RedStorm women add Turley

Rio Grande --- The University of Rio Grande women's basketball program has signed Kasey Turley of Reedsville Eastern High School to a national letter of intent to play basketball beginning in the 2010-11 season. Turley is the cousin of former Rio Grande standout Renee Turley, who played for head coach David Smalley from 1998-2002. 

Kasey, a 6'0" forward/post player, was an All-Tri-Valley Conference player all four years at the prep level. She was 1^st Team all-district three of her four seasons in high school, including her senior campaign. Turley eclipsed the 1,000-point plateau for her career this past season and earned honorable mention All-Ohio.  Turley was selected for the Ivan B. Walker Female Athlete of the Year at Eastern for her senior season. 

In addition to playing basketball, Turley also played volleyball and softball for Eastern. 

"I'm very excited about playing for Rio. It's a great honor to be a part of a very enthusiastic club," Turley said. "The main reason I chose Rio Grande was because of it being close to home. I also liked the campus and that I can get a good education so close to home."

Being from a neighboring county and the fact that one of her relatives had played for Rio and Coach Smalley, Kasey is very familiar with the school and the basketball program. "My cousin, Renee Turley graduated from there and also played basketball for Coach Smalley," Turley added. "I keep up with Rio in our local newspaper, following how the basketball team is doing." 

Coach Smalley is pleased about bringing Turley into the fold. "We're excited to have Kasey in our program. She's a tremendous athlete, a great mixture of inside/outside type of player and it looks like she'll probably be able to help us out at the four-spot and possibly at the three-position in the future," Smalley said. "She has a good body-build, strong, handles the ball well on the perimeter for her size. She has a good medium-range (shot) with the ability to maybe shoot a three a little later on."

"She has good post-up moves, she is aggressive and strong on the inside," Smalley added. "Coach (John) Burdette has done a tremendous job with the program at Eastern and Kasey is just a result of all of that hard work and great basketball in this area."

Smalley discussed the role that he has for Turley. "We're looking forward to having Kasey in our program. We will red-shirt her, her freshman year, but once she understands our system and gets a year of experience practicing with us, we anticipate her sophomore year, which would be her first athletic year playing for us, will be a tremendous one that she will be able to have an impact." 

Turley talked about her strengths as a player and also what she feels she needs to improve on as she makes the jump to the collegiate level. "I feel my best asset as a player is my ability to see the whole court," she said. "I'm aware of where my teammates are and who is open. Something I need to work on would be aggressiveness." 

Turley wants to be the best player that she can be while playing for Rio Grande. "My goal as a player is to work hard and become the best player I can be," she said. 

She plans to major in Physical Education.

Kasey is the daughter of Kenny and Crystal Turley of Tuppers Plains, Ohio. 

Turley joins Ironton High School's Janie Morris, Brooke Shaw from Waynesfield-Goshen High School, Kate Hammond of Greenfield McClain High School and Chelsea Delong of Coal Grove as the current members of the 2010-11 recruiting class. 

Rio Grande finished the 2009-10 campaign with a 16-15 overall record and went 7-7 in the Mid-South Conference.