A Year Most Different: Looking back at the best team season in Clarke University Athletics history
Sometimes a list is just a list: Most wins in program history, first regular season conference championship, back-to-back conference tournament championships, six All-Conference players, Heart Coach of the Year, Heart Assistant Coach of the Year, most wins by a head coach in program history, longest winning streak in program history.
But sometimes that list makes ordinary memorable and in this instance this list makes the 2021-22 Clarke University women's basketball team the best team that Clarke University has ever produced.
Before we get too deep into it, let's look at a quote from a small television program that you may have heard of called The Office.
It was Andy Bernard, portrayed by Ed Helms, who said, "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them," and as we look back in the immediacy of what the 2021-22 Pride did, we should acknowledge those good times.
We cannot tell this season's story without traveling back to March of 2021. Clarke women's basketball made it back to the NAIA Tournament Quarterfinals for the second-straight tournament after the 2020 tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.
The Pride would fall to the eventual national champions in Westmont College that would put the writing on the wall for the exit of key contributors including former All-America selections in the program's all-time leading scorer Makenna Haase and the 2020-21 team's leader in minutes played Morgan Pitz.
Losing players of that caliber would leave any coaching staff searching as head coach Courtney Boyd and assistant coach Adam Hocking could pull positives and negatives from this turnover.
"I thought that we were going to have to run things differently Xs and Os wise but I also thought there was going to be a little bit of a chemistry adjustment in a positive way," Boyd said. "I thought that we were young, our whole bench would have been considered freshmen in minutes played so understanding what everyone could do on the court and getting used to each other's tendencies might have taken a little longer than it did. The chemistry that I thought we were going to have to work on or work through was leaps and bounds ahead of what I thought."
"Our mindset was that even though we graduated two really important pieces to our program last season in Makenna Haase and Morgan Pitz," Hocking said, "we returned a pretty quality and veteran group that played a lot of minutes. Even though we'd be losing a lot of production, especially out of losing a four-time All-American post player for us, we knew we had multiple All-Conference players returning along with a couple we had coming in we knew that we'd be able to fill that void but it would just come down to how quickly this group would be able to mesh together."
As the school year started and the weeks crept closer to the start of their regular season, the team received another big personnel blow during a scrimmage that would eventually knock senior point guard Skylar Culbertson out of game action for the first two months of the season with a wrist injury.
"I knew right away that it was not going to be good for me," Culbertson said. "I couldn't feel my hand at all, couldn't move my fingers, I even heard it crack when I went down so I knew right away. I remember Coach Boyd walking over and I just looked at her and was shaking my head so I knew from that moment that it was going to be a long season and I didn't know if I was even going to be able to play."
With the news that Culbertson would be out of action until at the earliest late December, there was a decision to be made by the CU staff where both options included sophomore that didn't play a lot of minutes in the 2020-21 season in Izzie Peterson and Taylor Haase.
Peterson, the slated backup point guard to start the season, would be the player that would be the next one up as she would end up starting 14 games during the first half of the season in Culbertson's place. A player similar in style to Culbertson, Peterson wouldn't light up the stat sheet on a game-by-game basis but had a couple of stand out scoring performances in tough non-conference games with 11 points at Menlo and 13 points against St. Francis.
"My confidence came a lot from Sky and Coach Boyd," Peterson said, "everyone else just giving me reassurance because there was a lot that I didn't know. Having the support of the team and having Sky even though she wasn't on the court physically, she was there to talk me through a lot of things and Coach Boyd giving me the confidence that they don't expect me to do anything above and beyond but I have the ability to help out."
Along with Peterson being thrust into the starting lineup early in the year, the starting spots of Pitz and Makenna Haase had to be filled in as those roles fell to senior post player Emma Kelchen and sophomore guard Nicole McDermott, two players that would end the regular season as the two Pride representatives on the Heart of America Athletic Conference First Team.
Both played key roles off the bench in 2020-21 with Kelchen scoring 8.3 points and grabbing 5.7 rebounds backing up Haase and McDermott finishing as the team's second leading scorer at 11.5 points in a reserve role.
Kelchen didn't waste any time letting everyone know she was ready for her opportunity as she scored 22, 25, and 12 points in her first three games of the season to earn Heart Player of the Week, shaking off any doubt that there was internal pressure about replacing an All-American.
"I didn't feel pressure but knowing she did so many good things for our team and knowing we want to continue doing good things as a team helped motivate me and us as a team to find out what works for us," Kelchen said. "For me getting Player of the Week the first week of the season definitely boosted my confidence just knowing we can still be successful in different ways."
Makenna's younger sister Taylor would also gain an enhanced role for the 2021-22 season coming off the bench to spell or play with Kelchen as Taylor found a way to cement her status as well with strong games off the bench scoring in double figures in usually 20 or less minutes on the floor.
Her biggest moment also helped her earn a Player of the Week honor from the Heart as she scored her career-high 30 points on Nov. 13 against Bethel University (Ind.) on just 16 shots from the field in CU's 114-93 win over the Pilots.
McDermott would continue on into December to earn Player of the Week herself on Dec. 20 during a stretch where she scored 23 and 18 points over two games but the most impressive numbers were that she shot over 80 percent from the field in both games to combined for 14-of-17 shooting from the field and a perfect 13-for-13 from the free throw line.
"Last year coming off of the bench, it felt like it was a weapon for us almost," McDermott said. "This year being a starter didn't change my game, I still played how I normally do and did what my teammates expected me to do whether that was score, rebound, play defense, etc."
"I think it's a hard mindset to have if you don't know what you're getting into to play Clarke women's basketball style," Boyd said. "We don't have someone who plays 40 minutes a game, we don't have 20-point, 20-rebound stat line so for them to know that they would have been given the opportunity then taking the opportunity and running with it. I think the best part about it is when Emma gets Player of the Week, the next few games was a struggle then Taylor gets Player of the Week because she picks up some of Emma's production after she got scouted then when Taylor gets scouted, Nic picked it up. It just goes to show the unselfishness of this team and how far that goes to success."
In the middle of figuring themselves out as a team and their success, a major road trip had been in the works for over two years. Through connections, Boyd and the Pride had scheduled an exhibition against the defending NCAA Division I National Champion Stanford University Cardinal. In the first week of November, CU would pack their bags and head to San Francisco to play an NAIA regular season game against Menlo then also square off against Stanford three days later.
Though the score wouldn't finish very favorably for Clarke, it's everything but the score that will stick in the minds of the Clarke players and coaches.
"The moment sticks out to me the most and I can still vividly picture this is right before tipoff just looking around and seeing Cameron Brink and Haley Jones, who was the NCAA Player of the Year, was just surreal," junior guard Giana Michels said. "To look over and see everyone's family who came was for sure the coolest moment to me. Not only are we super close but our parents are super close too so that just creates a real family-like atmosphere."
Returning from that trip, Clarke would have to have a quick turnaround for a pair of games in Indiana, including a ranked foe in Indiana Wesleyan who reached the NAIA Semifinals in 2020-21. A tough defeat opened the eyes of the team and showed that there may have been a need for another guard to add some minutes with Peterson, Michels, and McDermott carrying a heavy load with Culbertson still recovering from her injury.
Being on the floor for only 15 minutes of regular season action over the first five games, senior Hannah Ambrosy took it upon herself to have a conversation with Boyd to find a way to get on the floor and help the team, and help she did. Ambrosy's first two games in the rotation against Bethel and Judson she scored 10 and 14 points respectively and would continue on in the season to put up games of 17, 16, and 15 points later on in the year while providing more guard depth throughout the year that may not have been expected in the preseason.
"I wanted to put in the time and effort this year and I think in the past I've regretted not putting in the kind of time and effort," Ambrosy said. "This year I thought this would be my last chance to actually try and I knew with injuries I probably would have that opportunity to step up and make our team better in whichever role was possible."
"We knew that Hannah had it in her, in there somewhere, we just weren't sure how to bring it out and what the best situation was going to be to put her in a spot to be successful," Boyd said. "Once she felt a little bit of success and once her teammates continued to trust her then she found herself getting into the gym knowing that she was going to have to contribute. For four years Hannah Ambrosy has handled the many different roles a player could have game-to-game the best."
"Hannah deserves a lot more credit than I think she might get because as much as Izzie was there, Hannah was right there behind her too to give the team sparks to score more points than I ever have in a game," Culbertson said. "She's had an amazing four years and I'm going to miss her a lot."
That win against Bethel also began a stretch for the Pride that would end up in an 18-game winning streak, the longest streak in school history. As the calendar turned to 2022 during that stretch, Clarke would play tough January games against top Heart opponents including Grand View, MidAmerica Nazarene, Missouri Valley, and Central Methodist, all resulting in wins.
For the seniors on this team, the Jan. 22 win against the Eagles in the Kehl Center would provide their first victory over a team considered to be their rival in their four years and eventually set up a rematch in the Heart Tournament, but we'll get to that.
At the end of the January into February, the stretch run of the regular season, the pride would face something they hadn't since November in a loss. They dropped a tough overtime game on the road to Benedictine College that was followed up by a road loss to North Division rival Grand view for the first and only back-to-back losses of the season.
"I don't think they understood how resilient they had been up until that point and then once we lost to Benedictine and Grand View, we had actually talked about it and put it into words to make sure that was something we had continued to work on and after that every close game, every hard game, every good shooting game, every bad shooting game, our resiliency took us through," Boyd said. "I think that was a ah-ha moment for me knowing that I could be as honest with this group as I could and it was going to help them succeed instead of trying to save them from some of the things that might hinder them."
"If we had gone undefeated in the regular season, it would have been tough to not have any tough losses to learn from and have that reality check that we're not untouchable," Kelchen said. "We still had to put the work in, we still had to shoot well, or we still had to defend to get stops."
From that point, CU would go unbeaten to finish the regular season to clinch their first ever regular season championship in the Heart with a 17-2 conference record and also breaking the previous school record for most wins in a season that was set at 25 wins during the 2019-20 season.
It wasn't a cake walk to the end of the season though to earn that regular season crown, with Grand View's win over Clarke back on Feb. 2, if the Vikings caught the Pride they would have shared the title, meaning they still needed to beat Baker University in the regular season finale to be able to be the only ones to hang the banner.
"Knowing we won at Baker was awesome to be the first team to accomplish that so I was just in awe that we did this in my freshman year," freshman Mya Merschman said.
"I can remember in 2016, right before we join the Heart, three of the four teams in the semifinals were Heart teams (Benedictine, Baker, MNU) so that just said a lot about the quality of talent in the league," Hocking said. "This season was definitely a grind and as a culmination for the program, we really got better every game that we played."
With the clinching of the regular season championship also came home court advantage for Clarke in the Heart Tournament, where they were the defending champs but earned that trophy on the road at MNU a season prior. This time they would have the opportunity to play in front of their home crowd, their families, their friends, their classmates.
There was no disappointment as they would win their three games to clinch the back-to-back tournament titles in front of what many have called the best home crowd in the history of Clarke basketball at the Kehl Center.
"Having that many people at that game still gives me butterflies and still gives me chills just knowing that those people care is the main things for me," senior Tina Ubl said.
"Walking into the gym for the first time in five years and having more fans in the stands than players on the court with 25 minutes to go before game time was the moment it hit me," Boyd said. "Seeing standing room only and the environment and what that can bring then with the follow up with all of the people who reached out to say they were rooting for us or congratulations."
"I just remember sitting on the bench during the championships game and watching all of the people fill in and I was getting nervous," senior Elyssa Stein said. "Right when the game started the energy was incredible, that's all I really remember, otherwise it was just a blur."
Looking to continue the momentum of the Heart Tournament into the NAIA Tournament, the Pride drew an Opening Round bracket that would match them up against Tabor College and Mid-America Christian University. Being the highest ranked team in the Opening Round, CU would have the target on their back and were tested right out of the gate with Tabor leading at halftime and twice in the fourth quarter then Mid-American Christian keeping the game in single digits in the fourth after trailing by as many as 13.
Though the Pride would come out on top, it was a reminder that they were now in the win or go home portion of the schedule, and going home was not something they were ready for.
Advancing onto the Round of 16 for the third-straight tournament, Sioux City would provide Clarke with their toughest test of the season in Marian University as the No. 2 seed in their region of the 64-team overall field. Though it wasn't the result any of the Pride coaches, players, or fans were hoping for it was a game that showed the makeup of the team as they trailed by 17 in the second quarter but still found a way to pull it to a tie game heading into the fourth where the Knights were able to make a few more plays down the stretch and pull it out.
It was a special year for Clarke women's basketball and that's because of the players and the coaches, who reach so many milestones this season the we must not forget.
Six players received All-Conference honors in Nicole McDermott and Emma Kelchen on the First Team, Tina Ubl and Giana Michels on the Second Team, Skylar Culbertson and Taylor Haase on Honorable Mention. McDermott was named an All-American Honorable Mention following the conclusion of the Tournament and Ubl reached the top-five in both scoring and rebounding as well as breaking the program record for games played in a career with 127 games.
"It's just numbers," Ubl said, "it's important but it also shows how everyone else is contributing to how I play and how well my teammates know me. I always want everyone else to get to that point too, I don't want to be the only person so I'm like 'okay who's next!'"
Role players like Izzie Peterson, Hannah Ambrosy, and Mya Merschman provided key sparks at different times while playing through different forms of adversity during the season to help make the team competitively deeper.
And we say farewell to three seniors in Ambrosy, Elyssa Stein, and Rebecca Schroeder, all of which are to be commended for taking on the roles that they found themselves in during the year. All three commended by their teammates and coaches for being crucial pieces to the puzzle whether it was on or off the floor.
Ambrosy's senior season capped off what was a hard-working career for the guard to provided value of the bench in times of need for this team. Not to be overlooked, her calm, cool, and collected demeanor provided a stabilizing presence for the Pride at times.
"I would take four more of Hannah no matter how many points she scores or how many stops she gets defensively," Boyd said. "I'll take a handful more players like her any day but I'm pleased to see that she embraced the role that she had as a senior."
"Hannah's going to be a kid I'm going to talk about for a long time here at Clarke because she's a poster child for the type of kid you want to recruit here to Clarke," Hocking said. "Somebody who keeps her head down and works really hard on the basketball side of things but also somebody who's just a great person."
Stein, who suffered a shoulder injury that made it difficult for her to return to action in a timely manner this year, still assisted the team in a managerial/student-assistant role. She would attend practices to help run clock, she would be on the bench during games keeping stats, and travel on road trips to assist in any other team needs.
"She took what she was able to do on the court and she became willing to do that off the court," Boyd said. "Assist us in any way that we needed, communicate in things that she may have seen, and just support her teammates and that's not an easy role to take in the position that she was on the floor. Growing into that maturity of this is still her family, she still loves this group, and she wants to contribute along with knowing that her teammates and coaches still wanted her there, she took the next step in providing what other people can't from an off-court perspective."
"Elyssa was one of my first recruits here at Clarke when Courtney took over," Hocking said. "She's someone who just embraced her role as being someone who supported her teammates, being at practice every day, she still wanted to be part of our team. I was her AAU coach growing up so having that relationship with her and being able to share the experiences of this season with her was special for me."
Schroeder, also a member of Clarke women's volleyball, would make the jump to the basketball court, joining former Bellevue High School teammates in Michels and Kelchen, to be a key member of the team's practices, appear in some games, and also lead the way for the bench mob in support of the players on the floor at different times.
"Becca brought it in scout, she made sure we were prepped the way we needed to be prepped, you only had to tell her things once, very coachable, very energetic, and that was something we didn't have once we graduated last year's group," Boyd said. "Becca came as a surprise as far as what she was able to bring to the table because it was unexpected as far as if she was going to join us or not but once she did she took that next step for us and took us to the next level of success."
"I'm really proud of Becca and all of her efforts," Hocking said. "She really helped us in terms of helping our top posts in Emma and Taylor improve because she pushed them every day in practice."
Let's not forget about the coaching staff that worked tirelessly to lead this group of women to places this program has never seen into a model of consistency in NAIA basketball and Clarke University as a whole.
Assistant coaches Adam Hocking, Dale Linderwell, and Carrie Kennedy fit into a group led by head coach Courtney Boyd that had been described by the players and themselves as one that just meshes perfectly with each of their strengths.
Kennedy, a Dubuquer through and through leads the post group with experience, knowledge and a noticeable energy every day that she's with the team.
"She's so passionate and that is what we love about her," Kelchen said. "Specifically, for us as posts we spend the most time with her, she tells us specifically what we need to know for each opponent so that gives us confidence to be able to beat them because our spot as posts knows exactly what to do."
"She is intense about the success of her posts and we love her for that," Haase said. "She brings her energy to practices and games so it's nice to have her because she played our position because she knows specifically what we know we need in specific situations."
Linderwell, a quiet guru of the game of basketball, provides in depth analysis and knowledge day in and day out and balances that on top of his full-time career.
"He has this notebook that I don't even understand, he has all of these numbers because he's just watching other games, watching other teams, watching other players and that notebook has what we need to watch for and it's almost always right," Ubl said.
"Coach L puts in those extra hours as a volunteer and was fun to mess around with and lighten the mood," Ambrosy said.
Hocking, an Assistant Coach of the Year in the Heart, precedes Boyd in time with the Pride women's basketball program and is a tireless worker when it comes to preparing the team for their next and future upcoming opponents.
"Coach Hocking does a really good job on scout, I'm sure other teams do scout too but I feel like our scout is super affective," Michels said. "We go through film first then we go to the court and run those same plays to get a look at the action. He's just a person who looks to lift people up, if one of the other coaches gives us something, he'll always be there for reassurance and something positive."
"Coach Hocking makes it a point to come up with a handshake with every one of his players and he does it with us every day and it baffles me how he remembers all of those and doesn't get them confused," Schroeder said. "That shows that he cares about us as an individual, we aren't just numbers."
Now for the head coach, Courtney Boyd, we'll let her 2021-22 accomplishments of becoming Clarke women's basketball all-time leader in head coaching wins in less than five seasons, reaching 100 career wins, and earning Heart Coach of the Year speak for her. But let's also let her players share their thoughts on their leader.
"Even before my first time meeting her, I knew she was someone I wanted to be around. There's something about her and that's why I came to Clarke. When I came here freshman year I can honestly say I didn't know who I was, just didn't feel like I had my life figured out so from the beginning I always felt very comfortable with her and she always made me feel like I mattered and it was just different than what I had received from any other coach before." - Skylar Culbertson
"Coach Boyd is one of a kind, I genuinely don't think I would have come if she wasn't here and I think there are a lot of people on our team that wouldn't be here if she wasn't here. She's such a good person, cares about you more than just a player, always checks in, eats, sleeps, and breathes basketball when she's not thinking about Sophie. She's super awesome and definitely deserves all of the awards she's gotten." - Emma Kelchen
"She's comfortable with any of us taking care of her daughter Sophie so there's also that level of trust involved. Since I came here we built that relationship right away by just talking about school and everything else and just having her there and having her for all four years, every year we built more and more of that relationship and she's just someone you can trust, a great person overall." - Tina Ubl
"I think the most special thing about Coach Boyd is that she has a unique relationship with every single player. She takes the time to get to know her players, if you're struggling she can instantly tell and she's not afraid to call you out and ask you what's going on. Coach Boyd is what makes Clarke women's basketball so special, you can have any player that you want but it falls back on the coach and she is what makes our team special." - Giana Michels
"We all talk about when we first visited that her personality was more that she was going to care more about us as a person than just as a player. She's honest because she cares and we take everything she says to the highest regard and respect so that relationship that I've built with her translates into everything else." - Izzie Peterson
"For me it's always felt like it's a whole different ball game when you play for a female head coach. It just feels like a different family atmosphere when you're playing for someone you can relate to so much. I sent Coach Boyd a text to thank her because we didn't get a chance to talk one-on-one after the game on Friday. I told her how much I appreciate her and her family because her family is so supportive of us and not just her, because it is like a family to be on this team." - Nicole McDermott
"I can speak for a lot of people on our team that a lot of us wouldn't have come here if it wasn't for her and the staff that she has. On the court she's very intimidating and she can yell and get in our face but she only means the best so if she didn't do that it wouldn't flip in our mind that we need to make a change. Outside of basketball she's great on checking up and seeing how we're doing and checking on our school. We get close with her family and she's super close with our families so I love that about her, she's not just looking at us, she's including our families in on this journey." - Taylor Haase
"I've appreciated in my first year that she's just there for us whether we're struggling in class or whatever else might come up and she'll always help us out no matter what it is." - Mya Merschman
"I don't really know how to explain it, she's a phenomenal coach bottom line. I think when it comes to intense moments, I'm a firm believer in building that relationship first is substantial because when she raises her voice, we don't shy away, we take it in a different light and makes us work harder to get the job done." - Rebecca Schroeder
"She's more so for the person and growing you as the person you should be outside of basketball, she's not just focused on basketball. She can point out every little detail, she's not going to be hesitant on what she wants you to change, which I really like." - Elyssa Stein
"I would definitely say that she's one of the best coaches that I've ever had. She's just always there for us, academically, mentally, emotionally. She can be intense but she always stresses to focus on what she's telling us and not how she's telling us and I think that improved us mentally to not take her messages personally." - Hannah Ambrosy
One final word from Boyd before we wrap up, "We have made Clarke big time. Without saying it any different, I wake up every day and say big time is where you're at and make this as big as you want it to be and the coaches and the team have bought into that."
As a season ends, nobody ever wants it to. Nobody is ever ready for it to just be done right when a buzzer sounds. But for this season, one that had the feeling of one that was meant to be most special, it ending early doesn't take away all of the moments that made it a season to remember.
So let's hear it for the Pride in 2021-22 and remember that this team, for now, is the best team that Clarke University has ever seen.