly returners. I’m working on crashing the boards more. I wasn’t satisfied at all last season with my rebounds,” She said.

The Ichabod’s are welcoming in four transfer players from around the country. Kaylee Stevens transferred from Colorado State-Pueblo after spending just her freshman year there. They will also have the additions of two juniors one being Division I transfer Shelbie Piggie from Austin Peay along with Annette Warner from Trinidad State. Senior Nicole Murugarren will play her final season here at Washburn after spending her junior year Idaho State.

Senior Olivia Montague sees this season as almost a redemption season hoping to a have better end result than last year.

“We have a lot of potential, we have a lot of returners that weren’t satisfied with how the season ended last year and are itching to prove people wrong,” Montague said.

This will be the fiftieth season of Washburn women’s basketball and they will kick off the season with two exhibition games against the Missouri Tigers and the Kansas Jayhawks on Nov. 1 and Nov. 4, respectively. They won’t open the home portion of their schedule until Nov. 23 and 24 when they host the Parrish Hotels Thanksgiving Classic and will stay at home for their next three thru Dec. 8. Like the men, the women will also travel to Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Hoopla on Dec. 17 and 18. Finally, the MIAA tournament will kick off on March 5 with the site yet to be determined.