Former Lady Saint Makes her Point at K-State

Spresser Leading Kansas State
The early comeback story of the 2012-13 season involves Kansas State junior Kendra Spresser, a 5-foot-5 junior guard, who has started six games this season after not playing basketball at any organized level in 2011-12. Spresser, a native of Dresden, Kan. (population 41), started her collegiate basketball career at Seward County (Kan.) Community College in 2009-10 as a freshman. She averaged 9.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.3 steals while helping the Lady Saints to a 31-3 record and a runner-up finish in the Region VI tournament. She then played at the 2010 NJCAA All-Star event in Pensacola, Fla., and was on her way to collecting Division I and II offers during her sophomore season. However, prior to the start of her sophomore season at Seward County, she suffered knee and back injuries that prevented her from playing in the entire 2010-11 season. Due to the injuries and a lack of offers, she enrolled at Kansas State as a full-time student in 2011-12. After the start of the first semester, she gravitated back to basketball and began to play at Kansas State’s Rec Center. She played well enough in the rec league for her friends to convince her to try and walk-on with Kansas State for the 2012-13 season.

In order to get her foot in the door with the Wildcats, she asked her head coach at Seward County (Toby Wynn) to contact the Kansas State coaching staff on her behalf. Kansas State assistant coaches Shalee Lehning and Kelly Moylan took the phone call from Wynn and were willing to take a look at her. Spresser was contacted by Lehning to organize some of her friends for a game at the Rec Center so that they could take a look at her in an informal tryout. Lehning and Moylan were impressed enough with Spresser to report back to Kansas State head coach Deb Patterson to offer a walk-on opportunity. Patterson extended the invitation to Spresser this summer and she accepted the offer.

Spresser has taken advantage of the opportunity by averaging 4.6 points and 4.6 rebounds, in 23.1 minutes of action over the first seven games. Despite her lack of height, Spresser tallied a career-high 12 rebounds at Tennessee State and has been a key factor the Wildcats fast start to the season.