Natisha Hiedeman Commits To Marquette

For the purposes of keeping track of recruits before they join the Golden Eagles, I created a Google Alert for Sandy Cohen.  This morning, that paid off an extra dividend when an article from the Green Bay Press-Gazette popped an alert for Cohen even though the story wasn't actually about him.

Natisha Hiedeman, a 5'8" guard from Green Bay Southwest High School verbally committed to Marquette University and head women's basketball coach Carolyn Kieger on Saturday.  The reason why this story snagged the Google Alert's attention is because Hiedeman is the half-sister of Cohen, who will be joining the men's hoops team this fall.

In her sophomore season, Hiedeman led the Fox River Classic Conference in scoring and carried Southwest to their first winning season in nine years.  For an encore, Hiedeman averaged 17.1 points, 6.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 3.6 steals to earn first team all-conference honors for the second straight season and boost Southwest from fourth place to third place.  While she only finished third in scoring, she did lead FRCC in steals and ended up surpassing the 1,000 point plateau.

It's also possible that Hiedeman could join Wally Ellenson in pulling double duty on both the basketball team and the track & field team.  She's qualified for the WIAA state meet for nine events in her three years of high school, culminating with a Division 1 state title in the triple jump this June.  Hiedeman's title winning jump of 38 feet, 5.75 inches, would have given her the fifth best distance in Marquette history.

Hiedeman is the first recruit to commit since Carolyn Kieger was hired to replace Terri Mitchell.  Kieger will have four scholarships opening up after the 2014-15 season.  Marquette has only 11 players on the roster for this coming season, and the NCAA allows a maximum of 15.