Women's Basketball 2007-08 Season Outlook

There is an air of possibility surrounding the 2007-08 Williams College women’s basketball team.

Pat Manning returns for her 18th season (295-127, .699 winning percentage) at the helm of the Ephs trying to find the right combination of returning players — there are 7 — and newcomers — there are also 7, to make the most of those possibilities.

Manning has only one starter returning from her team which finished 20-7 last season and qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row and the fourth time in program history.

“I’m excited to work with this team,” she said. “We’ve had a very solid preseason — they have a great work ethic. We’ll need solid contributions from everyone, we’re not going to rely on one or two people. But I am very excited about the potential of this team.”

The Ephs open the season Saturday, Nov. 17, against WNEC at the Babson Invitational. Who will start for the Ephs isn’t clear, but Manning is enthusiastic about the people she has to choose from for the starting positions.

Three seniors who haven’t started in their careers will get the opportunity to do just that early on: Forwards Dominique de la Torre (6-1) and Whitney Livermore (6-2) and two-guard Niki Savageau. Livermore and de la Torre  have played behind All-American Maggie Miller, All-NESCAC Meghan O’Malley and Beth Lorge over the last three seasons, but Manning is expecting solid contributions from them down low this season. Both are captains, and are expected to lead — along with junior captain Peterman — off the court as well.

Savageau is an aggressive defender at the point guard who also has the ability to penetrate the opposing team’s defense.

“In the preseason our seniors — and Mika — have really shown great leadership and sometimes that’s hard to do when you have so many new faces,” Manning said.

Peterman will likely get the starting nod at two-guard. Last season the sharpshooter averaged 7.4 points per game while averaging 24 minutes per contest. Sophomore Elizabeth Hansen and first-year Jamie Neal will push for playing time the two-guard spot as well.

There are three first-years who will also vie for playing time at the wide open three-guard position: Jessica Harris, Taylor Shea and Maddie King. Junior Patricia Ludwig (6-1) has the opportunity to see a lot of time at that position.

Joining de la Torre and Livermore down low will be first-year Chessie Jackson (6-1). Harris will  see time at a post position, as will junior newcomer Lindsay Millert (6-1) and first-year Meghan Gaffney.

This group of Ephs will be a work in progress in just about every facet of the game. Offensively, the challenge will be to find consistent scoring from several players as six of the Ephs top seven scorers from 06-07 graduated in June.

“Our focus this season will be on team execution,” Manning said. “For us to be successful, we’ll need a solid team effort. I think we have a lot of talented players who haven’t spent a lot of time in the spotlight who are excited about this opportunity. We will need to develop consistent scoring throughout the line-up.”

Williams will have to navigate its way through a strong conference schedule once again as Bowdoin heads up a deep conference with the likes of Bates, Tufts, Middlebury, Wesleyan and Amherst fighting to knock each other off.

Manning doesn’t want her squad focused on those other teams however.
“I think this season we need to take one game at a time,” she said. “If we can focus on improving day by day, we’ll be okay.”