GCU Women's Basketball has special day with alumns

Saturday's inaugural GCU Women's Basketball Alumni Game gave future games a high standard to live up to.

At Antelope Gymnasium, GCU's current team welcomed a large group of former standouts with a friendly exhibition game, and then treated the opposition and fans to a chili dinner, catered by Bobby-Q.

"It was really a special day for our program," said GCU head coach Trent May. For an inaugural game, we had a great turnout. For sure, we will do this annually."

GCU beat its former teammates and predecessors 78-42.

The alums were coached by Craig Wiginton, who led GCU to a 23-4 record in 2006-07, still the winningest season in school history. It was the first of the program's three straight PacWest titles, May coached the next two.

The alums included 2010 grads Stacy Haddow, Ashley Hardin and Shareka Purnell. Jennifer Cobb, one of the program's three 1,000-point scorers, 1997 CCAA Player of the Year Candice (Forsgren) Gonzales and former Division II Independent All-Americans Brandi Steinke (2006) and Kelly McRee (2005) were among the alums in action.

For the 2010-11 team, it was also a day to get better prepared for the upcoming regular season.

"The more we play together, the better we come along," said senior guard Rosalyn Nelson (Phoenix, AZ, Deer Valley), who is in the 1,000 club with Cobb and the program's all-time leader, senior guard Samantha Murphy (Phoenix, AZ, Xavier Prep). "This was good practice for us."

Murphy couldn't add her game-high 16 points to her 1,361, but she echoed the remarks on the productive day.

"I love our team chemistry and our depth," she said. "When we go to our bench, there's not a lot of drop off.

Off the bench, freshman Maylinn Smith (Gilbert, Ariz., Mesquite) -- who was coached in high school by Candice (Forsgren) Gonzales at Gilbert Mesquite, had 13 points, including 7-for-7 at the free-throw line. Sophomore Jazmyn Foster (Phoenix, Ariz., Thunderbird, New Mexico State) had 11 points.

For the alums, Steinke, Joey White, from the 06-07 team, and Erin Yiakos, who was on the 2004 NCAA tournament team, each had eight points.