Nov. 29, 2008

Contact: Greg Murphy

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SETTING THE SCENE: Cleveland State begins a stretch of four road contests over the next five games when the Vikings travel to American for a 2:00 p.m. tipoff on Sunday, Nov. 30. The Vikings trail the all-time series with AU, 2-1, but did defeat the Eagles, 65-63, last season on a Kailey Klein jumper at the buzzer in the Wolstein Center.

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 (16.0 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 3.6 apg) 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 (5.0 ppg, 2.6 apg) and Jessica Roque (13.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg), while sophomore Shawnita Garland (9.8 ppg, 3.2 apg, 2.8 spg) will serve as the top reserve off the bench. Senior Dominique Butler (13.8 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 3.2 spg) leads the frontcourt after earning Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year accolades last season, while junior Stephaine Crosley (3.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg) slides into the starting lineup this season. Senior Natalie Miller (0.8 ppg, 0.8 rpg) and sophomore Justine Hayes (0.5 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 (2.2 ppg, 1.4 rpg), Honesty King and Takima Keane and forwards Destinee Blue (2.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg) 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 50-103 (.327) 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.

KLEIN WORTH A GRAND: Junior Kailey Klein became the 20th player in school history to reach the career 1,000 point mark on Nov. 18 with a three-point play late in the first half against Eastern Michigan. Just the fourth player in program history to record 1,000 points as a junior, Klein has scored 1,052 points for her career and is 16th on the all-time scoring list. Klein is eight points shy of taking over 15th place from LeAnna Hicks (1994-99) and needs 98 points to break into the all-time top-10. The career scoring record at CSU is 1,851 points by Dianne Foster (1979-81; 82-84).

... AND BUTLER NOT FAR BEHIND: Senior Dominique Butler is close to becoming the second Viking to reach the 1,000 career point mark this season. The Milwaukee, Wis., native needs 92 more points to reach the mark.

ELITE COMPANY: If Dominique Butler joins Kailey Klein with 1,000 career points this season, they will be just the third pair of teammates to score their 1,000th point in the same season for CSU. Ashley Schrock and Shannon Sword were the last to accomplish the feat in 2003-04, while Terri Miller and Lisa Kipp were the first ones to do it during the 1987-88 season.

ANOTHER BUTLER MILESTONE IN REACH: Dominique Butler is on the verge of becoming just the 12th player in program history to score 1,000 points and grab 500 rebounds in a career. Butler, who needs 92 more points and nine more rebounds, would join Audra Cook, Dianne Foster, Deb Taylor, Mary Petrecca, Lanette Taylor, Terri Miller, Sue Hlavacek, Ashley Schrock, Megan Williams, Mahogany Green and Shannon Sword as the only players in school history to accomplish the feat.

MAC ATTACK: Wednesday's game versus Toledo was the third of seven games that CSU will play against Mid-American Conference schools this season. CSU, which has defeated Toledo and Eastern Michigan and lost to Ball State, has home games against MAC members Kent State and Buffalo and road contests at Akron and Ohio. CSU is 62-101 all-time against the MAC.

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 and Illinois State, teams that went to the NCAA tournament last season and will also play NCAA tournament qualifier Ohio State and NIT qualifiers American and Green Bay (twice).

VIKINGS EFFICIENT: Cleveland State has been very impressive on the offensive end through two games, shooting a league-leading .473 (122-258) from the field. CSU opened the season by hitting 25-of-45 (.556) attempts from the field at Arizona State on Nov. 14 to record the fifth best shooting percentage in school history. The Vikings came back on Nov. 18 against Eastern Michigan and bettered that mark, going 27-of-47 (.574) from the floor, which was the second best field goal percentage in school history. The school record for field goal percentage in a season is .442, set during the 1992-93 campaign.

SECOND HALF HELPS: CSU's excellence from the field can be traced to their second half efforts this season as the Vikings have combined to go 72-of-126 (.571) from the floor in the second half of games. Against both Arizona State and Eastern Michigan, CSU connected on 16-of-22 (.727) shots in the second half of both contests.

KLEIN AT THE LINE: Kailey Klein continues her torrid assault on the CSU record book for career free throws made and attempted. The junior, who has hit 31-of-37 (.838) at the line this season, ranks third in school history in free throws made (348), just 43 shy of breaking Debra Taylor's record. In addition, Klein's 439 career attempts are fifth all-time in program history, just 122 shy of Lanette Taylor's career mark. For good measure, Klein's .793 career free throw percentage is third all-time in CSU history.

DQ'D: CSU had 22 player disqualifications last season, the second most in school history. However, it took five games for CSU to lose its first player due to five fouls this year when Dominique Butler fouled out of Wednesday's game against Toledo. For Butler, it was her 13th career disqualification, tying her for fourth all-time in school history.

BUTLER NAMED PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Senior Dominique Butler has been named the Horizon League Player of the week for her performances in CSU's three contests last week. Butler, averaged 15.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game to lead CSU to a 2-1 record, shooting 54.3 percent (19-for-35) from the field and 70 percent (7-for-10) at the free throw line during the three games. Butler opened the week last Tuesday with 18 points, nine rebounds and four steals in the Vikings' 76-67 win over Eastern Michigan. She followed that with a double-double against Illinois State on Friday in a Preseason WNIT game in Muncie, Ind., tallying 12 points and collecting 13 rebounds in the 64-50 win over the Redbirds. Butler finished the week with 15 points, five rebounds and four steals in a 61-60 loss at Ball State on Saturday.

SPARK OFF THE BENCH: Sophomore Shawnita Garland appears to have taken nicely to her new role as the first reserve off the bench. In 26.8 minutes per game, Garland is averaging 9.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.8 steals per game, while shooting .633 (19-30) from the field to rank second in the Horizon League. Garland, who dished out a career-high seven assists at Arizona State (Nov. 14), had 14 points, hitting all five shots from the field, in a Nov. 21 win over Illinois State.

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: In addition to wearing her tiara as Homecoming queen, Angel Roque is sporting another 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).

NEW NUMBER, SAME RESULTS: After she accidentally left her home jersey in Arizona, Dominique Butler had to wear No. 2 on Tuesday (Nov. 18) against Eastern Michigan. No worries. The senior scored 18 points, grabbed nine rebounds and had four steals in 35 minutes.

BUTLER FINDS THE MARK: Dominique Butler has begun her senior campaign in style, ranking second on the team in both scoring (13.8 ppg) and rebounding (6.8). She is shooting .564 (31-55) from the floor this year. In addition, she leads the squad with 16 steals.

AND SO DOES ROQUE: Junior Jessica Roque has responded well in her return to the starting lineup this season as she is averaging 13.2 points and 2.6 rebounds per game. She has hit 25-of-50 (.500) shots from the field, including 11-of-27 (.407) from three-point. Roque started all 30 games as a freshman and was CSU's top reserve last season, coming off the bench in 32 of the 33 games. She scored 19 points, the second most in her career, in Wednesday's win over Toledo, hitting 4-of-8 from three-point. In addition, Roque added four rebounds in a career-high 36 minutes of work.

KLEIN NAMED TO ALL-HORIZON LEAGUE SQUAD: Junior 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.

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. CSU also won a school-record 10 Horizon League games last season, breaking the old mark of nine set in 2002-03.

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: CSU has gotten off to a slower start at the free throw line this season, hitting just 60-of-89 (.674) from the charity stripe, ranking sixth in the league.

UP NEXT: CSU remains on the road when the Vikings head to Akron for a 7:00 p.m. contest on Wednesday, Dec. 3. The Vikings then return home for just the third time this season on Saturday, Dec. 6, against Kent State at 3:00 p.m. in the Wolstein Center.