Western Illinois Nabs General

(Sheridan) - Tate Stensgaard, a 6’8 Sheridan College red-shirt freshman committed to Western Illinois University to continue his basketball career. A Rapid City, South Dakota native, Stensgaard red-shirted the 2011-2012 season for the Generals and will play his freshman year this season.

“Western Illinois is a great place. I’m really excited to play for Coach Molinari,” said Tate. “He is a great coach and will be able to help me grow as a player and a person. Playing for Sheridan College has helped me get to this point. Coach Smiley and Magrino have helped me improve my game tremendously, and Sheridan has opened up so many new doors for me in my life”

Coach Smiley had this to say about Tate: “We’re really, really excited about Tate getting the opportunity to move on to the Division 1 level after playing this year here at Sheridan. Tate is one of the great success stories of junior college basketball in general, going from a player that wasn’t recruited really at all out of high school due to his location and the lack of recruitment in a small state, to now getting the opportunity to move on to the NCAA D1 level. Tate bought in to the redshirt concept last year, added 27 pounds of muscle and refined his game, and he’s turned into a really good player. I can’t say enough about the importance of Coach Magrino’s help in developing Tate last year while he sat out, and I’m really excited to see how Tate will help our Sheridan team this year and the Leathernecks for the next three years. He is a tremendous person, student, and asset to our community and I’m sure he’ll do the same at Western Illinois.”

Western Illinois finished last season with a 19-15 record, advancing to the championship game of the Summit League tournament before falling to South Dakota State in overtime.  Western Illinois then went on to the College Basketball Invitational tournament where they lost to Oregon. Tate will continue his career at Western Illinois as a sophomore for the 2013 season.