Nov. 17, 2008

Contact: Greg Murphy

• Ticket Information
• Group Ticket Information
• Family Value Saturday's
• Jr. Viking Kids Club
• Come See Us Campaign

Complete Release in PDF Format

SETTING THE SCENE: Cleveland State will play its 2008-09 home opener on Tuesday, Nov. 18, when the Vikings host Eastern Michigan at 7:00 p.m. in the Wolstein Center. EMU holds an 8-3 lead in the all-time series, but the two teams have not met since 1991. This will be the first of three games for CSU this week, as the Vikings will conclude play in the Preseason WNIT with a pair of games in Muncie, Ind., this weekend.

PREVIEWING CLEVELAND STATE: Coming off the most successful season in school history, sixth-year head coach Kate Peterson Abiad welcomes back three starters and eight letterwinners from last year's team that won the Horizon League Championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. Headlining the list of returnees is junior guard Kailey Klein (19.8 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 3.2 apg in 2007-08) who was selected to the preseason All-Horizon League team for the second straight season. She finished her sophomore campaign with a school-record 654 points, earning first team All-Horizon League accolades. She will be joined in the backcourt by juniors Angel Roque (5.8 ppg, 2.5 apg) and Jessica Roque (5.2 ppg, 1.7 rpg), while sophomore Shawnita Garland (3.6 ppg, 1.8 rpg) will serve as the top reserve off the bench. Senior Dominique Butler (10.4 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 2.6 spg) leads the frontcourt after earning Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year accolades last season, while junior Stephaine Crosley (5.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg) slides into the starting lineup this season. Senior Natalie Miller (2.5 ppg, 1.4 rpg) and sophomore Justine Hayes (0.3 ppg, 0.4 rpg) will also battle for minutes in the frontcourt. The five-player freshman class has been described by Peterson Abiad as perhaps the deepest during her tenure at CSU and includes guards Janelle Adams, Honesty King and Takima Keane and forwards Destinee Blue and Kaila Montgomery.

THE HEAD COACH: Kate Peterson Abiad is in her sixth year as the head coach of the Vikings and claims an overall record of 47-102 (.315) after leading the Vikings to 19 wins last season. The sixth head coach in school-history, Peterson Abiad spent six years as an assistant coach at Wisconsin, serving as the recruiting coordinator starting in 1998. She also worked at Eastern Illinois (1993-97) and Indiana (1991-93). A 1991 graduate of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, she earned Kodak All-America honors her senior season after setting the NCAA Division III record for three-point field goals per game at 3.85.

VIKINGS TURN 36: The 2008-09 season will be Cleveland State's 36th season of women's basketball. The Vikings have compiled an all-time record of 356-536 for a .399 winning percentage and are also 87-131 (.399) in 15 seasons in the Horizon League. CSU won its first-ever Horizon League Championship last season.

FOR OPENERS: Friday's contest at Arizona State kicked off the 36th season of intercollegiate women's basketball at Cleveland State. The Vikings are now 12-24 all-time in season openers and have lost their last 10 season openers. The last time CSU won a season opener was Nov. 16, 1998, when the Vikings topped Chicago State, 106-58.

FOR OPENERS, PART II: Tuesday's game against Eastern Michigan will be the 36th home opener in program history with the Vikings claiming an all-time mark of 15-20 in home openers. CSU is just 1-9 in its last 10 home openers with the only win coming in 2005 against Hillsdale, 62-59.

MAC ATTACK: The contest against Eastern Michigan will be the first of six games that CSU will play against Mid-American Conference schools this season. CSU also has home games against MAC members Toledo, Kent State and Buffalo and road contests at Akron and Ohio.

OPENING WITH RANKED OPPONENTS: Friday's game at 17th-ranked Arizona State was the second straight season that Cleveland State opened the season against a nationally-ranked team. Last season, the Vikings hosted 24th-ranked Wisconsin in the Wolstein Center to open the season.

TOUGH SCHEDULE: The Vikings have six games on this year's schedule against teams that advanced to postseason play last season. CSU has already played Arizona State, a team that went to the NCAA tournament last season and will also play NCAA tournament qualifiers Illinois State, Ohio State and NIT qualifiers American and Green Bay (twice). CSU also has a chance to play another NCAA qualifier in Robert Morris in the third round of the Preseason WNIT on Saturday, Nov. 22.

VIKINGS SHOOT LIGHTS OUT: Cleveland State was very impressive from the field in Friday's game at Arizona State, hitting 25-of-45 (.556) from the field. It was better than any percentage the Vikings shot last season and is tied for the fifth best field goal percentage in school history.

... AND EVEN BETTER IN THE SECOND HALF: The Vikings shooting percentage on Friday was aided by a 16-for-22 (.727) performance from the field in the second half. CSU connected on its first five shots of the second half.

KLEIN NAMED TO ALL-HORIZON LEAGUE SQUAD: Jnior guard Kailey Klein has made quite an impression on the league during her first two seasons and has been selected to the preseason All-Horizon League first team for the second straight season. Klein received the second most votes in the polling, finishing behind Milwaukee's Traci Edwards who was the preseason Player of the Year for the second consecutive season.

KLEIN CLOSING IN ON 1,000 POINTS: With 14 points in Friday's game at Arizona State, junior Kailey Klein moved within 14 points of reaching the 1,000 point mark for her career. She would be the 20th player in school history to reach the mileston after scoring a school-record 654 points last season.

AND BUTLER NOT FAR BEHIND: Senior Dominique Butler is not far behind Kailey Klein in the chase for 1,000 career points. Butler entered the season needing 161 points to reach the 1,000 point plateau and sliced that down to 143 after ab 18 point outburst in Friday's game at Arizona State.

ON THE ROAD: The Vikings better make sure they enjoy Tuesday's home game against Eastern Michigan as it will be one of just three times that CSU will play at home over its first 10 contests.

FIT TO BE QUEEN: Junior Angel Roque picked up the title of Homecoming Queen during the annual Vike Fest activities and her honor was announced at Viking Madness on Oct. 17. The king was men's basketball standout Cedric Jackson.

NUMBER CHANGE: Angel Roque has a new look this season as she has changed her jersey number to 40, the number that she wore in high school. Freshman Kaila Montgomery is wearing Roque's old number (4).

DISHING IT OUT: Sophomore Shawnita Garland appears to have taken nicely to her new role as the first reserve off the bench. In 30 minutes of action on Friday night, Garland scored eight points, while adding a career-high seven assists and career-high tying five steals.

VIKINGS PICKED FOURTH IN PRESEASON POLL: CSU has been selected to finish fourth in the 2008-09 Horizon League Preseason poll in voting conducted by coaches, media and sports information directors. CSU received 228 points and one first place vote, finishing behind first place Green Bay (284 points, 24 first place votes), Wright State (241; 1) and Milwaukee (240; 2). Last season, the Vikings were tabbed eighth and went on to win their first-ever Horizon League Championship after finishing fourth in the regular season.

DANCING WITH THE VIKINGS: CSU is coming off a season in which the Vikings won their first-ever Horizon League Championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. After defeating Butler, Green Bay and Wright State in the league tournament, CSU earned the 15th-seed in the West Region and fell at eventual national runner-up Stanford in the opening round of the NCAA Championship. 19 WINS WERE SCHOOL-RECORD: CSU won 19 games last season, three more than the Vikings had won in the previous three seasons combined (2004-07). The 19 wins were the second most in school history, topped only by the 1982-83 squad which won 23.

AND A PERFECT 10 IN THE LEAGUE: The Vikings set a program record by winning 10 Horizon League contests last season, one more league victory than CSU combined to win during the previous three seasons. The old record for league wins in a season was nine in 2002-03 during Kate Peterson Abiad's first season at the helm.

DOUBLE THE PLEASURE FOR VIKING FANS: After playing six doubleheaders last season, the CSU men's and women's teams will share five dates at home during the 2008-09 season. Following is a complete list of dates and opponents with all the women's contests beginning at 5:00 p.m. followed by the men's games at 7:30 p.m.

Date Women's Game Men's Game

Jan. 8 Green Bay Loyola
Jan. 10 Milwaukee UIC
Jan. 29 Loyola Detroit
Jan. 31 UIC Wright State
Feb. 14 Youngstown State Green Bay

THREE STARTERS RETURN: The Vikings return three starters (Dominique Butler, Kailey Klein, Angel Roque) from last seasons NCAA team, but juniors Jessica Roque and Stephaine Crosley both have experience in the starting lineup. Roque started all 30 contests as a freshman, while Crosley started the first nine games of her freshman campaign before being sidelined by an injury.

GOOD START FOR BUTLER: Dominique Butler began her senior season in style on Friday night at Arizona State, finishing with a game-high 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field. She added four steals and three assists as Butler scored 14 of her points after halftime when she hit seven of her eight shots attempts.

SPECIAL "K": Kailey Klein returns for her third season in the Green and White after scoring a school-record 654 points last season and ranking in the top-15 of the Horizon League in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, free throw percentage, field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage. She became the first player from CSU to earn first team All-Horizon League honors since 2003-04 and was selected as the Horizon League Championship MVP after averaging 22.3 points, 9.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists in three league tournament contests.

A MUCH IMPROVED TEAM: The Vikings were the fifth most improved team in Division I in 2007-08 with a nine and a half game improvement. After going 8-22 in 2006-07, CSU turned things around by going 19-14 last season. The Vikings began the season 3-5, but went on to win 11 of their next 13 contests, including separate win streaks of five and six games.

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE (THROWS): The Vikings set a school-record by shooting .797 (480-602) from the free throw line last season. It was the fourth best percentage in the nation during the 2007-08 campaign and the second highest total in league history, trailing the 2006-07 Green Bay squad which shot .801 (447-558).

BUT NOT THIS YEAR, YET: CSU didn't get off to a great start at the free throw line, hitting just 6-of-11 (.545) attempts on Friday at Arizona State. In fact, Kailey Klein hit all six of CSU's free throws in eight attempts.

BEWARE OF THE BUTLER: Senior Dominique Butler has earned a spot on the Horizon League All-Defensive team for three straight seasons and last season became the first CSU player to earn defensive player of the year accolades. She has 217 career steals to rank fifth all-time in school history. Last season, Butler became just the eighth player in school history to shoot at least .500 from the field, connecting on 140-of-280 (.500) field goals.

UP NEXT: The Vikings head to Muncie, Ind., to conclude play in the Preseason WNIT with two games. CSU will play Illinois State at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 21, and will play either Ball State or Robert Morris on Saturday, Nov. 22.