Despite season ending injuries to four key players and two new faces on the team, the SDSU women’s basketball team is still on top of the Summit League.
The Jackrabbits spent last week beating the University of Denver and the University of St. Thomas moving them to 22-5 overall and 14-0 in the Summit League. These victories pushed them to clinch a shar of the the Summit League Regular Season Championship.
That kind of success didn’t seem possible the first two weeks of November. That’s because the women’s basketball team knew they had to look for more players to round out the team. Tori Tollefson, playing 62 minutes on the season with 11 points, and Isabel Aesoph, playing 23 minutes and adding 3 points on the season, became those missing players.
“We were looking at only having seven available players for our game versus Wisconsin and we just thought that seven players weren’t enough, we needed an eighth or a ninth player on our bench in case we were to get into foul trouble,” said assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Sadie Thramer.
Head coach Aaron Johnston likes to have 12 to 14 women on the roster and this season he landed at 12. But by September he already had two players go down with season ending injuries.
“Then we had another player go down right before the season started and that’s when we started the process of thinking we might need to add some people here,” Johnston said.
Tollefson and Aesoph ended up being the answer to the thinning roster, becoming walk-ons. It’s only the second time this has happened in Johnston’s 24-years as coach.
The coaching staff began their search by asking other coaches if they had any athletes willing to help them out this season. Thramer expanded their search to Hudl, online film, and past all-state honors in South Dakota and other surrounding states to find anyone that was on campus and willing to help out their team.
“We had seen Tori play when she was in high school so we kind of knew what she was capable of,” said Thramer. “And Isabel on film looked like she was capable of helping us on the court.”
Tollefson, a standout high school softball and basketball player from Chanhassen, Minnesota, was ready to start her senior year for the SDSU softball team when her coach, proposed a new opportunity to also play for the basketball team.
“Right away for sure I was like absolutely I want to do this,” Tollefson said. “I always loved basketball, but I loved softball too. I obviously choose softball first, but I definitely missed playing basketball and not everyone can say they got that unique opportunity.”
Aesoph agreed “It was a lifetime opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.”
Tollefson knew when accepting the offer that it was going to be intense to play two Division 1 sports. She knew the demands of practicing, watching film, lifting weights and traveling wouldn’t be easy.
“I knew how successful they were and how well they play together but it was a shock going into a Division 1 college basketball team after only playing mid-level high school basketball three years ago,” Tollefson said.
Aesoph played sports at Faulkton High School but never considered playing college basketball because her focus was more on volleyball. She began this year as a typical sophomore student but soon added Division 1 athlete to her resume.
After watching film on Aesoph, Thramer messaged her on Instagram and the process moved quickly after that.
“These two really stuck out to us as competitors,” Thramer said. “They aligned with what we were looking for and they were motivated to help us out.”
For Aesoph and Tollefson, adjusting to the physical and mental demands of college basketball has been a challenge. Assistant head coach Carissa Thielbar worked out with them individually to get them comfortable, and they were incorporated into practice.
“It was definitely challenging for the first week or two just trying to get my feet back under me after being away from competitive basketball for over a year,” Aesoph said.
After three months into the season, Aesoph and Tollefson have adjusted to the new roles.
“They have gotten to the point now where they are just like everybody else. They do everything that anyone on the team has done,” Johnston said.
Although the team has faced unique challenges, with unexpected injuries and two walk-on players, the Jacks are 14-0 in their conference and 22-5 overall. The team looks to make a strong push in the post-season despite these obstacles.
“I think we still have a lot of really good players, the injuries have been hard for sure, so we aren’t as deep with as much talent as we usually have but we still have a ton of talent, I mean we still have some of the best players in the conference on our team,” said Johnston.