By: Tyler Zeman 

For The Yellow Jacket

For more coverage of the women’s basketball team, check out Tyler’s season preview on the WUDP YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlk9Es0u61c

The Waynesburg women’s basketball team will tip-off their winter season tonight at 7p.m. as they travel to Hiram to take on the Terriers. 

Head Coach Sam Jones had a productive offseason revamping the team as a whole, including bringing in five new freshman recruits to expand the roster to double digits this season.

“It was really important and honestly we are still looking for a few more and we are hoping to maybe pick up a couple through transfers at the Christmas break,” he said. “We would love to have a bigger roster because it makes practices better, it makes us better, and it gives us some more depth we are looking for.” 

After assistant coach Jess Vormelker stepped away at the conclusion of the spring season, Jones needed someone to fill the role and found that in Andrea Orlosky, one of Jones former players. 

“We needed an assistant coach and we were looking around and we were not finding what we were looking for, she fit the bill she lives close by now and obviously she knows our system and what we do,” Jones said. 

As for the players and Orlosky, both of them are getting used to the adjustment from Orlosky’s former role of teammate and friend to coach. 

“It is kind of weird because I have played with her the last three seasons so having her as that leader on the court and now off the court it is very different now,” senior player Kacey Kastroll said. “I have to remember that she just is not a friend anymore, that she is a coach. We are getting used to it, but is still really weird.” 

Despite the rough patches here and there, Orlosky has always considered coaching basketball after her time at Waynesburg, and when the opportunity was presented to her, she took it. 

“I thought about getting my masters and starting out as a graduate assistant for a basketball team, so to be an assistant coach and being above that is really awesome,” Orlosky said. 

Now with a bigger roster and a coach that has played in the system, the women look to improve on their 3-8 record from last year. 

They will have many opportunities to do this with a schedule that includes out of conference games, along with the President Athletic Conference schedule. 

The team is very young with only two seniors on the team in Kastroll and Brooke Fuller. 

However, Kastroll does not feel that it will have an effect on their success this season. 

“When I came into Waynesburg there were only two seniors on the team as well and it seems to be a repeating pattern ever since I was a freshman,” Kastroll said. “So it is not any different, but me and Brooke have gone through a lot while we have been here so I’m glad we can do this together.”

After the game against Hiram, the Lady Jackets will have an 11 day break before their first PAC game on Tuesday November 16th, when they host Case Western Reserve at 7p.m.