District spotlight: Chatham is changing its basketball image
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Chatham's Brittanny Brown is averaging 10.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.
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The victory totals are not impressive until put into perspective.
Over the past three basketball seasons, the Chatham University women's team has won 10, 11 and 11 games. That's kind of ordinary, right?
"It's the first time in school history that we've had double-digit wins three years in a row," said Mark Katarski, who is in his sixth year as head coach at the Shadyside-based school. In his first two seasons guiding the Cougars, the team won five and eight games.
It gets better.
"When we started winning some, I went back through the records and checked and, in the 16 years before I took the job, they had won 11 games ... 11 games!" Katarski said. "Can you imagine winning just 11 games in 16 years?"
The season before he took over the team, Chatham went 1-20.
This season, the Cougars are 5-6 and 1-3 in the NCAA Division III Presidents' Athletic Conference going into their game today against Geneva. But the Cougars' lone PAC victory came against Westminster, 60-50, and was something of a benchmark.
"We had never beaten Westminster before," Katarski said. "Before we joined the PAC [for the 2007-08 school year], we were 0-64 against PAC teams. Now, we have beaten seven of the nine other teams in the conference, so we are getting there."
Chatham also made the PAC playoffs last season for the first time and upset Grove City to advance to the semifinals.
Earlier this week, Chatham returned from a trip to California during which it defeated California Tech in Pasadena, 57-42. Katarski had planned to take his team on a trip to Canada for a game or two during the holiday break in classes, but when that did not work out, he called Cal Tech and it had an open date.
Chatham had taken a trip to California in the past for a two-game tournament, which it won.
"So, we are 3-0 in the state of California," Katarski said, with a laugh. "We were out there for a few days in Anaheim and Newport Beach and did the Disney thing. It was nice for the players."
Katarski, a Mount Pleasant native, does not have any designs on winning the PAC title this season. He pointed out that with Saint Vincent, Thomas More, Waynesburg and Washington & Jefferson, the conference has a number of talented women's teams.
First Published January 8, 2011 12:00 am
