Priekshu komandas!
That’s how you would root for the Bearcats if you were living in Latvia. If you were a Bearcats fan in Latvia, you would also probably cheer for basketball star Laine Kurpniece, native of Latvia and senior on the Binghamton University women’s basketball team.
After providing BU with four years of European hospitality, Kurpniece will hang up the green and white jersey and head back to her hometown of Riga, Latvia, at the end of this year. She admits she will definitely miss her home away from home.
“Binghamton has been my college for four years, so mentally it has become my home,” Kurpniece says. “I have definitely grown as a player, and at the same time my team has been my family here.”
Kurpniece will leave Binghamton with a number of records, including eighth all-time in program history with 1,174 points, and 10th with 600 career rebounds. This season alone she leads the Bearcats with 12.3 points a game and ranks second in the America East Conference with 5.2 rebounds per. It doesn’t stop there; Kurpniece has the highest field goal percentage ever for a Binghamton women’s basketball player at .517, and is fifth with a .798 free-throw percentage.
Despite all these accomplishments, the 6-foot-2-inch center does not let it get to her head — she prefers the glories to be shared with her teammates.
“The game is played as a team, not by just [one] individual,” Kurpniece says. “It is very nice to break records but it is even better to make wins.”
Kurpniece says that she has no real strategy when she goes out to play on the court.
“There is nothing special,” she says. “[I] just go out there and put it all out there and play hard. When I go out on court I [like to hustle]. I just want to make it hard or make it harder [for the opposition]. I look for players that are open, and if they are, I then take them on.”
Before becoming a Bearcat, Kurpniece played basketball in her home country for the Riga Junior Team. A monster on the court, she averaged 16.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and shot 80 percent from the free-throw line. She eventually led her team to place first in the league her senior year of secondary school. Little did Kurpniece know that her following year, she would travel westward to use her talents.
“My freshman year we had a coach from Denmark so he recruited me [for Binghamton],” Kurpniece says. “I actually had no idea of what kind of a place Binghamton was, and my English was not even close to being good, so I thought that if I did not like the school, I would … leave right away. It ended up that I was very lucky, and I’ve been playing here for four years.”
Kurpniece showed her skills from the start. Her freshman year, she averaged 6.4 points a game and was fourth on the team with 4.1 rebounds per game. She broke out even more her sophomore year with 12.3 points a game and 6.6 rebounds. That season she reached double figures in scoring 16 times and was selected to the America East All-Conference second team.
Last season, in her junior year, the center averaged 10.9 points a game and 5.7 rebounds. She had to miss some playing time, however, after being suspended over a team issue; still, she bounced back and was named third-team All-Conference.
This season, Kurpniece was selected to the first-team All-Conference, becoming the third player in Bearcats history to have received first-team honors and the third player to be on three consecutive All-conference teams.
As Kurpniece’s time with the Bearcats comes to an end, leaving will be bittersweet.
“I have mixed feelings,” she said. “I’m sad it’s over but at the same time I know I will still be playing basketball in Europe after this so it’s not a big deal for me, but it’s kind of sad to leave my friends and this team.”