LONDON, Ont. - Led by fifth-year guard Amanda Anderson (Chatham, Ont.) the Western Mustangs are ready for a run at the OUA West title, something that has eluded the talented team the past two seasons.

Despite the loss of CIS player-of-the-year finalist Bess Lennox (Ottawa) and forwards Nadine Paron (Arva, Ont.) and Megan Lapointe (Burlington, Ont.), the Mustangs still return five players from the 2008-09 roster.

Three of those players - guards Rebecca Moss (Waterloo, Ont.) and Sarah Mallen (Fonthill, Ont.), and forward Lauren Parkes (London, Ont.) - were hurt late in the season and unavailable for playoffs.
Along with a number of new faces, guard Kelly Moulden (Dundas, Ont.) is also back in the lineup.

All five returners will create the Mustangs starting five and be the catalyst for a run at the division title.

Western lost in the OUA West Final to the eventual provincial champion Windsor Lancers. This year, should be a wide open field in the OUA West, with any team capable of coming out as division champion.

Guided by head coach Stephan Barrie, now in his fourth season, the Mustangs added depth and competitiveness to the practice roster for the first half of the season. Jacklyn Selfe (Burlington, Ont.) practices with the team but will not be eligible for league play until January, 2010. 

The second-year guard and BMOS major is expected to add depth at guard and help to push the Mustangs newly adopted run-and-gun, fastbreak style.

And next year, Jenny Vaughan  (Dundas, Ont.), a guard and transfer from the University of Denver, will join the team - another talented guard from the storied St. Mary's program.

At forward, Guelph transfer Katelyn Leddy (London, Ont.) and freshman Melissa Rondinelli (Sarnia, Ont.) will see minutes, while new guards Beckie Williams (London, Ont.) and Stephanie Lundstrom(Peterborough, Ont.) will provide support to allow Western to play its up-tempo style.

With the goal to wear the opposition out and play pressure defence, the Mustangs will need its new faces to step up to be competitive.

Windsor, which lost stars Dranadia Roc and Alisa Wulff, but will still return Iva Peklova and Bojana Kovacevic, has four freshman in the mix, while McMaster also has a number of new faces. Wilfrid Laurier has made noise in the pre-season, but predicting the standings in the OUA West is virtually impossible at this stage.

"The team knows that they are just going to have to grind it out at practices every day and work to get better," said Barrie. "We're not really thinking about anything other than each day, and each week we hope to take some strides."

Barrie said he is optimistic about the year ahead, and knows consistency will be the key for his team's development.

"We definitely showed how good we can be when we played Laval and Saskatchewan," Barrie said. "We were, at times, very very good."

"We know it's there, the challenge is to keep it there consistently," he added. "We need to get the young kids to understand how difficult it is to be good every game, that's the challenge. You just have to demand consistency and you have to enforce it and make the players accountable."

Western, which opens the regular season Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. against the Laurentian Voyageurs, will face an immediate test.

"They could be very good," Barrie said of the Sudbury-based squad. "They have almost their whole team returning, they only really lost one player. And they have a good mix of some size, a quick point guard, some shooters... they can be very dangerous."

"And we have traditionally had very competitive games with them," Barrie said. "They have always been good battles. I am expecting the same (on Friday Nov. 6)."

The next day, Western will host York, a team the Mustangs defeated handily in pre-season play, 69-52. Coached by veteran bench-boss Bill Pangos, Barrie said he is wary that it could be a much closer battle on Nov. 7.

"They might have some people back from when we played them last, they were shorthanded," Barrie said. "We have to go back and look at that tape and make sure we correct some things. We were down at the half. We are certainly capable of playing better, they will be better, so we have to make sure we are not the same team they saw two weeks ago."

Barrie knows every game will be important.

"The fact that there's not any one team that is the clear power is the biggest change this year," Barrie said. "In the past years, there has always been a team that has been head and shoulders above the pack."

"There are a lot of teams who are in it and a lot of teams that can win this season. It's going to be the team who can put a string of games together and play well over the entire 22-game season that is going to be successful."

Barrie said the biggest surprise during preseason - over which Western posted wins over Guelph and Queen's and losses against Ryerson, Saskatchewan, Saint Mary's and Laval for an 3-4 exhibition record, was the improvement of star guard Anderson.

"I think that Amanda Anderson has gotten better, I wasn't sure that going into her fifth year there was much left," Barrie said of her ability to add anything else to her already impressive resume. "But defensively and the off-court stuff, she has just been unbelievable in her role as captain."

He added that Moss is "way past where she was in her first year. That's going to help us big time. Between rebounding and scoring right now, she' s providing us with a huge lift."

The proof will be in the results and the Mustangs will only play four home games in 2009 against Laurentian, York, RMC (Nov. 20) and a Queen's squad (Nov. 21) they beat at the Laval pre-season tournament before a challenging OUA West portion of the schedule. Western travels to Ottawa to face Ottawa and Carleton and to Toronto to play Ryerson and the Varsity Blues for their four other crossover games with OUA East teams.