Much has been said about the potential of the Eastern women’s basketball team this season.

The Panthers return the core of its team that finished 15-5 in the Ohio Valley Conference last season. They were predicted to win the OVC in the preseason coaches’ poll and feature the preseason OVC First Team selection in senior forward Rachel Galligan.

Expectations are high for this year’s team, and it’s easy to see why. But thanks to a new core of players set up by head coach Brady Sallee, it’s likely that the success will continue into the future.

The Panthers are senior-loaded this season. Four of the five regular starters are seniors in guards Ellen Canale and Megan Edwards, as well as forwards Galligan and Lindsey Kluempers. The lone starter who is not a senior is red-shirt junior guard Dominique Sims.

With the loss of those four, it would be acceptable for any program to expect a drop off in talent from one year to the next. However, Sallee has set this team up for the foreseeable future, and it’s likely that juniors and underclassmen will be able to shoulder the load in the coming seasons.

Junior guards Lauren Sturtevant and Ashley Thomas have shown flashes of potential in reserve roles and junior forwards Maggie Kloak and Marie Baker have the size and strength to handle to ball in the post. Combine those with talented freshman guards Pilar Walker and Madeline Kish as well as freshman forward Chantelle Pressley, and the team should be quite successful again next year.

Additionally, with Walker, Kish, and Pressley being just freshmen, and a class that Sallee said he is very excited about coming in behind them, it appears the team is set up for success for a long time coming.

Walker showed flashes of her potential in two blowout exhibition victories against Brescia and Saint Joseph’s.

While she scored only eight points in the two games, she dished out 10 assists and perhaps more importantly didn’t turn the ball over once in 33 minutes of action.

She also had nine rebounds, four steals and one block.

Walker is just one of many players who showed potential in the team’s exhibition victories.

However, those games were just exhibition games against teams that don’t play at the level of teams Eastern will face once the regular season begins.

It will be important for Sallee to get the younger players in the action during the regular season as well.

While his No. 1 priority during the season will be, quite obviously, to win games, he should have every bit of confidence that his underclassmen that provide depth can help the team succeed.

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or at cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.