Maren Walseth #00

Bio

Walseth is in her third season at her alma mater where she is responsible for coaching the post players. In addition to her duties as the post coach, Walseth assists in the team's recruiting efforts and is responsible for opponent scouting and alumni relations. She is the liaison for academics and the strength and conditioning program. Walseth also serves as the summer camp director for the Lady Lions.

"Maren is an excellent post coach and I am very pleased with her development of our posts," Washington says. "Her passion for Lady Lion basketball shows itself every day and that passion rubs off on all the coaches. She also works very diligently with our academic advisor, Sue Sherburne, which has led to very strong performances in the classroom by our team."

Walseth worked with a very young group of post players in her first season at Penn State but found success when she developed the young, inexperienced group into solid contributors. Janessa Wolff corralled 140 rebounds in her rookie campaign, which is seventh on Penn State's freshman charts. She also led all Big Ten freshmen in field goal percentage.

The former Lady?Lion continued to mentor the young post players to become regular contributors last season. Julia Trogele was solid for the Lady Lions as she led the team in rebounding and finished fourth in scoring, while Wolff was fifth on the team in scoring and second in rebounding in 2008-09.

As the academic liaison, Walseth guided the Lady Lions to a 3.20 team GPA in the fall semester and a 3.12 team GPA in the spring semester. The Lady Lions also racked up three 4.0 GPAs during the 2007-08 academic year.

Walseth returned to Happy Valley after three seasons as an assistant coach at the United States Naval Academy. While at Navy, Walseth was primarily responsible for working with the post players, including the development of All-Patriot League performer Nikki Curtis and All-Lowe's Senior CLASS first team selection Kate Hobbs. Additionally, Walseth assisted with recruiting, prepared team scouting reports, managed the film exchange program and worked with the male scout team. She also served as the academic liaison for the women's basketball team.

As a player at Penn State, Walseth was a key member of the Lady Lion team that advanced to the 2000 NCAA Final Four. Walseth, who was also a member of the 1998 WNIT Championship team, is 14th on the Lady Lions' career scoring charts with 1,328 points and 16th in rebounding (645). During her career, Walseth earned All-Big Ten first team accolades in 2000 and 2001, a Kodak All-District berth in 2001 and a spot on the Big Ten All-Freshman squad in 1998.

After her time at Penn State, Walseth, who was the Sacramento Monarch's third-round pick in the 2001 WNBA Draft, spent four years in the professional ranks. Walseth spent the 2002 season with the Washington Mystics of the WNBA, before heading overseas to play with Cavigal of the French Basketball Federation in 2002-03. She also played with SCAB 63 of the French Basketball Federation, in addition to a season with the Colorado Chill of the National Women's Basketball League. Walseth was inducted into the Bloomington Jefferson (Minn.) High School Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class in the fall of 2006. Also part of the inaugural class were NHL?players Ben Clymer and Mark Parrish and former Charlotte Hornet Kevin Lynch.

Walseth earned her bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism with a minor in movement science from Penn State in 2002.