ST. GEORGE — The Desert Hills girls basketball team is expected to be the front-runner to win state this season and having a couple of future college basketball players leading the way certainly confirms that notion.
In a signing ceremony at DHHS, center Haley Bodnar and forward Emily Seifert signed letters of intent to play college basketball next season. Bodnar, a 6-foot-3 senior who averaged 14 points and 12 rebounds a game last season, will be the first girls basketball player from Utah ever to play for the Purdue Boilermakers. Seifert signed with Colorado-Colorado Springs, an NCAA Division II school that competes in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
Bodnar will play for coach Sharon Versyp and the Boilermakers, members of the Big Ten Conference. Purdue has won the Big Ten conference tournament and played in the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons. The Boilermakers have a 45-22 all-time record in the NCAA Tourney and won a National Championship in 1999. Versyp is a Purdue grad and has a 161-79 record as PU’s head coach.
UCCS was 19-7 last season and is coached by Corey Laster. The Mountain Lions won as many games last season as they had ever done in school history.
Desert Hills lost just two seniors off of last year’s 3A runner-up team. The Lady Thunder lost by one point to Dixie in the state championship game. Point guard Blair Bliss, also a college prospect, brings her 13.4 ppg back to Desert Hills for the 2013-2014 season as well.
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