Women's Basketball Season Preview

Big shoes to fill.

That's the situation for both the ACC women's basketball players this season and first-year head coach Brandon Humphrey.

The Lumberjacks lost the services of Jade Schultz, last season's MCCAA Northern Conference Co-Player of the Year and ACC's all-time leading scorer, as well as coach Cindy DeRocher, who retired from coaching after a stellar playing and coaching career.

Humphrey comes to Alpena from the Kalamazoo area where he was varsity basketball coach at Portage Northern. He brought with him as top assistant, Josh Holman, another experienced varsity coach at the high school level who was most recently head coach at Three Rivers. Both are graduates of Western Michigan University.

"The team fights hard and competes night in and night out," Holman said. "Each day this group has shown up with a 'never back down' mentality and a willingness to work hard. Their ability to learn a new system and adapt to any and all adversity that has come their way has been nothing short of impressive."

ACC returns four players who played significant minutes for last season's 7-14 squad. Makayla Kamyszek (Posen) averaged nine points and five rebounds a game. Allie Urlaub (Alpena) scored 6.5 points a game. Shaelyn Lampinen (Rock) and Paige Wooden (Stockbridge) played 15 and 11 minutes per game respectively.

The Lumberjacks also will feature two transfers – Alyvia Groh (Petoskey) who played at North Central Michigan College last season, and Bryce Roy (Traverse City) who played at Kirtland CC.

The incoming freshman include Emily Jackson (Saginaw), Isabella Franklin (Pickford) and Carmen Dellar (Harrisville). Kenna Tippman (Venice, FL) and Elizabeth Romel (Posen) recently joined the team after finishing fall softball.

Holman noted that toughness, togetherness and grit would be the keys to success for ACC this season.

"With an undersized squad, we are looking to play a fast, up-tempo style of play," Holman said. "We want to get after it while playing hard and tough together."

The Lumberjacks open the 2022-23 season tomorrow, Nov. 3 in the Bay College Tip-Off Classic against the College of Lake County (IL).