Season Preview: Roster continuity has Women’s Basketball primed for more success in 2023-24

By Wes Mayberry

| 2023-24 Women's Basketball Schedule | 2023-24 Women's Basketball Roster |

ADA — Coming off a spectacular 2022-23 season, the Ohio Northern women's basketball team is primed to continue its run of success in 2023-24 under fourth-year head coach Mark Huelsman.

The 2022-23 season was filled with highlights, including Ohio Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament championships and a berth in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. The Polar Bears went 15-3 in OAC play and finished the year with a 25-5 overall record. The team was ranked as high as No. 10 in the D3hoops.com poll and No. 11 in the WBCA poll.

With 12 returning letter winners, including four key starters from a season ago, the Polar Bears are looking to pick up where they left off in March.

Leading the way for ONU again this season will be the trio of fifth-year senior Brynn Serbin (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny), senior Kristen Luersman (Fort Jennings) and junior Brooke Allen (Woodville/Woodmore).

A D3hoops.com First Team Preseason All-American this season, Serbin started all 30 games last season and averaged 14.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.7 steals per game. She ranked second in the OAC in scoring average and led the conference with 134 assists and 81 steals, both of which marked program records for a single season.

Serbin's play last season earned her numerous accolades. She was named a Second Team All-American and the Region 7 Player of the Year by D3hoops.com and was a WBCA NCAA Division III Coaches' All-American in addition to earning OAC superlative honors as the Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.

Serbin enters this season as ONU's all-time leader in career steals (223) and ranks third in program history with 295 career assists. She ranks fifth all-time with 132 made 3-pointers in her career.

Serbin is 13 points, 21 rebounds, 52 made field goals and five made free throws away from breaking into the top 20 of the program's all-time lists in those categories.

Luersman started all 30 games and averaged 10.9 points and 9.1 rebounds while posting 10 double-doubles last season. She tallied double-digit rebounds in 17 games en route to leading the OAC in rebounding average and earning All-OAC First Team honors. Her 273 total rebounds were just two shy of the program's single-season record.

Luersman enters her senior season with 474 career rebounds, which ranks 17th all-time at ONU.

Allen is coming off a sophomore season in which she earned All-OAC Second Team recognition after averaging 11.9 points and 5.5 rebounds in 30 games, including 29 starts.

She came up big in the Polar Bears' OAC Tournament run, posting a 16-point, 15-rebound effort against Otterbein and adding 20 points and seven rebounds in the championship win over Marietta. The 20 points and 15 rebounds both marked career highs.

The fourth starter returning this season is junior Abi Akamine (Lahaina, Hawaii/Lahainaluna). She started all 30 games a season ago, averaging 5.5 points and 2.5 rebounds while proving to be a leader on the defensive end of the floor.

Akamine made a buzzer-beating shot to give ONU a 53-51 win over Baldwin Wallace in a key OAC battle during the regular season and came up big with a career-high 14 points in the Polar Bears' NCAA Tournament win over Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Other key returners from last season include seniors Grace Dean (Avon/Lake) and Peyton Warnecke (Glandorf/Ottawa-Glandorf), juniors Jada Benjamin (Parma/Valley Forge), Layla Dials (Willard) and Abby Dickson (Germantown/Valley View) and sophomore Mackenzie Suprano (Cutler/Waterford).

Sophomores Kayly Fetters (Troy/Miami East) and Noelle Ruane (St. Marys) round out the list of returning letter winners.

This year's roster also includes sophomores Riley Heitkamp (Fort Loramie) and Liz Key (Liberty Township/Lakota West) and five freshmen.

The Polar Bears enter the season ranked No. 10 nationally in both the WBCA and D3hoops.com polls and will begin play on Nov. 10 at Wittenberg.

The team's home opener is Nov. 15 against Anderson (Ind.), and the non-conference slate also includes a home game against No. 13 Trine (Ind.) and a contest at Ohio Wesleyan. The highlight of the non-conference schedule is a two-game set against No. 6 Trinity (Tex.) and La Verne (Calif.) on Dec. 28-29 in Las Vegas, Nev., as part of the D3hoops.com Classic.

OAC play begins with a home game against John Carroll on Dec. 2 and ends with the regular-season finale at Muskingum on Feb. 17.

Fellow OAC schools Baldwin Wallace (No. 20) and Marietta (No. 22) are also ranked in the WBCA Preseason Poll and should prove to be key matchups.

The 2024 OAC Tournament is scheduled for Feb. 20-24.