When Jim Nugent took over as the women’s basketball coach at Sauk Valley Community College in early May 2025, he had just one returning player and the outlook for even having a season was bleak.

The 2024-25 season had been canceled after just six games. The former Bureau Valley girls coach took the job running to recruit players for the 2026-27 season, not for 2025-26.

“At that point it’s pretty tough to recruit, especially of girls of that character,” Nugent said. “Those are kids that are not going to wait until the last second to plan for college. They kind of know what they want to do. I was just lucky that I had enough women that were signed up for classes at Sauk beforehand, and they kind of secondhand decided, ‘Hey, maybe I will play basketball.’ ”

One recruit led to another, and the Skyhawks not only had enough to field a team this past season, they had enough to compete and win 11 games.

Even Nugent was surprised he pulled it off.

“When I put together that schedule and had 30 games, I kind of felt bad thinking I’ll have to go back and cancel all these games and all these teams are going to be expecting a game and not getting one,” he said.

Nugent, who coached basketball at Bureau Valley for 15 years at all levels, compiling a 47-39 record from 2016-19 as the varsity girls coach, put an email out to the whole school for interested players, and “girls started coming out of the woodwork.”

He went to meet with Camryn Veltrop of Morrison and wound up landing her sister, Shelby, also, in a “two-for-one deal.” Shelby had set Morrison’s all-time scoring record only to have Camryn come along and break it.

“Shelby was doing the Rad Tech program, so she’s in her third year in school in that program and she said, ‘I think I’d kind of like to play, too,’ ” Nugent said.

One of the recruits Nugent pursued was 2024 Bureau Valley grad Kate Salisbury, a 1,000-point scorer for the Storm. When things didn’t work out for her at St. Ambrose, Salisbury transferred to Sauk to continue her schooling, but not necessarily for basketball.

Salisbury found out it was hard to say no to Nugent.

“Jim found out that he got the job and heard I was moving back home and called me and he asked me what it took to get me to play on his team,” said Salisbury, who has been accepted into the Occupational Therapy Assistant program at Black Hawk College next year. “I knew I was going to Sauk, so I thought I might as well play basketball with a new coach and teammates and make new memories.

“My experience was very good at Sauk, and it was something that I was very happy that I did. It was amazing playing at a community college where all of my teammates were some of the biggest rivals in high school and then becoming teammates and best friends with them was something that was very special.”

Nugent was especially pleased to have the opportunity to coach Salisbury and 2025 grad Emma Stull with their ties to Bureau Valley, where he still teaches in the district.

“It was kind of like having home with me with the two BV girls,“ he said. ”To me it gave me a comfort level with girls I knew and what to count on from them. I knew they would work hard in practice and what kind of material they’re made up of.

“I would have really liked to coach Kate at (BV). I had her as a little girl growing up in PE and she was always one of my favorites.”

Success didn’t come right away. The Skyhawks lost their first five games and seven of their first nine.

Things started to turn around for Sauk after defeating Kennedy King 74-64 at home on Dec. 17, 2025.

The Skyhawks opened the new year with a 65-38 win at IVCC and started a five-game winning streak two games later with wins over Blackhawk (75-57), Highland (74-67), Wilbur Wright (60-36), Carl Sandburg (67-57) and Kishwaukee (73-51).

“First time through conference we beat everybody. It was a three-week stretch where we were playing well,” he said.

Nugent said the addition of Harvest Day of Dixon at the semester break proved to be a big spark at point guard.

“She was not a point guard, but we turned into one and she handled the ball for us,” Nugent said. “We rattled off some wins after the break. I feel like we would have won five or six more games in the first part of the season if we would have had her.”

Sauk played .500 ball for the second half of the season at 9-9, finishing 11-19 overall and second in the Arrowhead Conference behind Carl Sandberg. It was a long way from where they started from.

“It was just nice to be playing, considering I thought I would spend most of the year recruiting and how hard that has been just trying to get girls committed has been an eye-opening experience. It’s a hard sale sometimes.”

Nugent said he should have five or six girls returning from last year and has signed six girls so far, including one from Canada and another from Belgium. He said he is still to talking to three area girls.

He can get the 2026-27 season scheduled out and not worry about it because the Skyhawks will field a team for sure.

Kevin Hieronymus has been the BCR Sports Editor since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com