Santa Fe Women’s Hoops Hoping For Another Step Forward This Season

Every single season, there is going to be turnover. Doesn’t matter the sport. Doesn’t matter the team. And this year’s women’s basketball team for Santa Fe College is no different.

Only four players will return from last season’s squad. Of the 15 players that make up the roster, nine are freshman.

Santa Fe Saints Women’s Basketball head coach Chanda Stebbins breaks down the roster turnover.

Building off Last Season

Despite the lack of experience, the Saints will look to get even better than they were last season. They finished with a 20-8 record, including a 8-1 conference record. It was a considerable jump from their 17-13 record the year prior, also finishing with a 6-3 conference record in that 2017-18 season.

Not only that, Santa Fe also won the Mid-Florida Conference championship. Even with that success, Santa Fe fell short last year, losing in the district tournament at the hands of the Northwest Florida State Raiders by a score of 68-36.

Despite the disappointing end, Santa Fe has aspirations of making it back to the district tournament and beyond. While only four players may be returning from last season’s team, the top-scoring freshman on the team last year, Chardell Jones, is one of those players. She averaged 10 points a game and will look to top that this year in a bigger role as a sophomore.

Stebbins shares her expectations for this year’s team.

Biggest Advantage for Santa Fe

What’s going for Santa Fe though is that their head coach, Chanda Stebbins, more than makes up for the lack of experience on the team. Stebbins is entering her 18th season as head coach of the Saints. In those 18 seasons, she has captured five Mid-Florida conference titles as well as making the state/regional tournament 11 times.

So while last season didn’t end the way Santa Fe wanted it too, look for the head coach to push them to new heights this year.

The Saints start the 2019-20 season Friday on the road at South Georgia Technical College