The Sam Kortum era for the MCC Pioneer women's basketball team will get underway Friday at the MonDak Conference Tipoff Tournament with a matchup against United Tribes Technical College. The tournament 2nd round is on Saturday with the championship and other games on Sunday. Each team gets 3 games at the event. 

The game is the final 1st round women's game of the day and is scheduled to start at 12:45 PM MST. 

Kortum took over as interim head coach last season after Mark Graupe abruptly resigned less than 10 games in to the season. The Pioneers finished the campaign 4-27 and have added several new players to the mix for the 2025-26 season. 

Returning for the Pioneers are Pien Draisma (5'10 Forward - Katwijk, Netherlands) and Taylor McCarthy (5'2 Guard - Hamilton, MT). Draisma averaged 3 points and 3 rebounds a game and saw action in 30 games. McCarthy averaged 4 points and shot 30% from the 3-point line (25-82) but missed the final 7 games of the season due to a concussion. 

Newcomers for the Pioneers include Winifred product and Carroll College transfer Laynee Elness (5'6 Guard) as well as Dodson, MT grad and Dawson transfer Kataya Kill Eagle (5'8 Forward). 5'6 guard Ebele Mbagwu (Stockdale, CA) and Matilda Sanz (5'10 Forward - Madrid, Spain) look to bring big minutes and scoring to the lineup. 

Jai Baumann (5'5 Guard - Big Sandy, MT), Hailey Dennison (5'8 Forward - Shepherd, MT), and Aimilia Manousi (5'3 Guard - Thessaloniki, Greece) will also be looking to contribute to the Pioneer success.