University of South Dakota Athletics

Jenna (Freudenberg) Schlafke joined the Coyote women's basketball coaching staff on May 4, 2018. Schlafke enters her third year as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the 2020-21 season.
 
In her two seasons at South Dakota, the Coyotes have compiled a 58-8 record, qualified for two NCAA Tournaments (2019, 2020) and won both the Summit League regular season and tournament in 2020.
 
Working on the staff of three-time Summit League Coach of the Year Dawn Plitzuweit, Schlafke has helped her become the fastest Summit League coach to reach 100 wins in just 124 games. She’s been a part of two-straight 20-win seasons at USD.
 
A year after an NCAA Tournament berth by receiving the Summit’s first-ever at-large bid, the Coyotes continued to bulldoze their way through history in 2020. The Coyotes achieved the highest national ranking bestowed upon a Summit team, coming in at No. 11 in the final USA Today Coaches Poll. South Dakota also ranked No. 17 in the Associated Press poll. USD set Summit League records during the season for weeks in both polls with 16 weeks in the coaches’ poll and 12 weeks in the AP poll. The Coyotes also broke a program record for regular season wins with 27. South Dakota became the first program to go undefeated in the Summit League regular season and win the Summit League Tournament.
 
In the 28 years of the Summit League’s history, only three teams have ever run the table during the regular season. Two of those three teams were the Coyotes – in 2018 and 2020. The squad in 2020 routed league opponents by an average of 32 points per game.
 
The Coyotes finished the 2019-20 season with a 30-2 record with both its nonconference losses to ranked opponents – No. 1 South Carolina and No. 23 Missouri State in the final Associated Press poll. South Dakota recorded its sixth-straight 20-win season and qualified for its 10th consecutive postseason appearance, albeit the impressive season was cut short by the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
With Schlafke on the bench, South Dakota women’s basketball recorded its first-ever wins against AP Top 25 teams. South Dakota topped No. 23/22 Iowa State 64-59 at home and followed that up with a 74-61 road win at No. 22/24 Missouri during the 2018-19 season. South Dakota became ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 and USA Today Division I Coaches Poll for the first time in program history on Feb. 11, 2019. The team remained ranked for two weeks in the AP Top 25 and five weeks in the coaches’ poll.
 
Schlafke has coached four all-Summit League players highlighted by 2020 Becky Hammon Mid-Major and Summit League Player of the Year Ciara Duffy, a three-time all-league first team pick. Other all-league players include three-time first-team guard Allison Arens, first-team center Hannah Sjerven and second-team guard Chloe Lamb. She has also worked with two Summit League Defensive Players of the Year in Arens (2019) and Sjerven (2020).
 
The Coyotes are the only program in Summit history to total five players on the first team, second team or honorable mention squad and Plitzuweit’s teams have done it twice (2018, 2020).

Schlafke spent the previous nine seasons under UMD head coach Mandy Pearson with three years at Minnesota Duluth and six seasons at Saint Mary’s. The pair share an alma mater in Concordia College.
 
Schlafke’s responsibilities included serving as recruiting coordinator, developing scouting reports, coaching guard play and defense, coordinating community outreach opportunities and individual player development.
 
The leadership of Pearson and Schlafke took Saint Mary’s women’s basketball from a four-win program and turned it into a championship contender. The Cardinals posted back-to-back 20-win seasons, winning the MIAC regular season in 2013-14 and advancing to the program’s first NCAA Tournament in 28 years.
 
Minnesota Duluth finished 16-11 in 2017-18 and went 13-9 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, both program bests since the 2011-12 season.
 
A native of Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, Schlafke was a four-year starter at Concordia College in Moorhead. She led the Cobbers to a 74-35 record in her career, reaching the NCAA Tournament in 2006 and 2009. Schlafke was named the 2009 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference MVP following a senior campaign where she averaged 16.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and four assists per game. She earned CoSIDA Academic All-District honors and was a three-time academic all-conference honoree.
 
Schlafke received her bachelor’s degree in exercise science in 2009 and graduated with her master’s degree in human development from Saint Mary’s University in 2013.

She and her husband, Ted, reside in Vermillion with their daughter, Jules. Ted is the offensive coordinator on the Coyote football staff.