News and Events
[printer friendly version]posted on 4/26/05
Amy Siegel takes over women's basketball program
Saint Joseph's College athletic director Bill Massoels has announced the hiring of Amy Siegel as the seventh head women's basketball coach in the program's history.
Siegel, a native of Louisville, Ky., has spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Great Lakes Valley Conference rival Quincy University. She coached with the Lady Hawks from 1998-2001 before returning to Louisville to pursue a master's degree. During that time, she served as an assistant coach at Bellarmine University, another GLVC institution, for the 2001-02 season.
She returned to Quincy for the past two seasons, during which time the Lady Hawks went 53-14, won two GLVC championships and advanced to the Elite Eight round of the Division II NCAA Tournament in 2003-04.
She also played at Bellarmine from 1994-98, starting 93 of 110 games as the Lady Knights' point guard. She helped lead BU to an 82-30 record, the 1995-96 GLVC championship and two NCAA Tournament appearances. She was named to the All-GLVC First Team and the All-Great Lakes Region Second Team her senior year and currently ranks 10th all-time at Bellarmine in scoring (1,335 points) and fifth in assists (459).
Siegel earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from Bellarmine in 1998 and her master's degree in education from the University of Louisville in 2004.
"We are thrilled to welcome Amy to the Saint Joseph's College family," Massoels stated. "She was selected from a formidable group of candidates and we're excited to see her take our women's basketball program in a new direction."
Siegel inherits a team which finished the 2004-05 season with a record of 4-23, including a 3-17 GLVC record which placed the Lady Pumas 10th in the conference. SJC has not finished above the .500 mark since a 15-12 finish in the 1998-99 campaign.
However, she welcomes the challenge of returning the program to the elite status it held in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Lady Pumas posted 12 straight winning seasons and won or shared five GLVC titles.
"I'm very excited about the opportunity to come into a traditionally strong program like the one here at Saint Joseph's College," Siegel stated. "In the late 80's and early 90's, Saint Joseph's dominated the GLVC, so to have a chance to come and coach here in my first head coaching job is a real honor."
The Lady Pumas have 12 of their 13 letter winners returning from last season, which includes 73 percent of the team's scoring and 82 percent of its rebounding. Siegel believes this group is more than capable enough to get SJC back on track.
"There's a lot of potential in our group of returning players," she said. "They have a great deal of natural ability and they're very enthusiastic and eager to get started. They've definitely got what it takes to get things turned around. It's just a matter of maintaining that enthusiasm and working hard."
Siegel plans to employ an uptempo philosophy on both ends of the court in order to take full advantage of the strengths of her new team.
"We're definitely going to try and run and maintain a fast pace on the court," she explained. "We will stress defense first. With the numbers and athleticism we have coming back, we'll be pressuring the ball in full-court as well as half-court sets to force turnovers and score points in transition.
"As far as offense is concerned, we'll by trying to run as well so we can put our players in the best positions to score. There are some real scorers on this team who can put up points in a lot of different ways. Hopefully, this style of play will help us wear teams down, and it should also be entertaining to watch."
Siegel began taking charge of the program this week, and feels the welcome she has received thus far from the SJC community has been a warm one.
"It's a very friendly atmosphere here," she said. "I've always been a part of smaller-campus settings, and I can already tell it's a very close-knit, family-type environment. I'm excited to be a part of it."
