Your future, our focus
COVID-19 shutdowns Hinder NWC Efforts Overall
With college classes suspended, college facilities closed and most high schools across the country also shuttered during the coronavirus lockdown, the recruiting process is a lot harder for Northwest College athletic coaches this spring.
But Camden Levett, coach of the Lady Trappers basketball team, managed to score a couple of successes before the CLOSED signs were nailed up.
Levett turned to Colorado and Utah — favorable recruiting territory in recent years — to find his first two scholarship signees to join the Lady Trappers in the fall of 2020. They are Shante Falslev from Green Canyon High School in North Logan, Utah, and Tatiana Coleman from Eaglecrest High School in Aurora, Colorado.
Levett said he is “about halfway there” in recruiting for the 2020-2021 season.
“Under the circumstances, that’s pretty good,” the coach said.
The obstacles presented by the COVID-19 restrictions have only added to the task, which basically comes down to computer contacts and working the phones.
“We’re not winning many of those head-to-head recruiting battles when we can’t get the kids to campus,” Levett said. “When we get them to Powell, they feel safe; they like the girls, they like the campus, they like the feeling and the environment.”
He is, however, pleased with the signings of Falslev and Coleman. Levett labeled each of the incoming players “great athletes.”
They will add to a nucleus of six returning freshmen from this year’s Lady Trapper team, which went 12-19 in Levett’s second season at the helm; the 12 wins tripled the victories from his inaugural year.
Falslev is a 5-foot, 11-inch guard who made second team all-valley in her Utah senior year and third team all-state. She earned all-state academic honors.
“Shante [Falslev] has a lot of length,” Levett said. “We look for her to get out in passing lanes and create for us off steals. She can also knock down open threes; she has a lot of range making threes well beyond the 3-point line.”
Don’t be surprised to see Coleman, at 5 feet, 9 inches, playing inside, said her coach. Coleman was a second team all-Centennial League selection at Aurora, Colorado.
“She may be undersized, but she’s never outworked,” said Levett. “She averaged over eight rebounds per game in the best league in Colorado, including a 17-rebound performance.”
Coleman will be a fan favorite “because of how hard she works, defends and rebounds,” Levett predicted.
The Lady Trappers will have a nucleus of six returning sophomores in 2020-21, including their two leading scorers in Adela Smutna and Samiyah Worrell and their All-Region 9 defensive star, Raquel Turner. They will have post players back in Riley Aiono and Lucy Tuigamala from Utah and help on the guard line from Jess Adkins of Bridger, Montana.
Levett will miss Kendall Wright of Greybull, who is moving on after her freshman year. There is also a question of whether Aubrie Stenerson of Powell will return for her sophomore season.
“The Wyoming kids take so many dual credit courses in high school they only need one year at a junior college before they transfer to a four-year school,” Levett said.