New Head Coach, Same Success For West Chester Women's Hoops

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- In the offseason, the West Chester University women's basketball team underwent a change at the top.

After a wildly successful run as head coach, which featured 447 victories, Deirdre Kane retired after the 2013-14 season and her top assistant Kiera Wooden took over the program.

The Golden Rams have not missed a beat.

West Chester is 19-4 this season (15-4 in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference) after pulling off a 93-88 overtime upset of #16 Bloomsburg on Wednesday night. They are second in the PSAC East.

"It's been absolutely exhilarating," Wooden tells KYW Newsradio about her first season as head coach. "It's been a great experience, I have a hard working group of kids and they make it easy to come to work every day."

Listen to the entire interview with Kiera Wooden:

Wooden played her college ball at West Chester. In fact, she is 5th in program history in points scored with 1,378. She spent ten seasons as Kane's top assistant before taking over this season. She talks about adjusting to life as a head coach.

"I think the biggest change, not necessarily for me, but for (the players) is in my demeanor," Wooden says. "I think for the past few years I've been more like a big sister to them just because of the closensss in our relationship, as me being an assistant coach and now with me being the head coach, that relationship has changed slightly, because now I'm the one that's in control of the playing time and the play calling and that sort of thing. So I think that changes the dynamic of the relationship. But at the same time, I think that I have their respect, they know that I have their best interests at heart, so they have done a great job of listening to me."

This is a veteran, balanced West Chester team. They are led in scoring by junior guard Brittany Sicinski at 14.3 ppg. Right behind her is another junior guard, Dallas Ely, at 14.1 ppg. A third Golden Ram averaging double figures is junior forward Chikisha Steele-Hook.  She scores at a 10.7 ppg clip and also paces the team in rebounding, pulling down 8.3 a game.

West Chester also plays good defense, holding teams to 39% shooting from the field.

The Golden Rams have three games left in the regular season and then it's the PSAC Tournament. Wooden talks about what they are focusing on here down the stretch.

"The same thing we've been focusing on," Wooden says, "which is having a defensive mindset, focusing on getting consecutive stops. Also focusing on not being content with where we are currently. Yes, the Bloomsburg game was a big win for us, but if you don't follow that up and continue to win, then it was all for naught."

West Chester returns to the court on Wednesday when they host East Stroudsburg.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.