GRAC Co-Champion Lady Warrior cagers (’96-97) headed into RLC Sports HOF
By Bob Kelley, Retired RLC Director of Marketing and Public Information
INA, IL (Apr. 24, 2023) – In coaching, as in all aspects of life, one never stops learning. Take former Lady Warrior Basketball Coach Ronnie Ressel, for example.
Ressel will be reunited with players off the second team he ever guided as a Head Coach, the 1996-97 Great Rivers Athletic Conference Co-Champions, for 22nd Induction Ceremonies into the Rend Lake College Sports Hall of Fame Saturday evening, April 29.
Credit a double-overtime, 78-75 triumph over perennial league leader and chief nemesis John A. Logan in the next-to-last game of the regular season for a major boost into HOF consideration. Thanks to that verdict, capping the Lady Warriors’ undefeated campaign at home (11-0), Ressel & Co. defeated JALC for the first-time and earned a share of its first and only Great Rivers Athletic Conference championship with an 11-3 slate.
The 27-year-old Head Coach first learned the importance of good team defense as a two-time First Team All-State performer and McDonald’s All-America nominee after directing Cape Girardeau Notre Dame to its first two Missouri Class 2A High School State Championships.
That was especially true when he transferred to Missouri Southern State University for his last two seasons as a collegiate player under Benton native Robert Corn (and later joined his coaching staff). “He really stressed how important a good, simple, sound defense could be. Defense is going to win you a lot of games; a good defense can always travel with you wherever you play, even when the offense isn’t ‘on’ and your shots aren’t going in as often as usual.”
Ressel has spent the past 17 years coaching at his alma mater, the first 11 with Corn; he was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2010-11. The last six seasons have been spent overseeing the MSSU Lion women.
What he did not realize was the mentality of one of the key members of that defensive-minded, well-balanced squad which was not afraid to share the ball, either. He learned this when two of those former players came to see his MSSU team play recently.
“She was telling me how much she disliked any team or opposing player she was playing against at the time. She said she would probably throw an elbow if she had to if it meant getting a rebound or helping her team win. I knew she always played hard and was tough, but I didn’t realize she had that mind-set. But I knew she was a competitor.”
Back to the beginning.
“The first couple of years, especially, most of the players were local, from Southern Illinois. But to be honest, with my recruiting skills back then, I don’t know how I got any of them,” Ressel reminisced.
Sophomores Andrea Maurer (Bluford / Webber Township High School), a 5-foot-10 forward, Terri Henken (Germantown / Breese Mater Dei H.S.), a 5-5 playmaker, and Jenny Higgerson (Sparta), a 5-11 center, were all named All-Region XXIV and All-GRAC. Maurer had earned similar honors as a freshman, when Higgerson joined her as an All-Conference pick.
Other returnees from an 18-11 squad that also posted a winning record in the GRAC at 8-6, tied for third, were 5-9 forward Kathryn Calhoun (Carbondale), 5-9 guard-forward Andrea McMahan (Mt. Vernon / Webber Township H.S.) and 5-7 guard Deitt Kania (Nashville).
Newcomers in ’96-97 included inside strength with 5-11 Anna Banks (Harrisburg), 6-foot Sharna Withrow (Wayne City) and 5-11 Dee Wildermuth, along with 5-3 guard Amanda Dixon (Benton).
Similar to the mentality that goes along with being a defensive-minded player, there was a theme among the teammates . . .
“They were all good quality kids who played hard and really competed. For me, that is a big deal,” said a coach who was named Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association “Coach of the Year” a year ago and led the Lion women to their first-ever MIAA Tournament championship with a 29-7 this past winter, his sixth at the helm.
“I think they were just a bunch who played extremely hard on defense and took care of the basketball. We had enough players coming back to provide the leadership a team needs, also,” Ressel said.
“One of my favorite competitors I have ever coached was Terri Henken. She absolutely hated to lose; we had a lot of kids like that. How well they played together as a team was important, also. They worked hard and continued to get better.
“Once they got that confidence, they felt like we could play with any team on our schedule. And we did.”
The ’96-97 Lady Warriors lost two games in a row only twice. RLC won the four-team Florissant Valley Classic in St. Louis to start the HOF season, lost in overtime at Lincoln, then rattled off five victories in a row to start 7-1. Four-game winning streaks occured three more times, the last of which reached a crescendo in the nail-biting contest against visiting John A. Logan, which would go on to place eighth in the National Junior College Athletic Association Finals.
“I can still see Andrea Maurer making that game-wining shot, a 15-footer from the left side of the wing; it was not an easy shot either, I can tell you that,” Ressel said, smiling no doubt.
Recalled the mentor 26 years later, “I am not going to tell you it was the most talented team I ever had, by any means. But it was just a good mix of players. They did a lot of different things well, both offensively and defensively. And they put it all together to help us win a lot of ballgames.
“Terri, like I said, was a hard-nosed competitor. She ran the show for us. She wanted to win so bad she was always making sure people around her were doing what they were supposed to do. She was not afraid of telling her teammates, but she did it in the right way.”
Higgerson, he noted, “did a little bit of everything around the basket for us. She was another competitor; she just played all the time and never let up. Jenny was hard-nosed like Terri.” Higgerson also was recognized for her performance in the classroom as an Academic All-American.
Maurer “was a young lady who just found a way to score. She was not the most athletic, but she was extrely deceptive in getting open shots. There’s another one who just wanted to win, whatever it took.”
Ressel had to chuckle when he thought of a game involving the fourth player who commanded a large portion of the playing time, freshman Banks. “We had a play designed specifically for Anna, and we ran it five consecutive times down the floor one game. She scored the first four times before she finally missed.”
Then there were:
McMahan “just competed and played hard all the time. And she could knock down a shot when you needed her to the most.”
Kania “played her tail off all the time. She was one of our quickest kids. On defense, she would really get out and guard you.”
Withrow “was another who liked to compete. She was a lanky kid with lots of length. With her long legs and arms, she played more like she was 6-2.”
Wildermuth “just competed, like so many on that team. She was another who made a big difference in how successful we were.”
“So many players want to score and be flashy, so the defensive side is not as important to them. But you have got to be able to guard. You have got to be able to get stops and rebound the basketball. That is what made this group so good and so enjoyable to coach,” Ressel added.
Statistically speaking, Higgerson led at 15.2 ppg and 7.0 rpg, with Maurer checking in at 12.4 and 5.9, respectively, followed by Banks at 12.0 / 5.7 and Henken at 10.8 / 4.9. Withrow contributed 4.8 and 4.2.
Henken set a single-season school record with her 209 assists, but it was Maurer who established another assist record with 15 vs. Southeastern Illinois. Henken averaged 7.0 handouts, Maurer 6.7 and McMahan 2.9.
The collective defensive effort molded by Ressel and Assistant Coach Jason Thrash was equally impressive, if not more so. Fifteen foes failed to reach that record-low yield of 59.7 points per game, including half of their GRAC victims. Another team record came with a total of 639 assists (20.6 average).
RLC’s newest Hall of Fame squad was 4-1 in overtime tilts, including three games in succession late capped by the hard-earned Logan decision, and won three other games by three points or fewer.
Higgerson and Maurer continued their collegiate careers as teammates at Central Missouri State University (now University of Central Missouri). Henken also headed to the Show-Me State to play for Hannibal-LaGrange College, as did Banks a year later at Missouri Baptist College. Withrow stayed in-state by signing with Millikin University.
The 27-year-old Ressel had been named GRAC “Coach of the Year” by his peers the previous campaign after taking the reins from the legendary Jim Waugh. He had been the Men’s Basketball Assistant for three years prior to making the move and leading his first charges to an 18-11 record and third-place league finish at 8-6 (tied). In seven seasons with the Lady Warriors, the Missouri native compiled a 118-95 record (.554), including a 20-10 showing in 1999-2000.
The RLC Sports Hall of Fame Ceremony will not be the first for Ressel. He was an Assistant Coach when the 1995-96 Lady Warrior Softball Team claimed Region XXIV honors and advanced to the National Junior College Athletic Association National Fast-Pitch Tournament. The 46-21 powerhouse that finished ninth overall in the finals entered the Hall in the Class of Fall 2009.
Welcome back, Ronnie, accompanied once again by his seasons-long “Road Warriors,” wife Pamela and 22-year-old son, Kristopher.
Thrash recently returned to the Southern Illinois coaching ranks as the Girls Basketball Head Coach at West Frankfort for the 2022-23 season. .
Others to be inducted in the Class of 2023 . . .
Stacy Sturm, who was two seasons removed from helping the McLeansboro Foxes capture the Illinois High School Association Class A State Championship with an undefeated record when he brought his proven winning ways on the hardwood to the Ina campus. A season-ending injury five games into Year Two extended his RLC career from 1985-86 through 1987-88.
The 6-foot-4, 185-pound forward was All-Region XXIV First Team, All-GRAC, All-Region Tournament and NJCAA All-America Honorable Mention after averaging 16.0 ppg and team-highs of 9.7 rpg and 4.8 assists.
His career total of 906 points in 69 games played ranked No. 7 at the time, and his single-season total of 497 as a sophomore was 10th best among all Warriors.
Golfer J R Conkle, an all-around athlete from Rosiclare (Hardin County High School), who capped his Warrior career on the links with Second-Team All-America status for a well-balanced squad that won nine of 12 tournaments before settling for a third-place showing in the Spring 1996 NJCAA Division II Finals.
Conkle was medalist by two strokes as a freshman in the Fall ’93 Lincoln Invitational, which attracted 16 teams. He would move on to a career at Murray (KY) State, where he finished second in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament in his collegiate swansong.