June 4, 2008

Contact: Greg Murphy

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Takima Keane, who has spent the last three years as a member of Canada's National Elite Development Academy (NEDA), has signed a national letter of intent to join the Cleveland State women's basketball program. Head coach Kate Peterson Abiad made the announcement on Wednesday (June 4) afternoon.

Keane is the fifth player to sign with Cleveland State this year, joining Janelle Adams (Milwaukee, Wis.), Destinee Blue (Milwaukee, Wis.) and Kaila Montgomery (Ontario, Canada) who all signed on Nov. 28, as well as Honesty King (Lorain, Ohio/Elyria) who signed on April 23.

All five student-athletes will be freshmen.

"Takima is the type of player that we were looking for to finish off our recruiting class for 2008," Peterson Abiad said. "She is strong and explosive to the basket and has a tremendous shooting touch from the three-point line. She gives us strength at the guard position and a great amount of basketball experience at the international level.

"The 2008 class has a player at each position and I feel that this is the most complete class that we have signed during my tenure at Cleveland State."

A 5-foot-11 combo guard, Keane has spent the last three seasons as a member of Canada's NEDA which features the top-12 athletes in Canada. Prior to that, she spent three years (2003-05) as a member of Canada's Centre for Performance, which brought together the top-40 athletes in Ontario.

Keane was a member of Team Ontario, which captured National Championships in 2004 and 2007, as well as a silver medal in 2005.

The Vikings return three starters and eight letterwinners from last year's squad that went 19-14 and won the Horizon League Championship to earn the program's first-ever bid to the NCAA Championship.