May 6, 2025

2024-25 Women's Basketball Season Review

(Ankeny, IA) - Faith Women's Basketball completed a historic season, culminating in the program's first MCCC Tournament Championship in 28 years, the most wins in a season, and much more!

The Eagles came in the 2024-25 season with a reloaded roster, looking to capitalize on a talented incoming class of 11 newcomers and smaller group of 5 battle-tested returners. And capitalize they did, as the Eagles began the semester with an 8-0 record going into Thanksgiving break, and ended the semester 11-1, their only loss coming from a non-NCCAA opponent. While the Eagles only had a short amount of time to prepare for the season to begin, the team meshed well on and off the court right from the start of practices as all of the girls, 1-16 brought excitement to each day.

"Our team grew in their acceptance of their individual roles through the year." Shared head coach Zak Kirkman, "It's really hard to have a team of 16 girls fighting for 40 minutes of playing time, but each of our girls pursued their role wholeheartedly in order for our team to see the success it did! The freshmen did a really good job of adjusting to the time commitment, competitive level, and travel schedule of college basketball. It is more of a grind then most people think, and our freshmen took the challenge head on!"

Starting the second semester, the Eagles saw a couple of disappointing losses right away against Calvary and Ozark, which dropped them to 2-2 in MCCC standings. The team bounced back however, and finished the regular season on an 11-1 run heading into the postseason tournaments. By the end of the regular season, the Eagles had tied the program record for wins in a season (22), which included a couple of thrilling come-from-behind victories, a season sweep of Maranatha, a home victory over Emmaus to win the inaugural Pat Duer Rivalry trophy, and going undefeated in the regular season against North Region opponents.

Faith came into the conference tournament as the #2 seed earning their program record 23rd win over Emmaus in the quarterfinals. In their semifinal matchup against Barclay, the Eagles earned a one point victory after getting 6 defensive stops in the final 3 minutes. The tournament championship game featured #2 Faith taking on the #1 Ozark Ambassadors, who were seeking their 5th straight MCCC championship. In one of the most thrilling games of the season, the Eagles put together a full team effort and won their first Conference Tournament championship since the 1996-97 season.

"This team was the most successful Faith wbb team in program history. We set the most all time wins in a season, most ppg in the last 2 decades, we had several players break individual and team records, and we had the first 1st-team all-american in Faith wbb history." shared Coach Zak when asked about the season, "With all of the basketball success that we saw this year, I would guarantee that not a single player would say any of that as the highlight of the season, but rather that at our team service project in January we were able to see one of the 5th grade girls come to know Jesus as her Savior!"

The Eagles closed out their season at the North Region tournament which saw them enter as the #1 seed taking on #4 North Central in the semifinals. North Central took the victory that night, going on to win the regional championship, but the Eagles fought their way back into the game multiple times and gave it their best effort one last time to close the 2024-25 season. Heading into the summer, the Eagles look forward to returning a solid core group from this season's championship team and will add several players to the mix as they look to continue building the program under head coach Zak Kirkman.

Looking ahead, Coach Zak is excited to see the team continue to build beginning in the summer. "We are returning several of our key components of this year's team. With Mikayla and Whitney leaving, there will be some big leadership roles to fill, but we have several upperclassmen that are eager and ready to fill those shoes (led by Kayla). The girls are already hard at work getting ready for next season, as several of them are headed to the Dominican Republic this summer to help with some basketball camps! We are looking forward to having a great offseason and then gearing up for our preseason workouts in August!"

NCCAA Awards:

Scholar-Athletes: Mikayla Jones, Kayla Stephens

1st Team All-American: Katie Costello

North Region Player of the Year: Katie Costello

1st Team All-Region: Katie Costello, Mikayla Jones

2nd Team All-Region: Miriam Beenken

Honorable Mention: Whitney Wacker

MCCC Awards:

1st Team: Katie Costello, Miriam Beenken

2nd Team: Mikayla Jones

Team Awards:

Most Valuable Player: Mikayla Jones