Going into this season, head women’s basketball coach Curt Fredrickson wasn’t thinking about defending the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference championship.

Who could blame him; it was simply to early at that time to gauge how a team with no senior starters and just one junior on the roster would do facing the rigors of a tough conference schedule. There were too many unanswered questions, like how to fill the shoes of eight experienced players lost with 13 incoming freshman; how the talented high school players he brought in would respond to the college game; how the young team would gel in trial by fire. Thinking about another conference title at the beginning of the year was simply putting the cart before the horse.

But as it turned out, Fredrickson’s young team met the challenges of each question, and what once seemed too far away came galloping into focus as NSU raced down the stretch of the conference season neck-and-neck with Minnesota-Duluth. Both teams finished the conference season 10-2, but NSU won by a nose via tiebreaker. The Wolves swept third-place NSIC team Minnesota-Morris, while the Bulldogs split 1-1.

NSU’s wild chariot ride continued into the post season in a matchup with Division II juggernaut North Dakota State. The Bison are the team of the 90’s, winning five of the last eight national championships, and going on a four-year run from 1993-96. Northern hadn’t faced NDSU since 1984, when the Bison won 54-44. But none of that seemed to matter when the teams squared off in the North Central Regional March 5. The Wolves defeated the Bison 76-73 behind strong performances from sophomore guard Jammie Coyle (20 points, seven rebounds), freshman small forward Memory Johannsen (14 points, six rebounds, three steals) and sophomore point guard Amanda Mikuska (14 points, four rebounds, three steals).

A day later, the Wolves met No. 2 seed Nebraska-Kearney. Despite 27 points from Coyle, the Wolves came up short in overtime 81-78. Coyle was named to the North Central Region tournament team.

Four of Northern’s starters won conference player of the week honors throughout the season. Mikuska, Johannsen, and Crystal Bonnichsen each won the award once, and Coyle won it twice. Coyle also won the league scoring title (18.8 ppg) and tied for the lead in steals (2.8 spg). Mikuska, ranked nationally in 3-pointers made per game, led the NSIC both 3-pointers made (38 during the conference season) and percentage from behind the arc (43.7). Bonnichsen finished second in conference rebounding. Bonnichsen, a Biology/Pre-Med. major was also a GTE Academic All-America District VII third-team selection.

NSU’s success in the North Central Regional made it clear that there is parity at the top between the three conferences in the North Central Region. And considering the winner of the North Central Regional has went on to win the national title seven of the last eight years and is on a six-year run, the youthful Wolves have nothing but success to look forward to.