The Lake Land College Lady Lakers women’s basketball team finished the 2023-24 season with a 25-10 record with a 71.4% winning percentage. The Lady Lakers were 10-4 in the conference, 11-4 at home, 12-5 on the road and 2-1 in neutral site games.
They were pretty consistent throughout the season with winning streak of four, five and six games and never has lost more than two consecutive games at any point during the season.
Their biggest highlight of the season came during the Cougar Holiday Tournament at East Peoria on the Black Hawk College campus when the Lady Lakers upset the two-time defending champions, Kirkwood Community College Lady Eagles, 64-62, giving the Lady Eagles one of two losses this season.
Despite losing to the Lincoln Land College Lady Loggers in the conference tournament semi-finals by the score of 62-50 at the Cass Gym in Springfield on Sat., Mar. 9, the Lady Lakers still qualified for the national tournament in Joplin, Missouri.
In the first round of the national tournament, the Lady Lakers defeated the Jackson College Lady Jets by the score of 80-70. In the second round the Lady Lakers fell in a rematch to Kirkwood Community College by the score of 90-69.
Kirkwood who would later win its third consecutive women’s basketball championship. The Lady Lakers will lose their final game of the season to the Harcum College Lady Bears, 65-58 in the 7th place quarterfinals.
The Lady Lakers are led by Coach Doug Johnson, who completed his 25th season on the helm. Under his direction, the Lady Lakers have had numerous winning seasons, top 25 rankings, and average 21 wins per season. Most recently, the Lady Lakers took home the NJCAA DII National Championship in 2021.
According to Coach Johnson, for this season the strengths of the team entails “we were pretty strong with the freshmen contributing at a high level. At various times during the season, we were starting three or four freshmen each game. Our top four scores (Sydney Richards, 11.8; Katelyn Littleton, 11.5; Audri Spencer, 11.2 and Kaylee Niebrugge, 10.2 points/game) were freshmen.
In regards to weaknesses for the Lady Lakers, Johnson mentioned “We did not play as fast as we needed to be at various times during the season. One of our biggest issues this season is that we did not get enough easy points in transition.”
Let’s hope the Lady Lakers, especially with the freshmen coming back their second year to improve and make it to the national championship and win it for the first time since 2021.
