Sure, they are accustomed to playing on their home floor at Felton J. Capel Arena, where they will host Francis Marion at 5:30 p.m. to tip off the 2010-11 season. But after three preseason scrimmages on that same floor, Friday’s game will just be another date at Capel.
Well, aside from the fact that the new season is opening and the Lady Broncos will begin a new year against a heavyweight opponent – which comes a month after fellow CIAA coaches predicted that Fayetteville State would win the Southern Division.
“Last year, I inherited a veteran team that was hungry,” says Fayetteville State coach Eva Patterson-Heath. “But that was last year. We enjoyed all the hoopla of winning the championship. But again, that was last year. We appreciate the vote of confidence that our coaches have, to put the pressure on Fayetteville State again, but that team is in the past.
Francis Marion comes into the game fresh off a brilliant 2009-10 season in which the Lady Patriots finished the year 27-5 and second in the Peach Belt Conference. Like the Lady Broncos, Francis Marion reached the Division II Tournament, but advanced into the second round before falling 103-96 to Tusculum.
Despite losing three starters, the Lady Patriots return eight players to a team expected to compete again among the top teams on the PBC. Two-time All-PBC selection and two-time honorable mention All-American Shannon Singleton-Bates leads the FMU returnees. Singleton-Bates led the Patriots in scoring (16.0 ppg), while connecting on 47 percent of her field goal attempts, including 41.7 percent from 3-point distance. Senior point guard Robin Colbert, the 2010 PBC Defensive Player of the Year, also returns after averaging 8.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 3.7 steals per game (4th nationally) last year.
But the Lady Broncos have plenty of talent returning to their conference championship team as well. Preseason All-CIAA players Tiffany Haywood (Sr., Fayetteville, NC), the CIAA Tournament MVP a year ago, and LaQuasha Jordan (Jr., Greenville, NC) bring a wealth of inside-out firepower to a Fayetteville State team that welcomes eight new faces to the program this season.
Haywood led the team in 2009-10 in a variety of areas, averaging a double-double with an 11.3 ppg average and a 10.3 rpg average while starting 28 of the team’s 30 games. She will be rejoined in the starting lineup by Jordan, who also averaged in double-figures a year ago with 10.3 ppg and connected on a team-high 51 3-pointers last season. Also in the mix will be Tierra Coleman, who returns after seeing action in 29 of 30 games last year.
All of that said, whatever happens on Friday night will give the Lady Broncos a sense of where they are to start the season, and where they need to go.
“We are younger than we were last year,” Patterson-Heath says. “Now we have to make sure our recruits and the returning players understand the urgency needed to repeat 20 wins, a CIAA Championship as well as qualifying for the NCAA Tournament.”
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