WACO's Lowe signs to play basketball at AIB

      One thing Evans didn't have during his first season, which saw the Eagles go 4-24 overall against some stiff competition, was a point guard.

      But Evans believes he has found his point guard in WACO senior Kara Lowe, who signed a letter of intent on Tuesday afternoon to play for AIB.

By Travis J. Brown

      WAYLAND - When AIB College of Business decided to form a women's basketball team last year, coach Nelson Evans had to build the program from scratch.

      One thing Evans didn't have during his first season, which saw the Eagles go 4-24 overall against some stiff competition, was a point guard.

      But Evans believes he has found his point guard in WACO senior Kara Lowe, who signed a letter of intent on Tuesday afternoon to play for AIB.

      "This year what we lacked was a ball handler," Evans said. "We had a shooting guard playing point guard for us. I think Kara has the ability to come in and make an immediate impact on our program with her ball handling skills and with her defensive abilities. She can come in this season and run our team."

      As a senior, Lowe averaged 8.6 points, four rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.7 steals per game for a WACO team that went 6-15 overall.

      While Evans knows Lowe can be an immediate help to the Eagles, Lowe chose AIB because she thinks Evans can make her a better basketball player. Lowe picked AIB over two other schools who recruited her for basketball - Truman State University and Marshalltown Community College.

      "I picked AIB because it has my major and I like the coach," Lowe said. "It seems like he will really help me and make me better. I want to be able to improve my game."

      With the addition of Lowe and several other recruits, Evans is optimistic about next season.

      "We've got four kids committed right now, including Kara, and we're definitely going to be a lot more athletic than we were this year," he said.

      Lowe will major in sports management at the two-year community college located in Des Moines. She is thinking about transferring to Truman State University or Central College to finish her sports management degree.

      WACO head girls' basketball coach Shannon Rugg, who also coaches Lowe in softball, is excited to see one of his pupils moving on to play sports at the collegiate level.

      "I knew she was pretty talented, and I've known for four years that she wanted to play college sports," Rugg said. "So it was just a matter of whether she was going to play basketball or softball. Hopefully we did some stuff for her this year that gets her prepared for college basketball. It's really exciting."