BEAVER TOWNSHIP – It has been 221 days since Melissa Jackson was hired as the ninth head coach in YSU women’s basketball history.

There hasn’t been a moment wasted by her and her staff in the days leading up to their season opener against North Dakota on November 4 at Beeghly Center.

With 10 newcomers and just 43 starts among the six returnees from last year’s squad, she cautions that while the players are ready for the season to begin, it will be a work in progress during her first season at the helm.

“I don’t know if you are ever really ready,” Jackson told the Curbstone Coaches during Monday’s weekly meeting at Avion Banquet Center. “Obviously, there are a lot of emotions. We are extremely excited to get going here at YSU and get underway with this group. We are very young and yes, we have a lot of freshmen but we also have a lot of new faces on our roster that are learning a new system, even the coaching staff.

“We’re all learning each other, so it is very much a work in progress, and what people see on November 4 is not going to be the finished product of our team by any means. I have been intentional about taking things slow with this group and trying to just get better every single day, but we also know that we have games approaching and we have to be ready to go. I don’t want to move quickly with them because I don’t want to be average at everything, I want to be very good at the things we put in and so far I have been really happy with where we are at.”

Building team chemistry both on and off the court has been paramount.

“We have a lot of goals and it may sound like coach-speak, but we are definitely trying to get better every single day,” Jackson added. “Much of it has been building our chemistry off the court, but now that we have been in official practices it has been building our chemistry on the court and learning each other, who likes the ball here or who can do this well so while I don’t think that has been our main focus, we’re just trying to build a chemistry among our 16 players. Yes, I have 10 newcomers but I really have 16 newcomers to our entire system at times. It’s almost like everybody is a freshman out there.”

The six returnees include graduate player Malia Magestro (27 starts), senior Haley Thierry (15 starts), junior Abby Liber (one start) and sophomores Mackenzie Hurd (24 games played), Bella Sams (18 games) and Abbie Davidson (16 games).

Newcomers dotting Jackson’ first Penguin roster include former Warren Harding standout and Cleveland State redshirt junior transfer Faith Burch, senior Jewel Watkins, junior Xoe Rosalez, Dacia Lewandowski, a redshirt freshman transfer from the University of Akron, and true freshmen Sarah Baker, Hayden Barrier, Danielle Cameron, Sophia Gregory, Erica King and Ashlyn Van Tassell.

Jackson has yet to finalize a starting line-up for the opener, noting there has been plenty of competition for those five spots come November 4.

“There’s still a lot of competition in practice, which has been really good for our team,” Jackson said. “I have not locked in on a starting line-up, even in our closed scrimmages. I have thrown different line-ups out there so it’s still very much a work in progress. Multiple players are competing for not only playing time, but roles and starting positions.

“For me, honestly, that’s been great because there’s been a lot of competition amongst them in practice. I think we will settle in here shortly on a starting line-up and kind of roll with that, but the nice thing about it is that we have some people who are going to come off the bench and they are going to continue to compete for starting roles as we get into the start of our season.”

Playing their first four games at home is not a scheduling quirk.

“Playing our first four games at home is huge and again, it was very intentional on how I scheduled for this team this year,” Jackson said. “It is such a young group and we want to be home as much as possible early on so hopefully they have a level of comfort being in Beeghly Center with our crowd and our fan base, which we are super excited to open up in front of. Those four games are especially important, but it is one game at a time for us and we are locked in on North Dakota right now.”

Jackson has also been impressed with the leadership of her returning group of players.

“They have been phenomenal,” she said. “I really credit our six returnees, not for just their leadership but their buy-in of our coaching staff, of me and all the newcomers. I think they’ve taken to it and have set a great example for our young players. I’ve been really happy with their leadership and how they have just welcomed our newbies to YSU, shown them the in’s and the outs of the University and how it functions because that was new for everybody, even the coaching staff. I could not be happier with how our returnees have led our program.”

Next Monday, J.R. McFarland, Wilmington Area Greyhounds track and field head coach, will serve as guest speaker.