Before this season started, Eastern women’s basketball player Sabina Oroszova knew she was going to have to take on a new role, considering the team lost four seniors.

“I realized that I needed to be the player that will step up and take some type of responsibility,” Oroszova said. “I knew I could do it and I felt big support from my coaching staff and teammates.”

Oroszova was coming off a year that had her team get its first postseason win ever in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament against Missouri and an Ohio Valley Conference regular season championship.

Last season, Oroszova averaged 22 minutes per game, making 31 starts and averaged only six points a game.

This season, with all the changes, Oroszova was expected to play a bigger role because of those losses from the previous year.

She averaged 34.5 minutes per game, and played more than 37 minutes in eleven games this season.

Oroszova shot 44 percent from the floor and averaged 16.9 points per game.

She averaged nearly 11 rebounds per game, which was second in the Ohio Valley Conference and best on the team.

She had 13 double-doubles this season and had a stretch in the middle of the season where she had eight in a row.

In the beginning of the season, Oroszova’s minutes were getting cut because of foul trouble.

Through the first eight games, Oroszova fouled out twice and had four fouls in four of the next six games.

But in the Panthers’ 71-67 win against Bradley, Oroszova turned her season around very quickly.

She put up 38 points on 16-of-29 shooting from the field in 39 minutes of action and had 15 rebounds.

She tied records for most points in a game, most shot attempts in a game and most shots made in a game in that win.

“I will always remember it, not only because of my personal performance, but also because the way we played as a team,” she said. “It was a great game.”

Oroszova scored 22 of her 38 points in the second half of that game, and the Panthers battled back from a 17-2 run by Bradley to end the first half.

This season the Panthers hired a new coaching staff, which included their new head coach and former WNBA All-Star Debbie Black.

“They helped me and are still helping me become a multi-dimensional player,” she said. “I need to move my game on from being a post player and also become and help the team with being a guard and accountable on the perimeter.”

Despite her dominance of a season, Oroszova said she knows she can improve in some areas of her game.

“I need to improve on my defense,” she said. “I need to be more comfortable with my left and also work on my mid-range game.”

Although she said she needs to improve on her defense, her defensive stats were among the tops in the OVC.

She led the conference in defensive rebounds per game with 8.4, and averaged a steal and 1.6 blocks per game.

Oroszova had multiple games this season with more than 10 defensive rebounds, with the most coming in the game on January 18, when she recorded 13 of them.

For the three years, Taryn Olson played with Oroszova and she knew she was always a talented player.

“This year I saw her take great strides in the things she was able to do before the season even started, which clearly carried over on the court,” Olson said.

As for next year, the Panthers will be without four starters from the previous season.

Jordyne Crunk, Morgan Palombizio and Olson are graduating and junior Katlyn Payne is transferring to Northern Illinois.

But, Oroszova said she could not be more excited to be the head of the team for next year.

“We have had a lot of changes made in our team, but I believe we can do some big things with the new team,” she said. “We have some really good people coming in that will definitely help us to be successful, and I am very excited and ready to be a leader again.”

Olson said Oroszova will be someone to look up to for new players.

“Incoming players who are new to the program are going to need a lot of direction, both vocally and by example,” Olson said. “I’m confident Sabi will have no problem providing that.”

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or rjreynolds@eiu.edu.