Within a two-week period, the Elizabethtown College women’s basketball team hit five of their goals for the season.
The team reached 1,200 wins for the program, 200 career wins for the head coach, 1,000 points scored by one of their seniors Makenna Mummert, entrance into the Landmark Conference and 20 overall season wins. However, Head Coach Veronica Nolt said the wins are not what is most important to the team.
“The girls made it special,” Nolt said. She beamed while describing her 200th career win. Her office walls were adorned with posters made by the players for her and Tom Guenther, an assistant coach for the team that has been with Nolt for her entire career at Etown. Some of her former players even came to the game with flowers and cards.
Their 1,200th win came against Catholic University of America on Feb. 18. “The 1,200 really is a unifying kind of number because it expands many, many decades and 10 coaches,” said Nolt. “It’s special for everybody, it’s not one coach, it’s not just the head coach, it’s all the assistants, it’s all the players, it’s all the managers, it’s all the support staff because you can not do what we do without everybody buying in.”
Senior guard Makenna Mummert said that the 1,200 wins would not have happened without the close relationship that the team has. “Our team is very close-knitted, we’re like a family, not just the girls, but with the coaches,” she said. “I feel like we were all on even playing fields which made it easy to be able to support one another and also give healthy criticism when it was needed.”
Their motto “Grace and Grit” is something that Nolt believes the girls aim to exemplify and helped lead them to 1,200 wins. “I kind of joke with the girls sometimes, that they’re like ducks, they’re paddling like crazy underwater, but their composure is really second level,” Nolt said.
On Feb. 26, Mummert reached 1,000 points across her career. From averaging four points a game after being injured her first year to averaging 17 points a game and scoring 485 points this season, Nolt says her nickname has become “Houdini” because no one knows how Mummert pulled off all that she has done.
“She’s really an exceptional person, she’s an exceptional basketball player, there’s no question about it,” Nolt said. “She has the ability that she can affect other teammates, she’s just very steadfast, very calm.”
“I think it was really cool to be able to just do it with the team and kind of go out with a bang,” Mummert said. She became the second top-scorer at the Landmark Conference and was chosen for the First Team shortly after. She said she had been working towards that goal since her freshman year, even putting in practice outside of the season.
Nolt said that Mummert was by far their top scorer, but she values every member of the team and their contribution to the conference. “This is a humble and hungry group of women and the four seniors in particular have led by class and character,” Nolt said.
Mummert may not play basketball after college, but she has gained something that will remain with her for life. She said that she has built many leadership skills that will be useful in the future. “I’ve definitely grown a lot of relationships here, at Etown, so I think I’ll always come back to that,” she said.
Mummert’s takeaway reflects Nolt’s goal for the team. “This should not be a four year experience in my mind, it should be a 40 year relationship in my mind. These women should be friends forever and they should have coaches that they can always reach out to and be connected with,” Nolt said. “Winning is awesome…but if that’s what everybody remembers about their college experience, I think we would have missed our mark.”
