— By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall’s women’s basketball program provided plenty of joy to Huntington last Saturday when the Thundering Herd notched a fifth victory in the WNIT and won the event by defeating Illinois State, 66-41, inside of a sold-out Cam Henderson Center.
Yet hours after confetti had fallen on to the hardwood and then be cleared from the venue as the lights dimmed, building for next season was on the mind of head coach Juli Fulks and her staff.
“We want to just keep building,” Fulks said. “We have a great group of coaches here and we just keep supporting each other. There was a reason I wanted to work at Marshall and it started with the people. This group will be a part of the foundation that we build and the high expectations we’ll continue to have.
“These seniors are going to be hard to replace, not just because of what they did on the floor, but what they were as leaders and how they conducted themselves in the community.”
The Herd reached new heights this season with a single-season program record 28 victories against nine defeats.
Marshall’s road to a WNIT Championship began with a home win against UMBC and was followed by a victory at Youngstown State. Fulks’ team was then significantly challenged by Army in Huntington, but blanked the Black Knights in the fourth quarter to overcome a minor deficit for an 82-65 win.
A 69-62 victory at Sun Belt member Arkansas State put Marshall in the final.
“We were really prepared for all we saw in the postseason because we saw it all in Sun Belt Conference play, where it was great guard or post play, pressing, rebounding,” Fulks said. “You can’t get through that conference without seeing it all as facing a grueling schedule so we felt good about our chances in the postseason. We also got healthy after limping into the Sun Belt tournament. You saw what we could do when we could run everybody out there and we finally got back to real rotations where we knew when we were subbing and what we were doing on offense and defense and that let us really thrive.”
Senior Timaya Lewis-Eutsey made the most of her first and only season at Marshall as she became the Herd all-time single-season scoring leader with 741 points, passing Karen Pelphrey’s record of 732 points in the 1985-86 campaign.
Lewis-Eutsey, the Sun Belt Conference Newcomer of the Year, also set a Marshall single-season record for steals with 141, including seven in the finale against the Redbirds on the way to being named WNIT Most Valuable Player.
Now begins what Fulks hopes is a reload.
Lewis-Eutsey is one of six seniors, a group that includes Peyton Ilderton, Meredith Maier, Blessing King, Aarionna Redman and TreShondra Williams.
That group accounted for an average of 47 points this season.
The Herd is also likely to lose junior guard Timberlynn Yeast, a contributor who announced her intention to enter the transfer portal earlier this week.
With numerous key pieces to replace, Marshall will look to add pieces in the portal as well as retain as many players as possible, including three that used this season to redshirt in Emily Bratton, Emari Doby and Zaenathia Stowers.
Guard Olivia Olson should be on track to be back at full strength next season after averaging 12.9 points and four rebounds as a true freshman. Olson suffered a season-ending knee injury that limited her to 16 games and no action beyond the opening week on January.
Prospective seniors Ni’Kiah Chesterfield and Layocha Marigney and junior Kassie Ingram could return to Huntington.
“Hopefully, we’ll keep doing what we did this season,” Fulks said, “and keep building this program to bigger and better things.”