Nooner announces additional women’s basketball staff

BY EMMIE BOESE assistantsports@thesunflower.com

Head women’s basketball coach Terry Nooner announced his coaching staff on Wednesday afternoon. The staff will have four new members, one of them, Antwain Scales, being a Wichita native.

Antwain Scales:

Scales will be an assistant coach on Nooner’s staff. The 2023-24 season will mark Scales first year as an NCAA Division I coach.

Most recently, Scales was the head coach at Garden City Community College for three years. He finished there with a 42-12 coaching record.

Scales is well known for his coaching days at Wichita South High School. He took Wichita South’s girls team to four 6A State Championships.

In 2017, he began his college coaching career at Colby Community College. He turned the program around by winning 19 games in his second season, the program’s first winning record since 2006.

Brooke Costley

Brooke Costley will join the staff as an assistant coach. Costley is a native of Mexico, Missouri, and played at Emporia State University. She got her start in coaching with the ESU Hornets and also coached at Texas A&M Commerce and North Dakota State.

While Costley was on Emporia State’s staff, the team went to four Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Tournament Championships and made five NCAA Tournament appearances.

Nick Bradford Bradford is former teammate of Nooner’s at Kansas and will now join Nooner’s staff as an assistant coach.

Bradford ranked in the top five in the career record books in games played and steals after leaving KU. He also played for Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams.

The Kansas alumni got his start in coaching at Labette Community College. He’s also coached at Missouri Southern State, and Mexico High School.

He began his womens’ coaching career at Olathe North High School and Fayetteville High School in Arkansas.

D’Anthony Knight

Knight will begin his first year as the head strength and conditioning coach for the women’s basketball team.

He’s coming off a coaching stint as the assistant football strength and conditioning coach at Washington State. Knight also worked at Akron, Kansas, and Wyoming.

As a student-athlete, he played five seasons as a defensive back at Truman State. He totaled 141 tackles, four tackles-for-loss and three interceptions.

He graduated from Truman in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science.

The softball team earned their third conference sweep of the season against the East Carolina Pirates this past weekend.

Game 1:

The team secured a 5-1 win against the Pirates in their series opener with back-toback home runs from Addison Barnard and Lauren Lucas.

In the fifth inning, Wichita State had a one-run lead on East Carolina when Barnard and Lucas hit a pair of solo shots to bring the score, 4-1. Barnard led the Shocker's offense by going 2-3 at the plate. She homered once and drove in two runs. Lucas homered for the fourth time this season.

Rounding out the offense, freshman Taylor Sedlacek hit a single and a double, sophomore Lainee Brown hit a double and senior Sydney McKinney hit a single.

Right-handed pitcher Lauren Howell won her 16th game in the circle. Howell allowed one run on four hits and struck out 4 in six innings.

Game 2:

The Shockers blanked the Pirates on senior day 4-0.

Senior Zoe Jones, who missed two weeks due to injury, returned and went 2-3 in her first game back, hitting her 13th home run for this season. Jones and currently lead the team in home runs this season.

Jones also drove a deep fly ball off the top of the wall in center and over for a solo shot in the bottom of the fifth inning.

In this game, the Shockers clenched their fifth straight conference win and remained atop the American Athletic Conference standings.

Lauren Mills hit a perfect 3-3 with a walk and a run scored. Lucas, Sedlacek, Brown and Krystin Nelson all recorded a hit during the game.

Game 3:

The Shockers beat ECU 7-1 in the final game of the series, which marked their 40th win of the season.

This is the third time in program history that Wichita State has picked up 40 wins in one season.

McKinney scored a total of three times on Sunday along with hitting a single and a double. Barnard hit two doubles and scored two RBI’s and three home runs. Lucas went 2-4 with a triple and an RBI.

Alex Aguilar picked up her 13th win in 4.0 innings out of the bullpen. She struck out four and allowed two hits and a walk.