Women’s Basketball Star Courtney Woods out for Season

By Justin Kelley

The women’s basketball team announced Wednesday that star senior forward Courtney Woods will miss the remainder of the season. Woods sustained a knee injury in the teams 98-69  win over the University of Nevada on Sunday.

Before the season, Woods earned several preseason honors including being named to the preseason All-MAC team. She also was put on the preseason watchlist for the Cheryll Miller Award for the best small forward in the country.

Through seven games this season, Woods averaged 22.1 points per game and shot 41.3 percent from the field. She has also been named MAC west player of the week two times this season after earning the award four times in the previous season.

Woods has started every game since the end of her freshman year at NIU. Prior to attending NIU, Woods was named a top-20 basketball prospect by the Australian National Media. She led her high school in scoring as a senior and a sophomore averaging 25 and 19.7 points respectively.

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Woods was coming off a career year after earning First-Team All-MAC honors. She started everythe Huskies and received Academic All-MAC accolades.  

Her 105 made three-pointers last season were good enough to lead the NCAA, and break the NIU single season record. She became the fifth MAC player to reach the 100 three-pointers mark in a season.

Woods averaged 22.1 points per game last season and has scored 1,661 points over her career for the Huskies putting her at seventh in program history. She has set a career high in points with 39 twice, against Western Illinois on Nov. 18 and Kent State on Jan. 3.

While scoring is Woods’ specialty, she also impressed with her rebounds. Woods had a career-best 239 rebounds her junior year and averaged eight rebounds per game. Her career high in rebounds occured when she grabbed 15 against ball state Jan. 27.

In her sophomore year, Woods was named to the MAC’s All-Tournament Team after she scored 19 points in the Huskies semifinal game against Western Michigan.

As a freshman Woods joined teammate Mikayla Voigt as the first freshman duo to score at least 300 points in their first season since 1986-87.

Woods broke the news about her injury Monday night. She said she was disappointed but provided encouragement to her teammates.

“Very sad to announce that in our seventh game of the season I tore my ACL,” Woods said on her personal Instagram account. “[I’m] excited to watch my teammates continue to kill it this year.”

Head Coach Lisa Carlsen said she was empathetic and disappointed for Woods after her injury.

“This is obviously is a big loss for our team” Carlsen said and “ I’m disappointed for Courtney, she was off to a great start and she has been key member of our team during her time here.”   

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Though it is a big blow for the team Carlsen is very confident in other players ability to step up.

“We have a lot of talent on this team and I know they will work even harder to get us where we want to be.” Carlsen said.

The Huskies next game will be against Southern Illinois University at 7 p.m. Dec. 7 at the SIU arena.