Former Lady Cutters Hoops Star Shines Bright for Knights

Since heating up down the stretch last year for the , Kristina Nieves has yet to cool off on the court.

The Lady Cutters’ reigning MVP is having an immediate impact in her freshman season at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, N.Y, where she starts at center for the Knights.

“Doesn’t surprise me in the bit,” said of Nieves’ collegiate success. “From what I saw out of her in the state tournament, she can play at that level, no problem, and the college coaches saw that as well.”

On the season, Nieves is averaging 6.5 points and 4.1 rebounds per game for the Knights, who have won nine straight after opening the season with a non-conference loss to Sarah Lawrence.

Her best game of the year came earlier this month in a rout of St. Joseph’s (N.Y.) College, where she registered 16 points on 7-of-16 shooting, with 7 rebounds and no turnovers.

Although the Lady Cutters relied on the 5-foot-11 Nieves to provide a scoring punch last year, her mother, Angelika, said she’s more of a defensive stopper at the college level.

“She’s very, very aggressive on defense,” Angelika Nieves said of her daughter. “Her coach feels so strongly about always putting her against the biggest girl on the other team because she just doesn’t care how big the girl is. Her philosophy is the bigger they are the harder they fall.”

Angelika said her daughter still needs to work on her offensive game, which she called “very robotic.”

“She follows the play to the T, which I’m trying to kind of explain to her, if you’re open, you gotta take the shot.”

If that sounds harsh coming from mom, understand that Angelika Nieves played basketball overseas in Germany and also coached hoops in the Fair Lawn All Sports system when Kristina was in elementary school.

Even with the genes, Angelika said she’s still a bit surprised that Kristina has blossomed into the kind of player she has. As a kid, Angelika said her daughter was so shy off the court that her strong play on it was sometimes overlooked.

“She used to be extremely, extremely shy,” Angelika said. “There were times when the coaches would contact me and say, ‘Does your daughter talk? If she speaks 10 words to us through a whole season that’s a lot.’”

But Angelika said her daughter’s no longer so reserved.

“That’s what she was like in elementary, middle and the first two years of high school,” Angelika said. “Then she kind of broke out of her shyness and became an animal.”

An animal on the court that is.

"Put her on the court and she's a completely different person," said Angelika, who believes the transformation started around the same time Chris Lovermi took over as the girls basketball head coach last year.

“He’s really the one who took an interest to her, a shining,” Angelika said. “Kristina had been on the high school varsity team since she was a freshman, but I guess her past coach really didn’t see the potential because she was always quiet.”

Lovermi said Kristina was a pleasure to coach, but that early last year was tough on her because coming into the season she was the team's only returning player who had logged significant varsity minutes. It took a while to build the pieces around her, he explained.

Once the pieces aligned, however, Kristina reaped the benefits. Down the stretch last year, Lovermi said she played like a true senior, a true leader.

“When we were playing our best basketball it was because Kristina was playing her best basketball,” Lovermi said. “I think she got tired of losing as we got through the middle half of the year and just started saying, it’s my senior year, I want to make something of it and take something out of it and refused to lose. And that’s what really carried us and the girls followed her.”

At Mount Saint Mary, Kristina is majoring in business administration and, after a short bout of homesickness, her mother said she’s adjusted well to college life.

“She strives to what she wants no matter what it takes, either on the court or off the court,” Angelika Nieves said.