Like the chalk talk on the old classroom blackboards, the clean slate for the Lakeland Rustlers women’s basketball team translates into a college program starting from scratch.
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That was clear on the opening weekend of the ACAC regular season as the fresh-faced Rustlers lost both home games handily — 76-22 against the Briercrest Clippers on Friday and 86-40 versus the Medicine Hat Rattlers on Saturday.
At least for now, those are the anticipated results for a Lakeland program that went from national champions to inactivity within just a few months.
The team didn’t finish ACAC play last season after the firing of coach Chris King and the ensuing departure of all of his players.
“When I was brought in, essentially it was a fresh slate,” said the Rustlers’ new coach, Todd Warnick, a 26-year veteran of coaching post-secondary basketball.
“I was hired fairly late, so recruiting was going to be an uphill battle. We managed to get some kids, but at the end of the day, this is kind of the hand we were dealt.
“Ultimately, it’s just to get a group on the floor right now and to restart the culture again. When I interviewed for the job, I said it was going to be a
seven-year process to turn the program back into where it was.
“Whenever a team goes through this —and these things have happened
in the ACAC in the past where teams couldn’t field a team in the second half for a variety of reasons — there is an immediate regression of a program back to kind of Square One. That’s a realistic expectation of what it’s supposed to look like. And now, the hard work begins.”
MODEST MEASURING STICKS
In the meantime, Warnick’s job is to work with the 11 players who came on board this year, most of them directly from high school. They won’t necessarily be judged on wins and losses.
“We’ve discussed this is a process and we are not looking at the outcome of the games as a measure of our level of improvement,” Warnick said.
“The games are a test of how far we’re progressing. So, the more that we can make less errors, and the more consistent that we become, the better we’re going to be.
“I’m very transparent with these young women about what it means to play at the college level — and that it’s a year-long tryout for the athletes that are here. I explained, ‘You have to do well in academics, because you’re a student-athlete first and foremost. You have to improve as an athlete, and you have to hang on to your (roster) spot.’
“My job is to make the team better. And I do that in two ways — I either help you to grow as an athlete, or I go find better talent.”
Warnick’s talent search for this year’s team didn’t start until he was hired in the spring. That already put the Rustlers behind the eight-ball, he believes, because most high school graduates already have their post-secondary plans in place by then.
FEMALE PHENOMENA
“Female athletes are a little different from male athletes,” said Warnick, most recently a U Sports women’s coach at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., for three seasons. “Generally, (girls) tend to have their academic pathways decided fairly early.
“When I was in Canada West last year, most of my recruiting was done middle of November,
for the subsequent year, just because female athletes are looking ahead at their academic pathway right away. In the CCAA, when I was at NAIT for 13 years, most of my recruiting was done by first of January.
“They’re going into high-performance programs (and) things that are relatively highly academic, so they’re making those decisions early. They’re making decisions to be student-athletes, not athlete-students, so it’s a different timeline often.”
In short order, the Rustlers rounded up an entire team of players new to Lakeland.
“We’re the youngest team in the league right now,” Warnick said. “We have 11 freshmen. They were all either high school players, or our only player with some experience is currently injured.”
That player with collegiate credentials is Alex McLaren, a business student from Edmonton.
“She gives us some length and high-performance experience,” Warnick said. “She’s an Alberta provincial team kid and won a provincial high school championship with Jasper Place. She spent a year in a red-shirt scenario with Mount Royal University, but was diagnosed with long-term COVID, so she missed that season.
“Returning to basketball after a few years off, she’s rehabbing from a foot injury suffered in the pre-season. But once she returns, she’ll help to bring us some depth and maturity. So, that level of maturity and experience is critical and a piece that we’re going to build on, for sure.”
On the youthful side of the spectrum, the Rustlers see promise in the likes of North Battleford guard Taylor Hebert, who was named Lakeland’s player of the game Friday.
“She was a bit of a diamond in the rough,” Warnick said. “She’s exceptionally athletic and has been able to do some things.”
Hebert reminds Warnick of Shea-Lynn Noyse, a player he coached at NAIT.
“Shea-Lynn holds the record all-time for steals per game in ACAC history and she was built very much like Taylor. Very similar game to Taylor — hyper athletic, a little raw, and by the time she finished her fifth year with us, she’d been to nationals, she won ACACs and she was an all-conference player.
“They’re similar athletically. It’s nice to have that starting point, and hopefully be able to build on that.”
WOMEN VERSUS GIRLS
Warnick knows it can be a daunting step for high school players to make the transition to college basketball.
“We were lucky to get some pieces that will develop into being solid basketball players, with time,” he said after Friday’s season-opener. “This is a women’s league — it’s not a kids’ league. Briercrest won an ACAC bronze last year, and they return four or five fifth-year players.
“There is no substitute for experience. And even physical-makeup wise, they’re built like women, we’re built like girls.”
Warnick, 50, has moved to Lloydminster with his wife and youngest son, a high school student. His oldest son attends university in British Columbia.
“I want to eventually be able to have local-area kids rostered for us,” he said of the new-look Rustlers. “That’s kind of one of my long-term goals, is to have kids from Lloydminster and Vermilion and surrounding areas to be wearing their jersey and to have that kind of development. That’s a special thing that I think can be achieved.”
WINNING PEDIGREE
Warnick’s long service as a collegiate basketball coach includes building programs into championship contenders from modest beginnings.
In his first head-coaching job, during the early 2000s, Warnick guided Vancouver Island University all the way from a 1-17 season in his first year to a bronze medal in his fourth and eventually a national silver medal.
Expecting their first son, he and his wife moved back home to Alberta, where Warnick’s four-year run at Concordia University of Edmonton included an ACAC championship. Then, he went on to rebuild NAIT’s program.
“They had made playoffs once in 45 years, before I got hired,” Warnick said. “By the time I finished, in 13 seasons, we had only missed playoffs once, we had a national bronze, a national championship, two ACAC titles, an ACAC silver and three bronzes and produced a whole bunch of academic all-Canadians.
“And then, one of the proudest pieces, there’s three current ACAC coaches that have played for me.”
Warnick’s familiarity with college athletics includes a long-running relationship with Lakeland athletic director Alan Rogan.
“I’ve known Al for a very, very long time,” he said. “I was the associate AD at Concordia for a year, so he was my ACAC contact point for bringing volleyball to Concordia, when we put our application in. I’ve known him for probably two decades, so I know what Lakeland College is about, I know what the community is like, I know the level of buy-in for athletics in this community and how big of a piece it makes. It’s a privilege to be in this environment.
“You always want your next stop to be the last.”
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