Franklin College sophomore Jordan Coon was the HCAC Newcomer of the Year last winter.
Submitted photo | Chad Williams
Jessica Darmelio spent most of her coaching career at public high schools, where you don’t get to pick the players on your roster. Hired at Franklin College less than two months before training camp opened last season, she found herself in familiar territory.
“Being a high school coach, you just have to adapt to what you have or what’s coming up in your feeder program, and that’s kind of how I felt last year,” she said. “Just kind of adapt to what we could do. But it’s pretty cool to see, when you go out and recruit a certain shooter or an athletic positionless player, how that fits more seamlessly into the things I have in mind in terms of how we want to function.”
As she enters her second year with the Grizzlies, Darmelio feels a lot more like a college coach is supposed to. The 11 newcomers on the roster were chosen by her and were bought in to her system before they arrived. Additionally, those who are back from last winter have adjusted too.
“I’ve been really pleasantly surprised with a lot of our upperclassman returners in terms of how they’ve kind of shifted,” Darmelio said. “You can see a difference in their mindset, a difference in their level of conditioning and just their overall mindset.”
Those differences have the coach setting a much higher bar heading into tonight’s season opener at Spurlock Center against St. Mary’s. The Grizzlies landed in a fifth-place tie in the HCAC’s preseason coaches poll, but Darmelio is pretty optimistic about the chances of outpacing that projection.
Aside from defending NCAA Division III national champion Transylvania, which returns most of its top players after a 33-0 season, she sees the league as wide open and hopes her players do as well. A late-season slide kept Franklin out of the conference tournament last season; Darmelio expects a different finish this time.
“We want to improve our standing,” she said. “We want to beat some of those teams who are slated to potentially finish second or third, steal a game from them, stuff like that. As the season progresses, I think we can be competitive with everybody in the conference.”
The Grizzlies certainly have a nice balance of experience and new blood to draw from.
Senior post CiCi Bailey, the team’s leading rebounder in each of the last two seasons with more than eight per game, has emerged during the preseason as someone who could become a go-to player.
“She did some good stuff last year, but her total mindset just seems to be — she’s in a different place this year,” Darmelio said of the left-hander. “She just seems to be taking over possessions and speaking up and becoming more of a leader in practice and in games. I think she feels that ‘this is my last year’ kind of thing, let’s go for it — and everybody else around her can feel that.”
While Bailey will provide a strong presence in the post, Franklin also has some promise on the perimeter in the form of sophomore guard Jordan Coon, who was named the HCAC Newcomer of the Year last season. The former Castle standout was the team’s top scorer last year at 10.7 points a game.
Darmelio also expects big contributions from junior transfer Brooke Grinstead and from junior Taylor Cooney (7.7 ppg); both, she feels, should thrive as everyone adapts to their coach’s preferred style — one that wasn’t really on display last winter.
“I just felt like our decision-making in a faster-paced game wasn’t where it should be, so we’ve really worked on that kind of thing,” Darmelio said. “We’ve really worked on putting players in different situations to be able to score or create for a teammate rather than just — kind of robotic, is how I felt like we played last year.”
How much different the standings look at season’s end remains unknown, but the day-to-day vibe at Spurlock is night and day — and with five players already committed for next year’s team, Darmelio feels the momentum building. She and her team are eager to get on the floor and see where it takes them.
“We’re just ready to let loose, she said.”
SCOUTING THE GRIZZLIES
Coach: Jessica Darmelio
Last season: 8-15 overall, 7-11 HCAC
Key returnees: CiCi Bailey, senior; Maddie Barnes, Taylor Cooney, Georgia Hanauer, Megan Kain and Jenna Louden, juniors; Lauryn Bates, Kate Breeden, Braylyn Clendenen and Jordan Coon, sophomores
Top newcomers: Brooke Grinstead, junior; Briley Munchel, Payton Seay and Hannah Stutsman, freshmen
Outlook: Having had a full offseason and the chance to bring in her first full recruiting class, Darmelio is excited about the direction that the Grizzlies are headed in. The team’s top four scorers from last season are all back, with Coon and Bailey expected to again set the tone outside and in. Grinstead, a transfer from Newberry College, is also expected to make an impact; juniors Louden and Barnes filled out the starting lineup in last week’s exhibition game at Butler, but Darmelio said that several freshmen will push for minutes and hopefully raise the collective bar in the process. Cooney is among those expected to take on a bigger role this winter.
Winning an HCAC championship is not a particularly realistic goal with the reigning national champion (Transylvania) bringing back the bulk of its lineup, but Darmelio believes anything below that is up for grabs and that her team can compete with everyone else in the conference. Finishing in the top half of the standings and at least getting to the league tourney both feel attainable.
