Sept. 12, 2016
By ANNA PITINGOLO, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Lady Lions are back on campus and prepping for the season ahead of them after strong workouts this summer.
Under new NCAA rules, the team was allowed to practice as a whole over the summer, so from the end of June to mid-August, the Lady Lions were in the gym working out as a full squad.
"All summer we had full team practices and it didn't really matter that they were only an hour or two hours a week," said sophomore captain Sarah McMurtry. "We got a lot done, we worked on a lot of offense and transition and stuff like that. We got a lot faster and now we look faster moving up and down the court."
With most Penn State students home for break and with a smaller workload in the classroom, the players were able to focus strictly on basketball and improving upon last season.
"It's very different from the season, we don't lift as hard or do as much straight-up conditioning as we do in the season," McMurtry said. "Although the season was hard and long and time consuming, the summer's a little more strenuous on your body. Day-by-day it might seem long but all of a sudden six weeks are up and you did so much work all summer so it felt really productive."
The summer was also the first time that the Lady Lions were able to bring in and workout with the true freshmen. Jaida Travascio-Green and Siyeh Frazier were in State College for the second half of the summer to start getting acclimated with the team.
"Bringing in the freshman has been great because it's always nice to get new faces," said senior Peyton Whitted, also a team captain. "With Jaida and Siyeh they're very special because they've really taken in everything that we worked on this summer a lot faster than what you probably would think for a freshman. They work hard and they're going to help us a lot and I'm excited."
Travascio-Green and Frazier were able to learn and grow thanks to help from veteran players, who went out of their way to make the transition easier for them.
"It was definitely not as bad of a transition as I was expecting just because all of my teammates were really helpful about getting places and helping us get acquainted with everything," Travascio-Green said. "And at practice, [head coach Coquese Washington] and all the coaches were really helpful with making sure we knew what we're doing before we started."
Now that the fall semester has started, the team is back to its normal offseason procedures, balancing more credits with a stricter practice regiment. While it was great for the freshmen to get their toes wet in the summer, it's much different now with the added work.
"In the summertime versus the fall semester, the sidewalks weren't as crowded, it's super crowded now, but workouts were hard of course, but they helped us get accustomed really fast," Frazier said. "Now that the semester is started, it's been fine because we have study hall, so I usually do all my work there, and that helps so much."
The Lady Lions will continue their offseason routine in the coming weeks as they prepare for their season to open in November.