By Joe Budzelek
Even after a pair of MAAC regular season championships and two straight trips to the NCAA Tournament, the Fairfield Stags are hungry for more.
“This team is hungry,” says fourth year head coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis, “The goal every year is obviously to win the MAAC. We know we’ll have our work cut out for us, but this team is not sitting back, resting on the laurels of the last two seasons—they’re motivated to avoid the feeling we had in the locker room last year after the NCAA tournament.”
Last season, the 12-seed Stags were matched up against woefully under-seeded, but loaded and newly healthy Kansas State squad that had an overall 20-2 record with Ayoka Lee in the lineup. Overall, the team shot just 29% from the field and that was just the start of the Stags’ woes: All-MAAC First Teamer Meghan Andersen scored only six points. All-MAAC Second Team selection Kaety L'Amoreaux gave up six turnovers. With Janelle Brown, the previous season’s Conference Player of the Year missing the game recovering from an ACL injury, the bench scored just a total of eleven points in comparison to four different Wildcats scoring in double-figures as Kansas State more than doubled Fairfield’s scoring effort, defeating the Stags 85-to-41.
After a loss like that, just getting to the big dance is now an old pipe dream as Fairfield now strives to win multiple games in the NCAA Tournament. “We know it can be done,” says Thibault-DuDonis, “We’ve seen not only teams in our league succeed in the NCAA Tournament, but also someone we know well—Richmond—win it. That has only added to our motivation to take this further than it’s ever gone before and do something that’s never been done at Fairfield.
To help achieve that, another point of emphasis in recruiting for our program, as we try to get closer and closer to competing for an NCAA tournament spot, is getting bigger. That doesn’t necessarily mean going out and finding a 6'7" player who can match up with an Iowa post, but rather adding size across the board.”
The deck is stacked for the Stags. They return every player – nine in total – who had eligibility remaining and played meaningful minutes, which includes an extra year of eligibility for Nellie Brown, who returns for now her sixth year with the program. Two fifth-year seniors join the fold via the transfer portal while Fairfield’s freshman class includes four players, each hailing from a different country. The bedrock of the program lies in its coaching staff that has remained a singular unit from the jump under Thibault-DuDonis.
While the program’s stability keeps expectations high, Coach Carly sees another gear on the horizon.
"Even though it’ll be hard replacing huge pieces of our success in Emina, Iza, Rai and Kendall, I think we’ve been able to keep our trajectory of getting deeper year after year, especially having even more creators on offense. When Nellie got hurt last year, Kaety became our go-to, and once Jill [Huerter] got healthy, she was able to step into that role a little more too. We needed players who could be crafty, get into the paint, and create for others.”
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| Photo Credit: Fairfield Athletics |
Nellie Brown is an electric talent, but one benefit of her absence last season was that it allowed Fairfield’s other returning guards to have the spotlight shine a little brighter. Junior Kaety L’Amoreaux not only grew in comfort as a go-to downhill scorer, but also as an unselfish facilitator and a continuation of her growth as a dogged on-ball defender. Marshall transfer Sydni Scott stepped up as a rock-solid floor spacer off the bench while Julia Karpell and Casey Prior played valuable reserve minutes.
Perhaps one player whose stock rose the most following Brown’s absence was Rutgers transfer Jillian Huerter, who now returns for her junior season.
"After Jill missed almost the first half of last season rehabbing her injury, the biggest thing now is just keeping her healthy so she can sustain it through what we know is a very long college basketball season—and hopefully a really long one for us,” says Thibault-DuDonis, “ When she’s healthy, she’s as skilled as they come. She can do a little bit of everything.
“She had a great summer scoring efficiently and really playing at her own pace without getting sped up. She uses her size to her advantage, getting to her spots on the floor. If she’s matched with a smaller guard, she can rise up and finish over them, and if it’s a slower big, she can put the ball on the floor and get by. She’s really smart and has a high basketball IQ.
“Of course, we know she’s a great shooter, but I think she’s also someone, like [Penn State grad transfer Alli Campbell], who can be a ball handler for us. We’ve got weapons all over the floor—players who can get into the paint and create their own shots. When defenses don’t help off our shooters and stay home, leaving her one-on-one, she can attack, finish, and cash in. This summer, Jill really showed the ability to take contact and still make plays, and that’s going to be huge for us."
Speaking of Alli Campbel, the six-foot grad transfer averaged eight points, four rebounds and nearly four-and-a-half assists and a steal-and-a-half per game in 23 starts last season for the Lady Lions. While her three-point shot struggled to fall last season, Campbell made nearly 38% of her three-point attempts throughout her first three years combined between Notre Dame and Penn State.
“Alli’s someone who is very efficient in playmaking for others,” says Coach Carly, “Not only does she bring great size, experience, and an ability to create, but she’s also a sponge. She’s been so much fun to coach because she genuinely wants to learn a different way of doing things. She’s been a great example for her teammates of how to be coachable—taking a whole new system, after learning one way for a long time, and applying it.
“I’m really excited for her. She’s the type of player who can fit in with anyone on the team because of her personality and versatility. She can handle the ball, play off the ball, run the floor, and even play in the post at times. With her size, she’ll often have a natural advantage depending on our lineup, and that gives us a lot of flexibility."
A fair share of Campbell’s minutes will be as the third guard alongside Brown and L'Amoreaux, giving her a major size advantage compared to last year’s team that finished the season with just one starter listed a six-foot or taller.
That one player is two-time reigning All-MAAC First Team selection Meghan Andersen, who has been arguably the most steady and all-around dangerous two-way player in the conference over the last two seasons as she enters her junior season.
“We’re excited because Meg’s a student of the game—a real gym rat,” says Thibault-DuDonis, “Meg loves working on her game, and that makes it easy for a coach to help her develop. When a player wants to be there, investing their time, and being a sponge, it changes everything.
“What’s exciting for Meg, especially with the depth we have at every position, is that she can truly continue to be versatile. She can play on the wing more than we’ve ever had at the two or three, but she can also still be a four or five and really run the floor. She has the ability to swing anywhere based on what our needs are at the moment."
One factor that helps utilize the full versatility of Andersen’s game is the Stags’ impressive depth at “Road Runner”, a position on Fairfield’s official roster that exemplifies the versatility that de facto frontcourt pieces provide for the position’s bespoke style on offense.
In addition to Andersen, Fairfield’s marathon of road runners returns fifth-year senior Lauren Beach – a steady, part-time starter throughout her three seasons with Fairfield who is a steady low-post defender – and sophomore Cyanne Coe, whose performance last season earned her a spot in the MAAC All-Rookie Team. Entering her sophomore season, the coaching staff is pleased with her development as she looks to take the next step.
“We saw Cy play her best basketball at the end of the year,” says Thibault-DuDonis, “I think she did a really good job. And even though our NCAA Tournament game wasn’t pretty, she was unbelievably competitive against someone who completely towered over her, had all the attention, and yet she really held her own.
“As the season went on, she learned, she grew, and she understood how to fit into the way we play. With our early schedule, we’re going to rely on Cy a lot because she can guard multiple positions. She can guard big, she can guard small, and she uses her length really well. She’s a bit of a Swiss Army knife on the defensive end, and she can match up with some of the bigs we’ll face in non-conference play.”
Like last year with Raiana Brown, Fairfield’s frontcourt depth will be fortified with a fifth-year transfer addition of the six-foot-three NAIA standout Jalyn Sackrider, who averaged thirteen points, nine rebounds and nearly three blocks per game at Evergreen State, where she also made 31% of her three point attempts.
"Jalyn honestly didn’t even know she had eligibility left,” admits Thibault-DuDonis, “[assistant coach] Blake DuDonis was poking around after the rule change about JUCOs and the fifth year, which also applied to the NAIA. He started looking at stat leaders, watching film, and really beat the bushes to find Jalyn. When we finally talked to her, she had no idea this was even an option—she was actually getting ready to apply for teaching jobs. So it turned into a really cool situation.
“She’s an unbelievable teammate and a hard worker. She’s coming into a good team where she’ll have to earn her role, learn our system, and work her way through. I see her a lot like Raiana—while she has her own style of play, I think as the season goes on, we’ll see her best basketball. Our system can be intricate and nuanced, and that’s tough to learn in just one year, but she’s smart, she works at it, and her teammates really like her.
“Most of all, she has a high motor. She’s long, she rebounds, she’s relentless on the glass, and she’s skilled. As she puts it all together, I think we’ll see her best basketball game in and game out as the season progresses.”
Arriving on campus late in August, Fairfield also added two international prospects to their road runner rotation. Six-foot-one Selen Yusan hails from Turkey while six-foot Milou van Vliet was selected to the U20 Dutch National team last season.
Two freshman guards – five-foot-seven Christina Pham and five-foot-three Keyarah Gregory – will look to make an immediate impact with the Stags. “Last season, we weren’t as deep as we had been in years past, but we were able to address that—not only with Alli and Jalyn, but also with our two freshmen, Christina Pham and Keyarah Gregory. We think both of them will really help us with that creativity and ability to get by defenders. So we’ve definitely gotten deeper there,” says Thibault-DuDonis. Between Andersen and L’Amoreaux two seasons ago and Coe last year, Fairfield has had its fair share of recent MAAC All-Rookie team selections and this year’s freshman class is, yet again, another talented and deep group.
Winning 39 of their last 40 conference games, Fairfield has shown that they are now the new powerhouses of the MAAC. They return star power and overall depth while their transfer and freshman class makes this year’s squad the deepest, biggest and, quite possibly, their most talented squad yet under Coach Carly.
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