Mslacat
Well-known member
It's nice to see a girl from Montana find a situation she fees comfortable in and excell
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2006/11/20/news/sports/local/124256.txt
Villegas at home at U-Mary
By KERRY COLLINS
Bismarck Tribune
A laugh or a smile is never too far away for Corrie Villegas, and the University of Mary senior isn't shy about sharing either with anybody.
Villegas has a lot to smile about these days, as she will be the go-to girl for U-Mary this season - and she's finally found a home on the basketball court.
"I love it here. I love the atmosphere and this team," said Villegas, who is entering her second year with the Marauders. "This has been a pretty good fit for me.
"What we play here works almost way too well for me," she added with a laugh.
Villegas and the Marauders get the season underway on Tuesday when they host Jamestown College.
It's been a long trip for Villegas, who hails from Polson, Mont.
The 6-foot-2 forward started her collegiate career at the University of Montana, where she played sparingly her freshman year and redshirted her sophomore year.
Then she transferred to Si Tanka-Huron in South Dakota for a season.
On the court, Villegas was great, averaging 13.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.
But everything else was a disaster at the disorganized institution.
"It's like a repressed memory - something I would just like to forget about,"Villegas said. "I was there for a year, and we had two coaches. The first one ran off with the booster money and the second one was a weight training coach.
"And the school was always close to bankruptcy, so you never knew what was going to happen,"she added. "It was just a horrible program."
The experience in Huron had Villegas contemplating just quitting basketball and finishing up her degree.
But she opted to transfer, narrowing her choices to U-Mary or Carroll College in Helena, Mont.
The run-and-gun style of play by coach Fred Fridley was too attractive to pass up, and Villegas enrolled at the Bismarck school.
"I don't know if the other places she has been played to her strengths the way our style of play does," Fridley said. "She flourished last year and gained a lot of confidence."
Villegas averaged 16.0 points and 6.5 rebounds while giving the Marauders a great offensive weapon last year, despite playing with broken ribs for the last 2½ months of the season.
She also hit 44 percent of her shots from 3-point range and 83 percent of her free throws.
"They way we play here - going fast, back and forth up and down the court - that's my style,"Villegas said. "Once I saw how they did things here, it was like, 'Just tell me where to sign.' And it's been a good thing for me so far."
Villegas is the leading scorer from last year's team, which went 21-8, and is the only senior with legitimate game experience back on the youthful Marauders roster. Fridley said that U-Mary will likely be relying heavily on Villegas, especially early in the season.
"We are young, and Corrie is going to have to take a lot of the burden on offense," Fridley said. "But it's easy to put the burden on her because of the type of player she is."
At 6-2 and with a deadly 3-point shot, Villegas is a tough player for anybody to guard. Last season, Villegas relied on the perimeter shot more than her post play,due largely to the broken ribs. But she said she'll be mixing up the inside-outside game a lot more this season.
"I'm worked more on the post game, and I need more of that to be there,"Villegas said. "I knew coming into this season that I would have to go to that more often.
"I'm 6-2, but I'm not very big,"she laughed. "I'll just have to do what I can down there."
Fridley said Villegas' improved low-post game makes her a difficult assignment for any defender.
"She's a very difficult matchup because she can do a lot of different things,"Fridley said. "If you put somebody big on her, we can put her outside. If you go small on her, we'll put her in the post.
"She made big strides last year on the perimeter, and she's improved now in the post,"he added. "That makes her extremely difficult to defend."
U-Mary lost the likes of Andrea Ronderos, Nicole Meier and Kara McGuinness to graduation, meaning some of the youngsters will have to step up offensively.
Enter the likes of Kayla Rogers, Brittany Geffre and Sonny Schulz.
Fargo Shanley's Geffre and Watford City's Schulz are coming off redshirt seasons after both had excellent high-school careers.
Rogers was a 1,000-point scorer for Mandan and will be expected to step in and hit shots right away for U-Mary.
"We're young, but this is as good an offense as we've had here, I think,"Fridley said. "We brought in people like Kayla Rogers, and Brittany and Sonny are very good. We just don't have that experience."
Juniors Kristin Bear and Ashley Fridley are also back, giving U-Mary some experience, but those two are more role players than big scorers.
More than anybody's offense, the Marauders will miss Ronderos' defense more than anything.
Ronderos was a two-time DAC defensive player of the year, and was phenomenal last season, when the Marauders were without a conference during their transition from NAIAto NCAADivision II.
"We won't have that stopper that we have had in Andrea,"Fridley said. "We used to just tell her to shut down the opposing team's best player, and she would just do it. That stopper is a thing that we need to find."
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2006/11/20/news/sports/local/124256.txt
