Part of last Saturday’s Senior Day for ESU Basketball included honoring a history-making guard from Wichita appropriately named Tre’Zure Jobe. White Auditorium sported the largest crowd of the year to salute Tre’Zure and her three teammates plus four ESU men’s team players.
The crowd Saturday of twenty-three hundred and change reminded old timers like me of the glory days of Lady Hornet basketball and especially the late ’90s when Cindy Stein turned her Lady Hornet team over to Brandon Schneider her young whippersnapper assistant. Her stint had ended with a National Championship game appearance in 1998 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
This past Sunday Coach Brandon, now the head coach at KU, recorded his 500th victory as a college coach. His first 306 wins were at ESU!
With a lot of help from Don Weast I will take you on a trip down memory lane of Coach Brandon Schneider’s first year at Emporia State.
It’s 1998 and Brandon’s first starting lineup included:
Jurgita Kausaite the sister of Aneta both from Lithuania played for ESU the previous 2 years. Both were All-Americans and 4.0 students.
Emily Bloss would later become an NCAA D-II Player of the Year.
Jenifer Perine our spunky point guard.
Tuff as nails Ali Sprauge – now Mrs. Brandon Schneider
And Sarah Wells
Off the bench was another future NCAA D-II Player of the Year Tara Holloway who averaged 17.5 points per game!
A couple of reserves you might remember were: La’Tonya Kindle the little water bug guard.
Amanda Duncan who is now Amanda Cunningham, CEO of Cross Winds Mental Health locally.
And Deena Holloway, Tara’s little sis, Mary Denning, and Angela Smith.
This team won its first game, then lost to Hays before ripping off 14 straight victories before losing at Missouri Western. They won their next 15 games including defeating B’s dad’s West Texas team at White before 4037 delirious fans.
The 98-99 Lady Hornets then defeated Truman 110-93 for the Regional Championship.
Back to Pine Bluff for the Elite 8 where the Lady Hornets thumped Bentley 99-72 to advance to the Final 4 where North Dakota, the team that gave our ladies their only blemish the previous year awaited.
Brandon’s magical first season ended with an 87-81 loss.
Coach Schneider’s last game as the Lady Hornets’ head coach was the National Championship victory over Fort Lewis, Colorado in 2010.
Competition in the MIAA is the toughest in the country, but us older Hornet fans know what is possible. Let’s do it again!
I’m Steve Sauder, Stingers Up!
