Feb. 20, 2006

By Evan Meyer - Sports Vault

On Sunday, November 27 while most sports fans in Cleveland were ingesting the final remains of their Thanksgiving leftovers, their concerns were on how the Browns would fare on the road against the Minnesota Vikings, or still in the glow of the Cavaliers' win the night before against Kevin Garnett and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

That day became special in the history of Cleveland State athletics and specifically the women's basketball team as the Vikings faced perennial national power Connecticut at the Wolstein Center.

It was, by far, the biggest game in the 33-year history of the program, almost similar to the men's team game against Marquette in 1981 at Public Hall. In addition, local star Barbara Turner, who played at East Tech High School, finally got to play at home in front of her family and friends.

For most of the first half, Coach Kate Peterson's squad stayed with the powerful Huskies before UConn started to pull away late in the first half, using a 34-8 run spanning both halves, and then cruised to a 85-51 victory before 2,948 fans -- the largest crowd ever to see a CSU women's game at home.

Fredric Nietzsche the great philosopher once said "If this doesn't kill me...It will make me stronger." It has been a long and somewhat trying season for Coach Peterson and her squad as they are 4-21 overall and 2-12 in Horizon League play.

They started the season splitting their first four games. Losing the season opener at Wisconsin, in coach Peterson's second return to Madison since being named CSU's head coach, but then picked up wins over Hillsdale College at home and at Akron.

The loss to the Huskies though, started the Vikings on a tailspin from which so far they have not yet fully recovered. They have dropped 20 of 22 since with the only wins during that stretch have come at home -- on Dec. 31 against Detroit and on Feb. 18 against Loyola on Senior Day.

One must understand though, women's basketball at CSU has been fighting an uphill climb since the program was founded in 1973 headed up by Jane Pease, the long-time coach and athletic administrator at CSU and Fenn College.

The Vikings won that first game, defeating Case Western Reserve 32-17. Playing schools from the area, the Vikes registered consecutive winning seasons in 1974-75 and 1975-76 in that time defeating schools like Kent State and Akron.

The key player in those early years was Sue Hlavacek, the program's first-ever 1000 point scorer, leading the squad all four seasons and in rebounds three times, still ranking among the career leaders in free throws made , rebounds and made field goals. She holds the record for the most rebounds in game when she garnered 28 against Miami in March, 1976.

Hlavacek was also an outstanding middle blocker on CSU's volleyball team and was named the school's Female Athlete of the Year three times and a member of the Cleveland State Athletic Hall of Fame.

When Pease stepped down from coaching in 1976-77, Louise Furjanic stepped in, compiling a 31-28 record over three seasons as the schedule started to get more competitive.

In 1980, Alice Kohl was hired and started the best stretch of winning in the program's history. Kohl spent eleven seasons and has the most wins in history at 115, having winning seasons in three of her first four years.

Arguably the best team in school history was the 1982-83 squad led by Diane Foster and Sue Koziol, which went 23-6 with wins over Arizona, Michigan, Louisville, Xavier, and Cincinnati, in addition to beating Dayton and Appalachian State at the Dial Tournament in Miami.

They won 14 of their final 16 games but did not receive at bid to the what would be the first NCAA Women's Tournament. This was the time in Women's Athletics when the governing body switched from the AIAW to the NCAA.

Like Englehart in the early days, Koziol was a two-sport star at CSU after transferring from the University of Pittsburgh playing softball where in 1982 she was named All-American (the only All-American in CSU softball history). In three seasons on the hardwood, the former Lincoln-West High point guard amassed 1,098 points. In the 1981-82 season she shot 51.7% from the field and dished out 191 assists en route to becoming Female Athlete of the Year.

Sue led the team in assists all three seasons finishing her career with 638 and also registered the first ever triple-double in Cleveland State history on February 5,1983 against Illinois-Chicago she had 10 points-10 rebounds-and 15 assists. Was named to the Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995

Dianne Foster had three phenomenal seasons. The native of Warren led the squad in scoring twice including a school record 635 points in 1982-83 and is the all-time leading scorer in the program's history at 1,851 holding well over a dozen school records.

But after the 1983-84 season when they went 19-8, the Vikings started to play better competition facing the likes of Virginia, Penn State, and Stanford and saw their win total dry up and fell into a stretch of ten seasons of eleven when they failed to reach double digits in victories.

There were bright spots though in Mary Petrecca who recently was named to the Athletic Hall of Fame. The native of Willowick was a consistent scorer and rebounder averaging double figures in scoring her first three seasons and was named Most Outstanding Player in 1985-86 finishing her career with 1,229 points and 869 rebounds at the time second to Foster in both categories.

In 1988-89, Cleveland State left the ranks of the independents and joined the North Star Conference which had schools like Marquette, DePaul, Illinois-Chicago, and Wisconsin-Green Bay.

During that time as well a star emerged in Deb Taylor. The former Lorain Admiral King star led the team in scoring all four-seasons and in rebounds twice. She was named Most Outstanding Player three times finishing her career with 1,748 points and 893 rebounds. Twice named as first team All-North Star Conference, Deb remains just one of four players to have 20 rebounds in a game that coming in 1989 against Akron. In 2001 was named to the Athletic Hall of Fame.

Even with the individual brilliance of Deb Taylor, and Lanette Taylor, who became the first ever CSU Player to win a Conference Player of the Year (1991-92). The program was starting to inch back to respectability under Loretta Hummelsdorf and Duffy Burns.

Burns spent eight seasons with the program and his enthusiasm and passion for the game helped in picking up 103 wins and the third best winning percentage in history.

During Burns' tenure, the Vikings saw their move from the North Star/Mid- Continent Conference into the Midwestern Collegiate/Horizon League. Burns also brought a different style of basketball. A running and scoring offense whoch produced four of the highest total point seasons in history.

Flourishing in this offense were players like Megan Wiliams, Audra Cook who was named first team three times and in 1999-2000 was named Horizon League Player of The Year, Mahogany Green, Jessica Toth, Erika Roudebush, and Ashley Schrock.

In those eight seasons, the Vikings started to regain respectability and picked up some famous wins. The first came in February,1997 when they defeated long time foe Wisconsin-Green Bay for the first time, doing it on their home floor. There was wins over Syracuse, Southwestern Louisiana, and Ball State.

In the 1999-2000 season, Burns and his charges picked up the school's first in-season tournament win since 1984 when they defeated Eastern Washington and Loyola Marymount to win LMU's Thanksgiving Classic. Then in the MCC Tournament at Detroit they upset second seeded Wisconsin-Milwaukee and then defeated Wright State in two overtimes leaving them just one win away from the school's first ever NCAA Tournament bid.

But in the championship game, they played Green Bay tough only to fall 79-72.

Burns had respectable records in his final five seasons but an 11-18 mark in 2002-03, despite reaching the semi-finals of the Horizon League tournament, was not enough to retain his job and his contract was not renewed.

New Athletic Director Lee Reed decided on Peterson. A former All-American guard at Division III Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and was the top assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under Jane Albright. The Badgers made three trips to the NCAA Tournament and two visits to the Women's National Invitational Tournament winning the title in 2000 while Peterson was there.

In her first season, the Vikings went 12-16 the second most wins by a first-year head coach in CSU history, which included wins over Louisville and Wisconsin-Milwaukee before the bottom fell out last season when the Vikes went 4-25 (tying for the most losses in school history) and just 2-14 in Horizon League play.

One of Peterson's strengths is she is a great recruiter. At Wisconsin her talents of persuasion brought Nina Smith the 1999 USA TODAY Women's High School Player of the Year to Madison as well as Tamara Moore who was later drafted into the WNBA.

Peterson has used her knowledge of the Wisconsin and Minnesota, like men's basketball coach Mike Garland has used the state of Michigan, to bring in quality talent like Brittany Korth and Eric Horming.

But getting Dominique Butler, one of the top guards in the nation, was a major coup for the program and could be the future of the Vikings program. As well as signees for Fall 2006 in Kailey Klein from Illinois, Angel and Jessica Roque from Toronto, Ontario and Stephanie Crosley from Milwaukee.

Butler, a native of Milwaukee, made a splash in her collegiate debut as she scored a career high 14 points coming off the bench in the game against Wisconsin at the Kohl Center doing it before family and friends is second in scoring at 10.0 per game and leads the team in field-goal percentage, steals and blocked shots along with being among the League leaders in those categories.

Currently the team is led by a couple of seniors, Omega Harrington out of Indianapolis who leads the team in scoring at 11.3 pts per game and Erin Martin from Canfield (Youngstown area) who is second in scoring at 8.5 pts and leads in rebounds at 5.4 per contest.

In March, the women's program will get a boost from Cleveland State in conjunction with the Mid-American Conference, will host one of four NCAA Regionals at Quicken Loans Arena

Then in March, 2007 the Vikings will play host to the Women's Final Four. The first championship game to be played in the City since the Indians hosted games three-four-and five of the 1997 World Series at Jacobs Field against the Florida Marlins.

One of Paul McCartney's hits after he left The Beatles was titled "The Long and Winding Road" The Cleveland State women's program has had many turns down that road in its existence with some great teams and not so great teams.

Some outstanding individual players from Hlavacek, to Koziol, to Taylor, to Cook. They have played their home games at Woodling Gym, Public Hall, and the Wolstein Center.

Will they return to respectability in the near future and challenge Wisconsin-Green Bay for a Horizon League title? Only time and results will tell.