ABILENE – Abilene Christian University director of athletics Lee De León announced Saturday afternoon that women's basketball head coach
Julie Goodenough has agreed to a multi-year contract extension that will keep on her on the Wildcats' bench at least through the end of the 2021-2022 season.
The ACU women's basketball program has experienced remarkable success in Goodenough's five seasons as the head coach with three conference titles, three 20-win seasons and three trips to post-season tournaments during her tenure.
"
Julie Goodenough is not only an outstanding head coach, she's also set the standard for our entire department on how to be excellent both on and off the court," De León said. "The amount of success she's had here was bound to begin to attract other universities, and we needed to show her that we want her to be the ACU head coach for many years to come."
Goodenough is 105-43 in her five seasons at ACU with one Lone Star Conference championship (2012-13) in the program's final season at the NCAA Division II level, and back-to-back Southland Conference regular-season titles in the Wildcats' final two seasons of transition to the NCAA Division I level.
Those two regular-season titles have also earned the Wildcats back-to-back trips to the Women's NIT. The Wildcats picked up the program's first post-season win at the NCAA Division I level on March 17 with a 66-56 win at Oklahoma State in the first round of the WNIT. ACU's season – along with the careers of seniors Suzzy and
Lizzy Dimba,
Alexis Mason and
Sydney Shelstead – came to an end on March 20 in a hard-fought 59-52 loss at SMU in the tournament's second round.
"I just want to thank (ACU president) Dr. Phil Schubert and Lee De León for their confidence in me and in our program," Goodenough said. "I consider it a true blessing and privilege to be the head women's basketball coach at ACU. I'm excited about God's plan for the future of this program."
Despite the loss of the four seniors, the Wildcats next year will return starting point guard
Breanna Wright and key reserves
Sierra Allen,
Sara Williamson and
Dominique Golightly, along with
Pamela Herrera,
Lexi Kirgan and
Taudenciah Oluoch. The Wildcats will also add incoming freshmen Alyssa Adams, Kayla Galindo, Josie Larson and Laura Rowe to the roster in 2017-18.
