WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) is celebrating its 40th playing season by selecting All-Decade teams in all 23 championship sports. The league released its 40th Anniversary Women’s Basketball All-Decade Team on Monday, and Kenyon’s Maureen Hirt ’14 and Paige Matijasich ’20 were amongst the student-athlete honorees.
Student-athletes that competed in the NCAC between the 2013-14 and the 2022-23 seasons who earned Player of the Year honors, or who earned a minimum of three All-NCAC first-team nods during this time were named to the team. Hirt and Matijasich are two of a dozen women’s basketball student-athletes who earned a spot on the All-Decade team for their outstanding accomplishments on the court.
Hirt competed for Kenyon from the 2010-11 season through the 2013-14 campaign, and her stellar senior season secured her a spot on the All-Decade squad. Only All-Conference laurels earned between the All-Decade seasons are considered for inclusion, but Hirt still earned recognition after winning the NCAC Player of the Year award and a spot on the All-NCAC First Team following the 2013-14 season. The Bloomington, Indiana, native is Kenyon’s most recent NCAC Women’s Basketball Player of the Year winner and is one of seven College student-athletes to earn the honor.
During her senior season, Hirt averaged 19.2 points and 5.7 rebounds per game, leading the league and the team in scoring. One of the most accurate shooters in program history, Hirt shot 92 percent from the free throw line that year, the second-best mark in the country, and converted three-pointers at a 43.4 percent clip, the 15th-best NCAA Division III mark.
Hirt’s 499 points over the 2013-14 campaign are the third-best single-season mark in program history, and her scoring average ranks sixth all time. Hirt’s name can be found throughout the Kenyon record books, and the impressive final season cemented her as Kenyon’s all-time leading scorer with 1,819 points. On the national stage, Hirt became the program’s fourth All-American and secured a second straight All-Region nod, one of two Kenyon women’s hoopers to make two All-Region squads and one of five total to be awarded as All-Region players.
After graduating in 2014, Hirt was chosen as an NCAA Postgraduate Scholar, becoming the first and only Kenyon women’s basketball student-athlete to earn the prestigious scholarship.
Matijasich made her way onto the All-Decade Team after a three-year stretch of earning a spot on the All-NCAC First Team. The Pickerington, Ohio, native is one of just five Kenyon women’s basketball players to make the league’s top team on three separate occasions, joining Hirt in that regard.
Kenyon compiled a 67-36 overall record over Matijasich’s four seasons, and her squads went 42-22 against NCAC competition during her career. Matijasich raised her level of play each year, posting new personal standards for points, rebounds, assists, and steals each season. As a senior in 2019-20, she led Kenyon with 17.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game, leading the NCAC in rebounding as a guard and ranking third in points and fourth in assists amongst conference players. Additionally, she shot 44.8 percent from the field and 36.8 percent from three-point range in her final season, both career-best marks.
Like Hirt, Matijasich also made her mark in Kenyon’s record books. Amongst the program’s all-time leaders, she ranks seventh in points (1,402), fifth in rebounds (687), fourth in free throw percentage (.778), sixth in field goals made (519), and ninth in scoring average (13.5), while also adding top-10 marks in field goals attempted (1,232), three-pointers made (143), three-pointers attempted (428), three-point percentage (.344), free throws made (221), and rebounding average (6.6).
Matijasich sits alongside Hirt as the only Kenyon players to be selected to two All-Region Teams, and she is the College’s only women’s hooper to earn back-to-back All-Region spots after earning nods following her junior and senior seasons.
