VALDOSTA, Ga. – The No. 22-ranked Valdosta State women's basketball team is scheduled to open the 2022-23 season at home Friday against No. 11 Eckerd College at 6 p.m. at The Complex.
 
The Lady Blazers and Tritons were supposed to open the season in West Palm Beach, Fla., for the Gulf South Conference/Sunshine State Conference Region Challenge at Palm Beach Atlantic, but the game was moved to Valdosta due to the evacuation order for PBA ahead of the tropical storm system scheduled to impact Southeast Florida later this week. Eckerd then will play a neutral site game against West Florida on Saturday, Nov. 12 at 4 p.m., also in The Complex.
 
Since Friday's game was not originally a scheduled as a home game, season ticket holders will be admitted free of charge and may sit in their seats.  For non-season ticket holders, adult general admission tickets are $7 and general admission youth/senior tickets are $3.  Doors will open Friday evening at 5 p.m.  Saturday's game between UWF and Eckerd is free of charge.
 
Friday's opener for the Lady Blazers will be streamed online at vstateblazers.com as Spencer Van Horn will have the streaming call of the game.  The game will not be broadcast on the radio.  Check back with vstateblazers.com for links to video streaming, live stats and more.
 
Eckerd is 11^th in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Preseason Top 25 as the Tritons were picked to win the Sunshine State Conference.  Last season, Eckerd reached the NCAA South Region semifinals and finished 24^th in the final WBCA Top 25.  The Tritons went 21-5 last season and it was their fifth-straight appearance in the NCAA South Regional.  EC ended the season ranking seventh nationally in field goal percentage defense (.339), eighth in scoring defense (54.9).  Offensively, EC was 18^th in field goal percentage (.448) and 24^th in assists per game (15.9).  EC is 16^th in the D2SIDA Top 25.
 
The Tritons return eight players from last season, including the entire starting lineup.  Sunshine State Conference Player of the Year Maya Price and SSC Defensive Player of the Yea Lauryn Vieira return, along with Sofia Persson who earned second team all-league honors and was named to the All-Newcomer Team.  
 
Head Coach Paul Honsinger begins his 17^th year at Eckerd and has posted a 116-33 record over the past five seasons, including five-straight 20-plus win campaigns.  VSU head women's basketball coach Deandra Schirmer was an assistant coach at Eckerd, before getting the head job at VSU in 2019.  Schirmer was on Honsinger's staff for five years.  
 
VSU leads the all-time series with Eckerd, 7-3 as the teams have split the last four meetings.  Eckerd won the last meeting in Valdosta on Nov. 12, 2016, in a 72-56 decision.  VSU is 6-2 all-time against Eckerd in Valdosta.  Honsinger is 3-4 against VSU.

Schirmer begins her fourth season at the helm of the Lady Blazers as she is 62-21 record and a 43-14 mark in the GSC.  VSU, who qualified for the NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Elite Eight for the first time since 1984 las season, finished the campaign 26-6 and 17-2 in GSC play a season ago.  
 
The Lady Blazers were picked third in the GSC Preseason Poll, released last month.  Union was tabbed the league favorite, followed by Lee and VSU. Schirmer welcomes back eight players from last season and added the services of four talented transfers to the roster for 2022-23.  The transfers this season for VSU include; junior Kalifa Ford from Oklahoma Baptist, junior Emma Martin of Utah Valley University, junior Aleisha Curry of Santa Fe College (Fla.) and sophomore Kate Tanner of Butler.  
 
Ford, a 5-10, guard/forward from Bono, Ark., came to VSU from Oklahoma Baptist University where she played for the Bison for three seasons.  In 2021-22, she started 25 games and averaged a team-high 17.4 points per game and 9.1 rebounds per contest.  She was the only Great American Conference athlete to finish in the top eight in the league in field goal percentage (4th; 47.5), scoring (5th; 17.4) and rebounding (2nd; 9.1).  She finished the season with 13 double-doubles earning her a spot in the top 25 in all of NCAA Division II.  She earned All-GAC First Team honors last season.
 
Tanner, a 6-2, center from Melbourne, Australia, and transfer of Butler University, played in 18 games with three starts last season as redshirt freshman for the Bulldogs.  She played one season at Miles Community College in Miles City, Mont., where she averaged 7.5 points per game and 9.5 rebounds per contest.  She helped lead her team to the round of 16 at the NJCAA National Tournament, while the team won the MonDak Conference and Region XIII Tournament.  She shot 40.9 percent from the field, along with seven double figure games.
 
Martin, a 5-11, guard from Richfield, Utah, played two seasons for the Wolverines and appeared in 19 games last season, along with 24 as a freshman in 2018-19.  Following the 2018-19 season, Martin served on her LDS mission.  In high school, Martin earned first team all-state by both the Desert News and the Salt Lake Tribune, while leading the state of Utah (all classifications) in 3-pointers with 75 made, marking fifth all-time in a single season.  She also is fifth all-time in career made triples with 179.  
 
Curry, a native of Lehigh Acres, Fla., played in 2019-20 for the Saints, playing in 28 games and starting 26.  She earned NJCAA Honorable Mention All-America honors and was named the Mid-Florida Conference Player of the Year.  Last season, she played in 22 games with 18 starts, going 108 of 204 from the field (.529) and averaged 10.2 rebounds per game.  
 
Returning this season are seniors Jirah Ards, Kendall Bollmer, Kayla Frey and Shanice Nelson, along with junior Lili Long, Francis, and sophomores India Jordan, Taylor Searcey and Grace Beyer.  
 
The Lady Blazers are receiving votes in the preseason WBCA Top 25, while they are No. 22 in the D2SIDA Top 25.  VSU finished sixth in the final WBCA Top 25 a season ago.  
 
VSU has 13 home games in the friendly confines of The Complex, including 12 grueling Gulf South Conference home games as the league moved to playing each conference opponent twice during the regular season for 2022-23.  
 
"This will be the first time since I have been at VSU that we will play all conference teams twice during the regular season, Schirmer said. "I think it will provide a unique opportunity to face a quality opponent night-in-night-out.  This season we have a very challenging schedule that we are hoping will prepare us for the postseason.  We start off the year on the road against a top 25, in-region opponent in Eckerd College.  We then finish our opening tournament with host team PBA, which will be two important region games for us."
 
VSU continues at home on Thurs., Nov. 17 at 6 p.m., versus rival No. 24 Lee and then at home on Nov. 19 against Shorter, concluding the first weekend of GSC play.   VSU went 15-1 last season at The Complex and has gone 35-7 at home with Schirmer at the helm.