Elsa Daulerio grew up around NESCAC basketball in the state of Maine, to put it mildly. Bates athletics photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen

By Riley Zayas
for D3sports.com

Some 15 years ago, the future of Bates women’s basketball was present in the unlikeliest of places: inside Morrell Gymnasium on the campus of rival Bowdoin College, 22 miles away. 

At that point during the 2008 season, Adrienne Shibles, a Bates alum, was in her first year as head coach of the Bowdoin program. Her assistant was Bowdoin alum Alison Montgomery, and in the coming three-year period, the duo would lead the Polar Bears to a 70-18 record and two third-round NCAA Tournament appearances. And there for it all was Shibles’ young daughter, Elsa, who was 4 years old at the time. 

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Fast forward to last weekend, when Bates made the 35-minute trip southwest to Morrell Gymanisum for the NESCAC Tournament championship … against Bowdoin. Shibles, Montgomery, and Elsa Daulerio were all there, just as they were 15 years prior, albeit in different roles. 

Shibles, who became the winningest head coach in Bowdoin history during 13 years leading the program, is now Bates’ associate athletic director. Montgomery is in her ninth season at the helm of the Bates program as a head coach, and Daulerio has sprung onto the NESCAC women’s basketball scene as a talented sophomore, averaging 13.5 points and 2.1 blocks per game. 

“We have this cool picture of my first year as an assistant coach with [Adrienne],” Montgomery, who started four years at Bowdoin before graduating in 2005, said. “Elsa is a little girl with her sister and we’re in a circle after that team had cut a net down. It was a full-circle moment [on Sunday] for sure.”

And it has turned out to be one of the cooler storylines in Division III women’s basketball this season, as Montgomery and Daulerio have been at the forefront of the charge to Bates’ second NCAA Tournament appearance in the last three years and the program’s best record, 22-5, since the 2004-05 campaign. Of course, Shibles has been there for it all. 

Provided photo

“It’s been such a fun season,” Daulerio, a center/forward who was named First Team All-NESCAC on Thursday, said. “We all play together so well and really have fun doing it. We set certain goals at the beginning of the season, and I’m honestly not surprised by the success [for our team], just because of how consistent we’ve been. I’m really happy to see where this team is going.” 

Another chapter of the story of Bates’ season is set to be written on Friday evening, as the Bobcats host Brooklyn inside Alumni Gym in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. But to understand the connection and the bond between Montgomery and Daulerio, it goes back to Shibles, and her decision to commit to Bates in 1987. 

“I grew up in very rural Maine, an hour and a half north of Bates,” Shibles recalled. “I honestly didn’t know very much about Bates. And I knew very little about Bowdoin. Colby was more in my backyard, so I knew a little bit about Colby. But I was fortunate to have a high school friend who said, ‘Hey, I’m going to check out Bates. Come with me.’ ”

Needless to say, the visit went well. Though she started her basketball career relatively late as a high school freshman, and didn’t make varsity until her junior year, she quickly became a force for the Bobcats. With her rebounding and defensive capabilities leading the way, Shibles netted more than 1,000 points for Bates and helped the program to three winning seasons, graduating in 1991. 

“I got on campus and fell in love,” Shibles added. “It was a place where I could get a great education, but also play the sport I loved. I felt like I was hitting my stride when my high school career came to an end and wanted to keep going with that. Bates had been recruiting me a little bit, and back then, recruiting wasn’t what it is now, but I knew it was a place I could pursue all of my passions.”

The difference in recruiting is just one of several aspects of women’s college basketball, including at the D-III level, that has changed from the time of Shibles’ career at Bates to the present day as her daughter has become a second-generation standout for the Bobcats. 

Shibles still looks back on an editorial she wrote in the school newspaper during her time as a student-athlete in Lewiston, calling on the area media to increase coverage of Bates women’s basketball. Compare that to the recorded attendance of 1,000 on Feb. 2 at Alumni Gym as Bates took down rival Bowdoin, 72-57. Indeed, the attention and notoriety has come a long way, both from a Bates perspective as well as from a broad-based point of view. 

“I always knew it was something special,” Shibles told D3hoops.com. “Back when I was here, I wrote an article basically saying, ‘Local media, you need to cover us more. Because the more you cover us, the more we’re going to get that followership. I had some pushback from people locally, but you can see now, it has come so far. The opportunities for girls and women in sports…it’s amazing.”

Both Montgomery and Daulerio have been the beneficiaries of those opportunities, and so has the Bates program. The support from the surrounding community will be put on full display this weekend as the Bobcats host an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since March 2, 2005. 

“Our community is awesome here,” Montgomery said. “I think aside from our program, it is part of what makes Bates really special. It’s such a tight-knit community. And I think basketball in Maine is well-supported and attended, so to have a season like both us and Bowdoin have had, the turnout and the fact that both teams are hosting, feels really unique and special.”

A handful of years after Shibles closed her playing career, she and Montgomery crossed paths for the first time at a University of Maine basketball camp. Shibles was in her early years as a coach, while Montgomery was a middle-schooler who had a full playing career ahead of her. 

“I still have the evaluation sheet that you get at camps that Adrienne had filled out when I was a middle school student,” Montgomery said on the Bates Bobcast podcast on Jan. 16. 

As time unfolded, Shibles made stops at Babson, Colby, and Elms, before taking over the Swarthmore program and leading a remarkable turnaround. The Garnet was 7-17 the year prior to her arrival. By the end of her fourth season, Swarthmore wrapped up a 23-win season that included a Centennial Conference title. The success opened the door for the opportunity to return to her home state and lead the Bowdoin program, one of the NESCAC’s best, and she needed to find an assistant to aid in her vision. Insert Alison Montgomery. 

“I was really blessed to land her as an assistant for those first three years,” Shibles noted. “As a Bowdoin alum, she brought so much to the program and helped me transition into that space in such a seamless way. You talk about me mentoring her, but I feel like I gained as much from her as she gained from me.” 

Montgomery still speaks at length about the impact Shibles had on her coaching career. The schematic elements of the sport were things her mentor taught well, but it was more than that. Shibles, Montgomery says, had a way of maintaining balance in her emotion, displaying leadership, and relying on those around her, including her assistant coaches, to help reach the team’s goals.

“Adrienne was so successful at Bowdoin, and had an amazing career prior to coming there,” Montgomery said. “But she’s one of the first people that really showed me in coaching that you can be really vulnerable too. That you should really own your mistakes and own things that you don’t know. I remember in my first year as an assistant coach, she really empowered me, and asked me, ‘What are your thoughts? Why don’t you say that to the team, or coach the team on that?’ ”

They helped each other, even at different stages in their coaching careers, which created a bond that has only gotten stronger since that first season at Bowdoin in 2008. Montgomery used that foundation built at Bowdoin as she made the jump to the Division I level under her college coach, Stefanie Pemper, at Navy. Four seasons in Annapolis followed, before the Bates job came open and offered Montgomery a chance to return to the NESCAC, this time as a head coach.

“I remember sitting on my couch when I was at the Naval Academy, and I had a six-month old and was pregnant,” Montgomery recalls. “I remember [Adrienne] called me, and said, ‘Bates is open. Get your application in now. That job is yours.’”

There was some hesitancy in making the jump to head coach at that particular time, but Montgomery had seen Shibles first-hand balance the responsibility of leading a highly successful program while being a young mother at the same time all those years prior at Bowdoin. That gave Montgomery confidence that she too, could find a similar balance and reach success on and off the court through it all. 

“I was a young mother and only wanted to take over a program if it was something I could do well,” Montgomery said. “She was a big mentor in saying, ‘Of course you can do it.’ Having been mentored by her early in my coaching journey when Elsa and her sister were young, I saw her managing it all and doing it really well. From a broader perspective, what I wanted personally and professionally, she really motivated and inspired me to take advantage of the opportunity then.” 

Montgomery took charge of the Bates program and has helped raise the Bobcats back to a place of national prominence. Within the last three seasons, Bates is 53-24, as Montgomery continues to recruit at a high level within the ultra-competitive NESCAC. 

“We have a really balanced team this year,” Montgomery noted. “We ended last year with graduating an All-American (Meghan Graff) who broke some records with her individual play and had a large part in our success in the past. So we knew this year was going to look different, but it has really looked different in a way that some of our players have really risen and we’re a balanced squad.”

Daulerio is certainly one of those players who has stepped up within the Bobcats’ consistent attack, having gone from an average of 23.5 minutes per game as a first-year to 28.6 in 27 starts as a sophomore. The numbers speak for themselves, and at 6-3, Daulerio’s athleticism and height made her a force to be reckoned with through the gauntlet that is the NESCAC slate. 

“I feel like last year really helped me get experience with the league and college basketball in general,” Daulerio told D3hoops.com. “This year, I felt a lot more confident going into the season because of that, and the leadership on our team is so great. They push me every day to be better in that sense.” 

While she needed to gain the actual on-court playing experience, Daulerio is obviously no stranger to the ins-and-outs of the college level. Not when you’re the daughter of two Division III basketball alums. Nor when you grew up with a mother who was inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame and took Bowdoin to two national title game appearances.

“I’ve always been so invested in her team from the beginning, but it wasn’t until I got to middle school and high school that I realized that type of team and environment was really special and something I wanted to be part of,” Daulerio said. “Watching such strong women be successful, have fun, and have such great culture is what I wanted to have as a college experience.”

She has found that at Bates. As can be imagined, the recruiting pitch from Montgomery was made simpler considering the longstanding connection they shared. Being the daughter of a Bates alum and a current NESCAC head coach at the time didn’t hurt either. All those years ago, as Shibles and Montgomery led Bowdoin’s continued run of dominance with Elsa always close to the team, it may have been hard to imagine the scenario they find themselves in today. But as fate would have it, they remain on this NESCAC basketball journey together.

“I grew up watching Bowdoin and the NESCAC, so I knew the type of competition that I wanted to play in,” Daulerio added. “Having that relationship with Coach and having trusted her since I was 4 or 5, it was a no-brainer [to come to Bates].

“It’s just so special to play for Alison. She has believed in me from the beginning and really brought up my confidence as an underclassman. She has also taught me leadership skills for the future, but also for this season in particular, with everybody stepping up. I’m really grateful to have such a great leader.” 

While Daulerio displayed immense talent from an early age — she was playing for the top AAU team in Maine as a third-grader — her parents never forced her into the sport. The background was obviously there, and watching her mother’s teams on the court at Bowdoin provided no shortage of motivation for an aspiring collegiate student-athlete. But it was largely Daulerio’s efforts that led to her initial opportunity at Bates, and the starting role she has assumed as a sophomore. 

“Myself and my husband, who played for the men’s program at Swarthmore, saw her potential, but it’s a process,” Shibles said. “As parents, I think it’s important to let your kid drive the bus, especially as a collegiate basketball coach.”

That approach showed up in a variety of ways, most notably with Daulerio’s multi-sport success, playing basketball, soccer, and lacrosse at Mount Ararat High School. It meant she played less basketball than some of her peers, and was overlooked at times in the recruiting process because she played for a smaller, and more local, club team. But it kept her passion for basketball going, and in perfect D-III spirit, allowed her to remain in AP classes as well as compete in multiple sports. It was, in a way, the D-III model playing out before she ever stepped onto Bates’ campus. 

This season has been the first year in Daulerio’s career that Adrienne has been in the stands for the majority of the season, as she moved from the sidelines at Dartmouth and into an associate AD role at Bates in June 2023. That has only added to the uniqueness and memories of this year for both mother and daughter. 

“It’s been so great,” Daulerio said. “She’s always supported me, but it definitely was tougher when she was coaching. So this season in particular has been so special to see her in the stands…and give me any pointers.”

How much does she value the insight from her mom?

“It is very valuable,” Daulerio said with a laugh. “She definitely doesn’t overdo it, but I’ll take any [thoughts] from her.” 

“It’s been so great to see her now come [to Bates] and step into her greatness,” Shibles added. “It’s just every parent’s dream.” 

Riley Zayas is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of True To The Cru, a publication covering Mary Hardin-Baylor athletics.