Busy off-season builds excitement for women’s basketball

Coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton has doubled down in her efforts since the end of a successful first season

Corbin Lathrop | Staff Writer

The Virginia women’s basketball program team took a sizable step forward in year one under Coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton. The Cavaliers began their 2022-23 campaign with a 12-0 record, and in late December found themselves ranked in the USA Today Coaches poll for the first time since 2011.

Although a bad case of the injury bug and a brutal ACC schedule slowed Virginia down during the second half of the season, there was still plenty of reason for fans to be encouraged. The Cavaliers earned a postseason invitation to play in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament — which they turned down due to a lack of available players — and average attendance at John Paul Jones Arena doubled from the 202122 season to the 2022-23 season.

Early this off-season, Agugua-Hamilton and her staff have been busy in the transfer portal and on the recruiting circuit, giving Virginia fans lots of encouraging news and more reasons to be optimistic.

Transfers

The Cavaliers have added two key pieces to their roster through the transfer portal so far this off-season— rising sophomore Paris Clark and graduate transfer Taylor Lauterbach.

Clark, a 5’8” guard from The Bronx, was a highly touted recruit coming out of high school before she committed to play for Arizona. A 2022 McDonald’s All-American from Long Island Lutheran High School, Clark averaged over 25 points and 8 rebounds per game during her high school career and earned New York State Gatorade Player of the Year honors after her senior season.

Clark was limited by an injury early in her freshman year at Arizona but saw an increased role as the season progressed. She’s a three-level scorer who will be a weapon on both sides of the floor for the Cavaliers.

The addition of Clark also means that Virginia’s 2023-24 roster will feature four former McDonald’s All-Americans — Clark, graduate forward Sam Brunelle, who will be returning to Charlottesville after a foot injury cut her season short, rising senior guard Mir McLean and rising freshman guard Kymora Johnson. The collection of highly rated players is a testament to Coach Agugua-Hamilton’s prowess on the recruiting and transfer portal trail, especially considering that Virgin- ia failed to recruit any McDonald’s All-Americans for over a decade prior.

The Cavaliers’ second transfer-portal addition, Lauterbach, is a 6’7” center from Appleton, Wis., who played the last three seasons at Kansas State. A former top-100 prospect, Lauterbach played limited minutes at Kansas State but was a force on the boards and a shot-blocking threat when she was on the floor.

Lauterbach provides much-needed height to an otherwise undersized Virginia frontcourt. Additionally, she earned a spot on the 2022 Academic All-Big 12 first team.

Recruiting

In addition to adding through the transfer portal, the Cavaliers also bolstered their roster by landing a commitment from Edessa Noyan, a 6’3” forward from Botkyrka, Sweden.

Noyan gives the Cavaliers more size up front but also has the ability to put the ball on the floor. She played the last several seasons for Sodertalje BBK, a club in Sweden’s top women’s basketball division, where she averaged 7.2 points and 5.6 rebounds per game last season.

At the 2022 U18 Nordic Cham- pionships, Noyan showed her ability to be both an elite scorer and rebounder. She averaged 18.8 points and 9.0 rebounds per game as she led Sweden to the title

Noyan’s experience playing against older competition overseas allows her to be an asset to the Cavaliers by being well-prepared for the bigs of the ACC. Her size and rebounding ability paired with intriguing handles make for an exciting commitment to a Cavalier team that looks to compete hard in the paint.

Noyan joins Virginia’s 2023 recruiting class, which already features a pair of top-50 recruits in Johnson and Olivia McGhee.

Speaking of Johnson, the 5’8” five-star recruit from St. Anne’s-Belfield in Charlottesville became the Cavaliers’ first women’s basketball signee to play at the McDonald’s All-American game since 2009 last month.

Johnson, who repeated as the Gatorade Virginia Girls Basketball Player of the Year after averaging 22.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 4.4 steals per game last season, helped the “West” team to a 110-102 victory in the contest.

Johnson’s smooth assist in the first quarter gave Virginia fans a preview of her elite playmaking ability, but it was her performance in the three-point contest the night before the game that stole the show. Johnson drained 17 of 25 shots during the final round of the competition, posting a score of 20 on her way to victory in the “2023 JamFest 3-point shootout.”

Johnson is cause for plenty of excitement for Cavalier fans. The last time a hometown high schooler won the shootout was when Brunelle did so in 2019. Virginia was not an attractive location for recruits at the time and Brunelle committed to Notre Dame before returning last season. The program has since taken strides under Agugua-Hamilton, and the Cavaliers can now retain electric homegrown talent. Her future in orange and blue will be a testament to just how far the program has come.

With most of their core group returning from last season to go along with a great recruiting class and the addition of two key transfers, the Cavaliers will look to take another big step forward next season.

Justin McCoy’s path to cementing his wrestling legacy

While dedicating himself to leading the program, McCoy celebrates individual ACC title

Calvin Roe | Staff Writer

Graduate student Justin McCoy entered the semifinal of the ACC Championships as a two-time runner-up at the event. With a chance to clinch his fourth-straight appearance at the national meet, McCoy felt the pressure as he took the mat to face North Carolina State freshman Matthew Singleton.

As the match started, one might not be able to see that under McCoy’s ear guards was the mind of a wrestler who battled injuries, redefined his spirituality and took a redshirt year, all in hopes to better his team and his chance of becoming an iconic Virginia wrestler.

McCoy decided to attend Virginia after the coaches introduced him to the wrestling program’s culture — the players themselves have been integral in engineering this culture through student leadership both in and out of practice.

“I could tell that each guy truly loved their teammates and hung out with them,” McCoy said. “I could just see a bond here among the team compared to other places that I visited.”

Despite McCoy’s investment in the team, his first year proved difficult. As a star in Pennsylvania high school wrestling — winning a state championship in 2017 — McCoy became frustrated with his performances in practice against his teammates. Furthermore, he found adjusting to wrestling year-round challenging after playing three sports in high school.

“At first, I wasn’t beating anyone — everyone was beating me,” McCoy says. “I remember the coaches just telling me the first year to be patient, just keep focusing on getting better and better.”

The accumulation of these adjustments resulted in McCoy redshirting his freshman year. Despite being uncertain about redshirting at first, McCoy trusted the coaching staff and was “on board” with their opinion about his freshman season.

In college wrestling, however, redshirting is a different process. Athletes are still allowed to compete while unattached, meaning they cannot contribute any points to team events. Therefore, McCoy was still able to gain valuable experience — such as winning the freshman division at the Hokie Open Nov. 4, 2018.

“I wasn’t wrestling the most high-level, top-ranked guys in the country at that point, but still wrestling other college students and beating them gave me a lot of confidence,” McCoy said.

He finished the season 25-3 at 157 pounds, one of many weight divisions athletes can compete in college wrestling. Building momentum into his sophomore season, McCoy continued to rely on the relationships within the team.

“We basically just try to beat each other up, and then we walk out of the room and go to the locker room, and now we’re friends,” Mc-

Coy said. “You just create a bond with each other that’s incomparable to anything that I’ve ever experienced.”

One of these key bonds McCoy developed was with graduate student Victor Marcelli, his long-time roommate. Wrestling at similar weight classes and having entered the program in the same year, the two veterans push each other in practice.

“We’ve just kind of grown closer and closer as we tackle new experiences together,” Marcelli said. “We’ve been within two weight classes the past two years, so we hold each other accountable.”

After several adjustments his freshman year, McCoy’s wrestling career was not done changing. McCoy found success wrestling at 157 pounds, finishing second at the ACC Championships in 2021. However, after learning graduate student Jake Keating was considering switching from 165 to 157 pounds, McCoy decided to bump up weight classes his senior season. Wrestlers typically compete at the lowest weight level possible that allows them to maintain their strength, but this can create a stressful daily life for the athletes.

“You can cut weight and have the proper nutrition, but it’s very hard to do,” McCoy said. “I just feel better when I’m eating well and not having to focus on my weight and more just focusing on what I got to do out there on the mat.”

Despite wrestling against a whole new set of wrestlers, McCoy did not see his success halted by his new weight class. Instead, McCoy improved upon his previous season, going 19-4 and finishing runner-up at the ACC Championships.

“Whether it’s in real competition or practice… He loves to compete,” Marcelli said. “It’s contagious, I’d say.”

However, McCoy was still unsatisfied and continued wrestling with the Cavaliers as a graduate student. Finishing runner-up in consecutive seasons, McCoy says the finishes “stung” as he looked to get over the hump his fifth season.

Off the mat, McCoy attempted to be the leader of the squad as he got older, particularly with his work ethic in the weight room and bonds formed with teammates. Beyond his relationship with Marcelli, McCoy looks to foster a culture of accountability throughout the program as a captain.

“I’m not a very vocal person, so I try to do it with my actions,” McCoy said.

In addition to the added responsibilities as a team captain, McCoy explored how he could shape his faith to work alongside his wrestling career. In previous seasons, McCoy felt that he separated the two.

“It was almost like I separated wrestling from my faith in God for a while,” McCoy said. “Until mostly last year, I just realized that God has literally given me all the gifts and all the opportunities to do what I love to do.”

With all those changes — both personal and wrestling-related — McCoy wrestled in his fifth season at Virginia, where he found himself in the ACC Championships once again.

McCoy faced North Carolina State’s Singleton in the semifinals, a matchup that granted the winner a ticket to the NCAA Championships.

McCoy breezed past Singleton in a 6-2 decision, earning him a spot as an NCAA qualifier. In the finals, McCoy wrestled the familiar face of Virginia Tech’s Connor Brady. McCoy and Brady’s wrestling styles worked in opposite ways, with McCoy being more aggressive. Entering the third period, the match looked to shape up in Brady’s favor, being tied 1-1 with McCoy with less than a minute left. However, McCoy completed a takedown with just under 40 seconds left.

“I believe in my scrambling ability,” said McCoy. “When a guy gets to my legs, I believe that I can score off that, I just took advantage of that opportunity.”

The match ended 3-2 in McCoy’s favor, ending his streak of ACC Championships runner-up finishes. Coach Steve Garland was equally impressed and proud of the strides McCoy has made in his fourth year in the program.

“He’s put in a lot of work this year, but the way he won was just flat-out guts,” Coach Steve Garland said. “He just found a way. That’s what it takes at this level.”

After the match, McCoy’s teammates stormed the mat in celebration. Even after a disappointing fifth-place finish as a team, the Virginia wrestlers could not hold back their excitement for their captain.

“Everybody was so joyful,” Marcelli said. “And so everybody sees the work that Justin puts in and kind of the way he pours his heart into it, so I think that kind of lifted everybody up.”

With an extra year of eligibility due to the coronavirus, McCoy is returning with aspirations of climbing up the ACC as a team and being an All-American. But for now, both cementing his Virginia wrestling legacy and experiencing the support from his teammates after the final was overwhelming enough.

“I have a video of it on my phone, and looking back at it, it almost makes you want to tear up a little bit because of how much I care about these guys and how much they care about me,” McCoy said. “It means so much to me.”