Salukis to hold walk-on tryouts

By Thomas Donley

The SIU women’s basketball team might find its next key contributor Wednesday.

Head coach Cindy Stein will hold a walk-on tryout Wednesday at SIU Arena. The tryout is open to any female SIU student enrolled in a minimum of 12 credit hours, who has obtained a tryout physical and registered by Sept. 5.

Stein said the team is holding tryouts to make sure it doesn’t miss out on a potential valuable addition to the roster.

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“You never know who’s out there,” Stein said. “You always want to have a lookout for those young ladies that maybe went under the radar.”

The Salukis found a solid player in Hannah Shores in last year’s tryout.

Shores walked on as a sophomore and played in all 30 games for the Salukis and started 18. The 5-foot- 7-inch guard averaged 4.4 points and 3.0 rebounds per game in 2013- 2014 and led the team in assists.

“Hannah’s a perfect example,” Stein said. “She definitely helped our team last year when we needed it.”

Injuries depleted the Salukis’ roster last winter, which opened up more playing time for Shores, among others.

Shores said she did not come to SIU with the intent to play varsity basketball, but decided to try out when she saw an announcement outside a classroom.

“I thought, well, it’s not going to hurt to try out,” Shores said, who ranks fifth all-time in scoring at Centralia High School. “I’m definitely glad I did it.”

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She said she practiced and played at the Recreation Center leading up to the tryout, but was unprepared in that she did not even have the proper clothes and ended up wearing a tank top and running shorts. Her attire did not end up holding her back, however, and she went on to have a productive first season for SIU.

Thomas Donley can be reached at [email protected]on Twitter @tdonleyDE or at 536-331 ext. 256

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