Jenna Eckleberry enters her third season as the Head Women's Basketball Coach for the 2024-25 season.
2023-24 marked the most successful season for the program since joining Division II, as Eckleberry led the team to an 18-11 record, doubling the team's win total from the previous season and earning herself MEC Coach of the Year honors. A 14-6 record in the Mountain East was good enough to earn the three seed at the conference tournament, the program's highest finish since 2009-10. Under her direction, Emilee Weakley continued to earn numerous accolades, leading all of Division II in scoring once again on her way to being named the MEC Player of the Year, WBCA and D2CCA All-American, as well as receiving College Sport Communicators Academic All-America honors. Additionally, Maggie Sharp and Jenna Muha were named Second Team and Honorable Mention All-MEC, respectively.
The program put their mark in the all-time history books, setting new single-season school records for total points, free throws made, and free throw percentage. It also set the fourth-highest scoring average, field goal percentage and three-point percentage, as well as the sixth-most field goals made and the seventh-most assists.
In her first season at the helm of the Women's Basketball program for the 2022-23 season, Eckleberry led the Bobcats to a 9-21 record and their first Mountain East Conference tournament berth in program history, since transitioning to Division II. Eckleberry also led the Bobcats to their first Mount East Conference tournament victory in the first round of the tournament. She coached the Mountain East Conference Freshman of the Year, Emilee Weakley, who also earned a spot on the MEC First Team. Eckleberry also coached Weakley to MEC All-Tournament Team, First Team D2CAA All-Atlantic Region, World Exposure Report Freshman of the Year and Honorable Mention All-American, and D2CCA Second Team All-American honors.
With a wealth of knowledge of the Mountain East Conference and the Atlantic Region, Eckleberry brings both success and experience to the Bobcats having spent the last eight seasons as the head coach of Shepherd University. She is coming off one of the best seasons in Shepherd history, leading the team to an NCAA tournament berth and the most wins in program history with 25. Eckleberry has coached the Rams into the top scoring offense in the PSAC the past two years and had a player named All-American this past season. In her first season at SU, she led the team to 22 wins and was named MEC and Atlantic Region coach of the year. Over the eight seasons as the head coach of the Rams, she won 118 games and advanced to the NCAA tournament round of 32 in two seasons.
Prior to taking over at Shepherd, Eckleberry was an assistant at Fairmont State for seven seasons. During her stint with the Fighting Falcons, the team won three conference championships and had three NCAA tournament appearances. In her tenure, the team averaged 20 wins per season, as she helped to coach several all-conference players, with Fairmont having at least one player earn first team all-conference honors in each of her seven seasons.
As a player, Eckleberry played three seasons at Fairmont State after transferring from NCAA Division I Robert Morris. She helped lead the Falcons their first NCAA Postseason appearance in her first season. As a junior she ranked eighth in assists per game (6.2) and while her 180 assists were the fifth most in program history. As a senior she ranked seventh in the country in assists per game (6.7) and gained honorable mention All-WVIAC honors. Eckleberry led the league in assist/turnover ratio (2.81) that year and set a school record with 17 assists against West Chester. Her 411 career assists are the sixth most in school history. Having graduated in 2007, Eckelberry was named the Colebank Award winner as the school's top female senior athlete.
