KINGSTON, Ont. (September 20, 2024) – Queen's Women's Basketball is excited to announce Mikaela Berza has joined the program as a full-time assistant coach ahead of the 2024-25 season.
Berza joins the program with an impressive coaching resume, with experience at the university level both north and south of the border, as well as at the national level with Canada Basketball.
"We are thrilled to welcome Coach Meeks to our program," said Queen's Women's Basketball Head Coach Claire Meadows. "She has demonstrated the ability to recruit and develop top talent as a Division 1 Assistant Coach. Coach Meeks has infectious energy and elite interpersonal skills. She will immediately impact the development of our student-athletes and will continue to drive our competitive excellence."
Berza's most recent stop was at the University of Tulsa, where Berza served as Assistant Coach for the past two seasons. Berza helped the Tulsa Hurricanes to a historic record in 2023-24, where the team finished with their best record in 19 years at 25-10. Berza and Tulsa earned a share of the American Athletic Conference (AAC) regular season championship before advancing to the quarterfinals in the inaugural Women's Basketball Invitational Tournament (WBIT).
In 2021-22, Berza helped Tulsa start the season with a program-record 10 consecutive wins and advance to the second round of the WNIT.
Prior to Berza's time at Tulsa, Berza served as graduate assistant with the University of Florida's Women's Basketball program for two seasons.
North of the border, Berza has served as Associate Head Coach of the Women's Basketball team at Bill Crothers Secondary School in Markham, Ont., assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (now Ontario Tech), and numerous positions at TMU including Special Assistant to the Head Coach and Director of Basketball Operations of the Men's Basketball program, and Student Assistant Coach for the Women's Basketball team.
At the national level, Berza served as Team Manager – Men's and Women's High Performance with Canada Basketball from 2012-18.
"I can't express how excited I am to officially be a part of the Queen's family," Berza said. "I'm excited to come back to U SPORTS to take on this new challenge and learn and grow with Coach Meadows. Her player-first mindset, passion for the game, and history of success made this move to Queen's an easy decision. I'm excited to get to work with this group and build genuine connections with each and every person in this program and Queen's community!"
Queen's Women's Basketball open their 2024-25 OUA regular season on Saturday, Oct. 26 against the Guelph Gryphons in Guelph, Ont. The Gaels' home opener is one week later, on Friday, Nov. 1 at 6 p.m. at the Athletics and Recreation Centre (ARC), taking on the Windsor Lancers.
