PNW women’s basketball begins the 2016-2017 season on Oct. 28 against St. Joseph’s Col­lege.

Nine members from the 2015- 2016 season of PNW women’s basketball team will be return­ing, including Cassidy Deno, senior, and Darien Thompson, senior. Deno was the leading scorer and led the team in as­sists last season. Thompson was fourth on the team in scor­ing and second on the team in assists. The team has also ac­quired new freshmen players, Shae Rhonehouse, Skylar Os­trowski, and Baylee Goodman.

The PNW women’s basket­ball team has won 20 or more games in each of the past five seasons and has been ranked as high as second in the Chi­cagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference.

Tom Megyesi, head coach, said that he plans to emphasize the same training and practice methods as the previous sea­sons.

“Hopefully we’ll win the conference and qualify for the national tournament,” Megye­si said. “We try to win every game and hope to advance as far as possible in the post-sea­son.”

PNW women’s basketball held a 22-9 overall record and a 13-6 conference record last season. In the 2015-2016 sea­son, they advanced to the Chi­cagoland Colligate Athletic Conference tournament, where they lost to Olive Nazarene University in the quarterfinals. PNW women’s basketball later qualified for National Associa­tion of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II tournament, where they lost 69-73 to Mount Marty in the first round of the tourna­ment.

Megyesi said that the team began organized practices on Sept. 19 and have since been working toward bettering themselves and perfecting of­fense and defensive schemes.

“I have a calendar that I fill out at the beginning of the season, and every week I add what we need to work on to be prepared for the first game,” Megyesi said.

Heather Burton, sophomore elementary education major, said that the team has tried new conditioning techniques this season and that the play­ers are focused on improving every day.

“This year for preseason con­ditioning, we did CrossFit and we are still continuing to go a couple times during the week,” Burton said. “I think as a team we are in better basketball shape coming into the season.”

Megyesi said that he tries to prepare the team the best he can and emphasizes adequate preparation as a philosophy for both athletics and academ­ics.

“After our games, we address our weaknesses and look over our goals and try to be better prepared for the next game,” Megyesi said.