Before their season starts, Seattle Pacific University’s women’s basketball team will play two of the toughest teams on the West Coast. They will face off against the University of Washington, a top Division I team, on Oct. 30 and Pacific University Oregon, a top Division III, on Nov. 3 in exhibition matches.

Following these exhibitions, the Falcons will compete in the West Region Crossover Classic from Nov. 10 to Nov. 11 against California State University Los Angeles and California State University Dominguez Hills. They will then compete in the Cougar Classic from Nov. 17 to Nov. 18 against Azusa Pacific University and California State University San Marcos. 

All four of these teams competed in the 2022-2023 NCAA championship tournament with Cal State Dominguez Hills reaching the semi-finals. 

Head Coach Mike Simonson said the scheduling of these games was intentional in that it was meant to give the team as much experience as possible before the season.

“[We have] probably one of the toughest schedules to start a season in the country,” Simonson said. “We are doing those two top exhibitions [against] a Division I school and a really good Division III to get good experience [and] to shake off some of the rust, because the first four games in those two classics we have [are against] teams who went to the NCAA tournament last year, and they bring back most of their teams.” 

Simonson shared that the team needs the experience if they are going to reach their end-of-the-season goal.

“We have aspirations to go to the NCAA tournament at the end of the year, so we want to figure out what that takes right from the get-go. We have a lot of talent [but] I do think we’re a little young,” Simonson said. “We need to gain experience quickly…We can only throw so much at them in practice. Until you get in those [win-lose] situations in games, you really don’t know what it takes.”

Junior center Schuyler Berry, a global development and Spanish language studies double major, believes the team will be ready for the challenge.

“We have a tough schedule ahead of us, and we’re looking forward to the competition. We start off with UW, and they’re a big D-I team, they’re good, they’re strong, but I think that we’re going to be ready. It’ll set us up well for our regular season games,” Berry said. “In comparison to years passed, I think we’re in a lot better shape. We’ve been challenging each other in practice, we’ve got some good new players, [and] we’ve got a strong core team of returners.”

Hunter Beirne, a fifth-year guard and graduate philosophy, politics, and economics student, hopes these first few games will set the team in the right direction for what they need to improve, especially in regard to the team’s first-years.

“We are a young team this year. It takes time to build [enough] chemistry [to learn] how to play with new people. I think the freshmen have done a really, really good job of picking up the offense, picking up the defense, and transitioning from high school level to college level play,” Beirne said. “When we play our first game, I think we’re really going to see where we need to work more to bring all of our understanding to the same place.”

Simonson’s faith in the team remains behind their defense; however, he hopes for the team to improve on offense.

“I believe that [defense] is always going to be our identity [but] all off-season has been [to] improve as a shooting team,” Simonson said. “I really believe if we improved our shooting percentage just a little bit last year, we probably would have won [more] games.”

Berry commented on how the team has been focusing on and improving their offense.

“In the years passed, we’ve struggled at the three-point line. I don’t think we had bad shooters by any means, I just think we had some tough luck with three-point shooting,” Berry said. “We have some really good shooters this year, and we’ve been working on that weakness [with] a lot more emphasis.”

Additionally, Simonson hopes to take advantage of SPU’s upcoming month-long winter break to advance the team’s morale and skill improvement.

“The winter break is a coach’s dream because then we get them for just basketball only and that’s their main focus. We have probably our most productive practices during the month of December,” Simonson said. “My hope is that when we get to that point, we can really take our games to the next level.”

In chasing their NCAA goals, Beirne sees the team’s competitive mentality as their greatest edge.

“We have the most competitive team that we’ve had, so when things get tough or we get tired, that competitive edge puts us ahead of our opponents,” Beirne said. “We can push ahead and be gritty on defense and hope that our energy takes over when everybody’s getting tired.”

Chasing a tournament or championship title is a long, rough road, and the women’s basketball team realizes that. They also realize the most important thing is to embrace the journey.

“I’m excited for this year. I really like the girls, and I love our coaches. I’m looking forward to getting a lot of wins this year,” Beirne said.