Jimmies coaches, players react to move up to NCAA Division II

Nov. 25—JAMESTOWN — The University of Jamestown athletic department has officially been accepted into the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference at the NCAA Division II level, which means the school's coaches and players are preparing for the move up from the NAIA.

"We're very thankful for the invite and excited for the opportunity to compete in the Northern Sun," Jimmies women's basketball head coach Thad Sankey said. "It's a premier conference in NCAA Division II in women's basketball. We look forward to what that means for our team."

As of Nov. 22, the Northern Sun has five teams ranked inside the top 25 of the American Volleyball Coaches Association's Coaches Poll and four teams in the top 10, including the No. 2- and No. 3-ranked teams in the country. The Jimmies women's volleyball team is used to tough competition, though, as its current conference, the Great Plains Athletic Conference, has five teams in the NAIA top 25.

"We can't have a tougher schedule than we have right now with the teams in our conference," Jimmies women's volleyball head coach Jon Hegerle said. "So to play the best in our league and our division can only help us to be as prepared as possible to play in that conference."

Volleyball is not the only sport that the conference is good at, as it also has one women's basketball team ranked in the top 25 of the Nov. 21 media poll.

"The Northern Sun is filled with well-established, high-quality coaches and great programs," Sankey said. "So when you compete against coaches who are experienced, year in and year out, have great success and are top-level coaches in women's basketball, that's always part of the challenge. So that's just one but still a really big part to playing in that league."

The other two North Dakota teams in the NSIC, Minot State University and the University of Mary, used to be regional foes for the Jimmies, something Jimmies baseball head coach Tom Hager knows all about.

"The rivalries that we had with teams that were in the DAC (Dakota Athletic Conference) and the North Star, those are ones I think we're looking forward to resuming," Hager said. "So any time you get a chance to play against Minot and Mary, not only are they close by but they're also former rivals. So it's gonna be fun to reconnect with them."

Before the Jimmies begin playing in the conference in the 2025-26 school year, the university has to be accepted into the NCAA. Hager said he is not worried about the application to the NCAA. Hager said the conference being very competitive will help his team and the rest of the Jimmies teams.

"Overall, the NSIC is going to prepare us to eventually compete at the national level," Hager said. "The teams that are in that conference are highly thought of throughout the rest of the country. So anytime you can be in a league like the NSIC, with the quality of teams and players and coaches, it means something. We're gonna have to up our game certainly in all of our sports but that's something that we're all looking forward to is that challenge to continue to grow and get better."

In recent years, Sankey and his team have played Northern Sun teams in preseason games. The preseason games were not the only scouting that the Jimmies women's basketball team has done. Sophomore guard Kate Cordes said she has paid attention to the teams, thanks to having friends on the rosters.

"We did a fair amount of scouting on them, with my old AAU teammates, I've watched a fair amount of games," Cordes said. "They're college basketball players so it's very similar to how we play. So I guess we'll see how different it is once we start playing an actual season with them ... it'll be an adjustment definitely. But I think we're gonna adjust well to it."

An unexpected change that the Jimmies volleyball team and Hegerle will have to adjust to is the fact that in the NAIA they have unlimited substitutions but in the NCAA they are limited to 15. Hegerle said he is not a fan of the substitution limits and that it will force him to change the way he recruits players.

One of the challenges that the coaches acknowledged was the changes in recruiting. Hager said the coaches in the athletic department work really hard and will continue to try to get the best players for their program.

"I think that our coaches already do an excellent job of recruiting to a high level," Hager said. "The same is gonna have to happen in moving to Division II, it might not necessarily be about how hard we work but how timely we work."

The Jimmies coaches are already well underway in their recruiting for the class of 2024. Jimmies football head coach Brian Mistro said that when they were first reaching out to players to play in the fall of 2024, they told them the school might be moving up to the NCAA Division II level.

As part of the Jimmies' transition, they will be placed on a three year probationary period that excludes them from postseason play. Mistro said his team will not be worried about the lack of postseason football as much as just staying focused on the games in front of them.