Chicago, Ill. - The Illinois Tech women's basketball team gets their 2025-26  season underway today in Elsah, Il where they take on Spalding University  5:30 pm in the Laura William Memorial Classic.

The Scarlet Hawks will be playing a pair of games  this weekend, as they will face Principia College on Saturday, November 8th at 3:00pm.

The Women's Basketball program led by Coach Carissa Sain are coming off its first double digit win season since the program came back in 2013 and they are looking to continue the upward trend.
 
Coach Sain is excited to take the challenge of building on last year and is looking to lean on her upperclassmen leadership
 
"I couldn't ask for better leadership on this team. Our senior captains have been fantastic, not only on the court, but in the locker room as well.  They've created such a great environment for the underclassmen, allowing them to flourish and be a part of the team. The integration of these new players has been seamless, and that's a credit to our leadership. They've been doing all the little things and taking care of the details to give us the best chance to succeed this season."
 
Speaking of the newcomers the Scarlet Hawks welcome six new members to the roster covering three different states and three different countries.
 
Additionally Coach Sain will have two new coaches on the bench with her this year as Andrew Buchholz and Nathan Diambra have joined Joe Sain on the bench.
 
With the six new additions to the roster and two to the staff we asked Coach Sain about what she expects the identity of the team to be. 
 
"As a coach, I can't give the team an identity. They have to adopt it themselves. 
But I can guide them in the right direction. This team is starting to come into their own as competitors. We've always talked about improving every day, but now we're starting to talk about what it means to be winners. It's still early in the process, but I'm hopeful that we'll see some of the things we've been working on in practice translate to the games. I think our style of play is tough to go against at the end of the season, especially when other teams are starting to get set in their ways.  We want to be super disruptive and create a lot of chaos. That's how we're going to make some noise in the conference and rock the boat a little bit. This is by far the toughest schedule we've had at Illinois Tech, but we're welcoming the challenge."
 
That schedule will see the Scarlet Hawks once again competing in a NACC Conference schedule. Additionally, the Hawks will face Cal Tech and Pomona Pitzer on a winter break trip to California as well as Beloit. Two big home matchups early in the season will see Tech host Eureka College coming off a 16 win season and Beloit College out of the Midwest Conference 
 
Coach Sain will look to look to her four returning starts from a year ago to build momentum early in the season. Chole Churilla, Grace Goodnough and Cam Joko are all back with experience as they enter their senior year. Chloe was a honorable mention on the all-conference list a year ago as she led the team in scoring and rebounding with 11.8 PTS/G  and 7.0 REB/G respectively.  Grace showed her ability to stretch defenses all year from the forward position scoring at all three level and was good for 7.3 PTS/G in 24-25. Cam Joko shot it 34% from deep and will continue to be counted on to space the floor for the Scarlet Hawks.  The fourth returning starter is Junior guard Berit Rusing. Berit was a defensive anchor for Illinois Tech averaging more the 2 steals a contest, and her slashing ability set much of the Scarlet Hawk offensive attack in motion. 
 
Additional Players to watch heading into the season are freshman gaurds Uma Peters and Amanda Wang, graduate students Lea Petitjean and Nerea Del Olmo Prerze, as well as junior guard Abby Marino. 
 
In closing Coach Sain had this to say to the Scarlet Hawk fans "We're going to be fearless and compete every night. If you're not going to stop by and watch us play, you're missing out. We play a fun style with high energy, and I think it's super fun to be a part of a gym that has that going on. So come check us out. We're going to make some noise this season!"