Throughout her time at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, forward Frode Flos van der Schans has seemed like the ultimate teammate. Always energetic. Always encouraging.
And yet, questions lingered about where the 6-foot-4 redshirt sophomore from Amsterdam fit into the big picture for the most successful women’s basketball program in Southern Conference history.
She’s such a great teammate. But can she help the team?
In the biggest moment of her UTC career, she stepped up.
Van der Schans came off the bench to play 14 minutes and made all three of her shots while scoring eight points, grabbing three rebounds and providing a spark as the second-seeded Mocs defeated sixth-seeded Furman 63-55 in the semifinals of the SoCon tournament Friday at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
“Every game, I’m going to give my all,” said van der Schans, whose academic excellence has led to her making appearances on the dean’s list, athletic director’s honor roll and SoCon honor roll. “With the coaches having so much belief in me, it’s just like I was ready for this and they knew I was ready for it.”
The Mocs (16-13) — who advanced to the SoCon title matchup for the third consecutive season and have won eight straight games in league tournament competition since an overtime loss in the 2022 quarterfinals — will face top-seeded UNC Greensboro (24-6) at noon Sunday with the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division I tournament at stake. ESPNU will televise the game.
The Spartans moved on via a 54-50 win against fourth-seeded Wofford in Friday’s first semifinal, again beating the team that had handed them their lone loss in a 13-1 SoCon regular season. The Terriers won 62-39 at home on Jan. 16, when the Spartans shot just 24.6% (their 14-for-57 rate on field goals included 4-for-24 from 3-point range), but UNCG won the regular-season rematch 68-60 in Greensboro.
UNCG’s regular-season sweep of UTC consisted of a 62-48 home victory on Jan. 11 and a 58-50 road win on Feb. 6, with the Mocs struggling before halftime in both cases, but the Spartans will have to overcome some history Sunday. The Mocs are 20-0 all-time in SoCon championship games, while UNCG won the 1998 final in its first appearance but is winless in its past six trips — including last year’s 69-60 loss in Asheville that dropped the Spartans to 0-4 against UTC in the league finals.
The women’s finalists get Saturday off while the SoCon men’s quarterfinals are played at the same venue, with top-seeded UTC (23-8) tipping off the four-game slate by facing eighth-seeded Mercer (14-18) at noon.
In the UTC women’s semifinal victory, Karsen Murphy led the Mocs in scoring with 18 points on 6-for-10 shooting that included 4-for-5 success behind the arc, while Caia Elisaldez finished with 16 points, five rebounds and five assists before fouling out with 3:09 remaining. Gianna Corbitt nearly had a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds while adding four steals, while Sigrun Olafsdottir had eight points and played all 40 minutes, as did fellow fifth-year senior Murphy, who also blocked two shots.
And then there was van der Schans, who played her most minutes since logging 16 at Wofford on Jan. 30.
“One of the things that we’ve been preaching this whole season is we need everybody to win this,” first-year UTC head coach Deandra Schirmer said. “What a better time to showcase that than the conference tournament. I love tournament Karsen — she gets that look in her eyes, and I love it. That’s probably the best game I’ve ever seen Flo (van der Schans) play, and it was at the right moment. We had Brooke Anya, who’s been fantastic for us, really led us last game. She’s in foul trouble (against Furman), and Flo said, ‘I’ve got it.’
“To have everybody contribute, it also feels like us validating what we’ve been talking about the whole entire time, that everybody’s got to be locked in. So I’m just really proud of this group.”
Furman’s Tate Walters scored a game-high 19 points but was 1-for-8 behind the arc as the Paladins (16-16), who split the regular-season series with UTC, were 2-for-19 from 3-point range. Raina McGowens added nine points and Jada Session had a game-high 10 rebounds as the Paladins finished with a 35-31 advantage on the glass.
The Mocs survived their foul trouble after Elisaldez picked up her third at the 3:17 mark of the second quarter and fellow starter Anya sat out most of the first half due to a pair of early fouls. UTC also survived a bad day at the foul line, where the Mocs made just 13 of 23 free throws. Most of that was in the fourth quarter, where they were 12-for-21 at the line as some of their misses allowed the Paladins (16-16) to remain in the game.
UTC, though, gets a chance to add to its record haul of 20 SoCon tourney titles — already 14 more than any other program — after doing what it took to pick up its third straight win since a 74-70 overtime loss to Furman last week.
“This team has special pieces in (players) one through 13, the coaches, everyone on the support staff,” Elisaldez said. “We’re not going to try and be someone we’re not. We’re UTC, and I wouldn’t trade this team for the world.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.