2022-23 Women's Basketball Season Preview
Experience is going to power this season's Northwood Women's Basketball team. Head coach Autumn Haggadone returns ten players from last season's team, six of which are seniors. This will be the team's first season in the GMAC, they were selected to finish fourth in the conference in the Preseason Coaches' Poll.
"This is a conference that we don't know, and they don't know us… I think fourth is a spot that is well-respected by the GMAC," said Haggadone. "I am excited to push ourselves to finish as high as we can.
This is Haggadone's second season at the helm of this Timberwolf team. She will lean on last season's All-GLIAC guard, Makenzie Todd to lead the team. Last season, Todd led the team in scoring averaging 13.3 PPG and shot 34.5% from behind the arch. Northwood did graduate another All-GLIAC guard in Ellie Taylor. Taylor was the 18th female in school history to reach the 1,000-point club. In the absence of Taylor, the Timberwolves will look for players to take some pressure off Todd. "I think we have a lot of different people that can score," Haggadone said, "Alli Keyser was a sparkplug off the bench last year…Maizie (Taylor) is looking to score more this year, and Ella Miller and Emma Trombly are going to step up, to hopefully take some heat off Makenzie."
Defense has been an emphasis for the team during the preseason. "We dove headfirst into defense. If you know us from last year we could score the ball, but we struggled to defend," said Haggadone. NU will be looking at multiple players to guard the hot hand of the opponent. Keyser being one as well as Adele Kemp and Hannah Schroeder.
Coach Haggadone made an addition to her staff this season, bringing in Jake Voelker. "Jake is super relatable, funny, and strict when he needs to be strict. He sees things basketball-wise that even myself I don't notice." Voelker was most recently an assistant at Goodrich High School and a head coach for the Michigan Mystics, an AAU team based out of the Flint area.
The team opens the season on Friday, November 11 with a home game against rival Saginaw Valley at 4p.m. They than face off against Lake Superior State Saturday at 5:30 p.m. Both of those games being a part of the GMAC v. GLIAC Crossover.