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Meet the sister act that has helped drive this CT school to its own level of March Madness
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- Meet the sister act that has helped drive this CT school to its own level of March Madness
NEW HAVEN — It can be safely surmised that when a college program attracts multiple players from a single family, especially from outside the 50 states, it's doing something right. Would a big sister let her younger sisters go somewhere far from home that wasn't special?
Southern Connecticut may not be well known in Canada, but coach Kate Lynch's Division II women's basketball program has found a decade's worth of talent out of the Steinauer family's driveway in Oakwood, Ontario. And three sisters have found themselves at home in New Haven, Conn.
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"The community, from the coaches, to the custodians we have working here at the Fieldhouse, to the admin upstairs, all of those people, they're there for us and the welcomeness that they bring," said Rheyna Steinauer, the Owls leading scorer. "I just enjoy my teammates here. My sister never had anything bad to say about this place. She did so well here, why not give it a shot?"
Kiana Steinauer, big sis, made her name at Southern between 2016-20, racking up several school and Northeast 10 records in rebounding, as many as 31 in a game, 444 in a season in 2018-19. Rheyna, now a senior and captain, arrived at SCSU in 2022 and is averaging 14.8 points this season. Taeya, a sophomore, transferred in from Purdue-Fort Wayne and is holding down a starting guard spot, averaging 11.6 per game, leading the team in steals and often defending the opponent's best player.
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"I feel like I already knew what to expect because I've been around it my whole life," Taeya said. "I've known the coaches since I was about 6 years old. They recruited me all throughout high school, and in the portal they recruited me, so I had a sense of what this place was all about, what the culture was all about. A positive place, good people, that's what led me here."
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The two younger sisters have led Southern (24-5) to a place it hasn't been in a long time. The Owls had quite the preseason workout at UConn, losing 105-39 , on Oct. 26. After a 6-4 start to the regular season, they have won 18 of 19, gaining home court advantage and sweeping to the NE 10 championship last weekend. On Friday, Southern will host the NCAA East Regional at Moore Field House for the first time in 19 years, to play Saint Michael's at 5 p.m. in the Round of 64.
"There was a moment there, after we lost at Bentley (Jan. 4), there was a shift in that locker room," Lynch said. "I think there was a big time belief that, 'we're close, and we can do this.' There was a focus about them, a drive about them. Not just one or two players, they are just connected as a group and they love each other, they're a very selfless basketball team."
Starter Jada Williams was lost to an injury in the ninth game of the season, and freshman Tish Blackwood, the NE 10 rookie of the year, stepped into the frontcourt role, averaging 11.3 points and 9.1 rebounds, with Williams mentoring her throughout the season.
"We just weren't satisfied with how we'd played (at Bentley)," Blackwood said. "I was a bit nervous, but I told myself, 'we need to win,' the whole team said, 'we need to win,' and our mindset was, we need to be comfortable being uncomfortable and that's what we did. We knew if we were going to win, we had to do the little stuff."
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Southern won the rematch against Bentley, and a rubber match in the NE 10 final last Sunday, 59-50, as Jillian Martin (15), a grad student from Orange, Hope Fox and Ally Sentance (12), also from Ontario, led the way in scoring. Southern is plus-5 for the season in rebounding, shooting 41.8 percent as a team and outscoring opponents 68.6-53.2.
"We were figuring it out," Rheyna Steinauer said. "We had a lot of new faces. The first couple of games we were like, 'whoa, what's going on.' We figured it out, what plays to run, what works well, how our defense can work together. We honestly figured out the culture of the team, we became a family and we just flipped a switch. 'We can do this.' Our brains went, 'yup.'"
Gina Sampson-Steinauer played center for Western Washington, where she was the school's female athlete of the decade of the 1990s. Her husband, Orlondo Steinauer played football at WWU, and later 13 seasons in the CFL. He's now president of football operations for the Hamilton Tiger Cats.
"They're an amazing family," Lynch said. "(Rheyna and Taeya) are like born-and-bred competitors, they bring a lot of positive energy and they're great representatives for our university. On the court, they bring out the absolute best in each other."
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Rheyna and Taeya played for in an AAU program where they were coached by Richard Nurse– yes– UConn and WNBA star Kia Nurse's father.
Southern hasn't hosted an NCAA Regional since 2007, when Lynch was leading on the court with 21 points and 10.7 rebounds per game, and the Owls went on to win the national championship. A Southern Connecticut, NE 10 and Connecticut Women's Basketball Hall-of-Famer, Lynch is in her 13th season as the Owls' coach, with a 168 wins and a winning percentage better than .560. Assistant coach Stephanie Hiriak Lund also played for that SCSU championship team.
"The culture here is amazing, always positive, always pushing each other," Taeya Steinauer said. "And I knew that coming in."
The crowds that filled the fieldhouse with sound last weekend were reminiscent of old times, when the campus community, largely a commuter campus, rallied around its basketball teams. Assumption, Holy Family, Mercy, Bentley, Daeman and Felician are in New Haven for the regional; top-seed Southern, which has won six of nine against its possible regional opponents, will have to win Friday, Saturday and Monday to advance to the Elite 8 in Pittsburgh.
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"It's a great opportunity to bring our campus community together," Lynch said. "We're really proud to be wearing that jersey and hopefully all the Owls will come out. The place was packed for our conference semifinal and final game last weekend, and it was a real homecourt advantage."
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