Kirkwood looks to the future after 8th national title

CEDAR RAPIDS — Now comes the rebuild.

Fresh off its eighth national title, Coach Kim Muhl and the Kirkwood women's basketball team turns their attention to the future,

"It's harder to stay successful and the thing we're proud of is winning consistently over time," Muhl said days after the Eagles won the NJCAA Division II title with a 49-44 victory over Morton College. "It's an accountability thing and they have to want to be a good teammate. That takes some adjustment when all of them were the star of their high school team."

With a year-to-year teaching agreement with Kirkwood, Muhl knows nothing is guaranteed in life as a coach.

"I'm obviously motivated cause if you aren't you get beat," said Muhl, who just finished his 33rd season. "It's just about getting up and going to work and doing something you like. Too many people hate what they do."

The Eagles seemingly breezed through the national tournament with victories by margins of 30, 23, and 28 leading up to the title game. Kirkwood trailed, 36-29, entering the final 10 minutes of the season.

"(Morton) was a very good team that got better as the year went on and we didn't make shots," Muhl said of the top defensive team in the country. "They ran a zone defense that is hard to explain and they play really hard."

Once the fourth period began, however, sophomore Tasia Jordan took over and scored 15 straight points for the Eagles

"Tasia went crazy and she was the difference-maker," Muhl said. "Once she got hot, everything changed."

Guard Karsyn Stratton also had a strong game, going 5 of 10 from the field and netting 11 points.

While Kirkwood went 24-2 during the 2020-21 season and won the NJCAA title, three members of that Eagles squad returned for a third attempt at cutting down the nets at the national tournament.

Ashley Tull and Tati Hodges-Johnson were instrumental in the title game, both playing 28 minutes and going 4 of 9 from the field, scoring 9 and 11 points, respectively.

The third returning Eagle, Kortney Drake, will play for Northern Illinois next season. But she, too, wasn't done making noise for her team with five rebounds and an assist as well as a stellar defensive effort.

This year's team finished 36-1, winning its final 23 games.

"Kids came back for the third year and that tells me they had unfinished business they wanted to get done," Muhl said. "They wanted to do it for the program and that's not a normal thing. That's really special."

Now that Tull, Hodges-Johnson, and Drake are able to move on in their careers with a clear conscious, Muhl will remain and try to rebuild with a much younger team in 2022-23.

"Your emotions are going in 18 different directions because you did what you wanted to do, but there aren't many of these left," Muhl said.

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