Third-year Army women’s basketball coach Sherri Nowatski and her players are on a mission this season -- to earn some respect.

"We are off to a great start, but our true challenge comes in the Patriot League," Nowatski said. "It is really about earning respect."

The Lady Knights are 12-2 going into their conference slate, which begins Saturday here against Colgate at 1 p.m.

Nowatski and her charges have blazed out to the best start since the 1983-84 squad opened 14-2. But she is not satisfied.

Because the pre-season polls picked Army sixth out of seven teams, Nowatski said they have a point to prove.

"I firmly believe we are one of the top three teams in the Patriot League," she said. That is a point she wants to drive home.

Nowatski said it would take eight wins out of the 12-game conference slate to achieve her goals.

Senior leadership is the key. Nowatski has five seniors on this year’s squad to lead the way.

Tri-captain’s Therese Kelley, Megan Dempsey and Krista Ruschak along with Dawn Halfaker and Charcy Schaefer are who Nowatski said are the key to helping the team blend the experience of the upper classes with the talent and youth of the underclasses.

Nowatski said senior leadership is an absolute must especially at an academy.

"The difference between this year and last year’s squad (which went 9-19)," Nowatski said, "is that we have added another solid recruiting class and some of those kids like Katie Macfarlane and Dionna McPhatter are really helping us. But the big difference is we’ve now learned how to win close games and we are putting people away and we are expecting to win."

Learning how to win games started very early this season. The non-conference schedule helped the Lady Knights do just that.

"I wanted to have a competitive non-conference schedule and I think we’ve done that," she said. "We didn’t have a killer non-conference schedule. I think every game in the Patriot League is going to be tougher, game in and game out."

And she stressed the importance of winning ballgames in bringing out player confidence.

"We have kind of gotten over the top. Those two games at the beginning of the year -- the exhibition game (a 69-68 win over the Nor’easter Storm Nov. 3) and an overtime win (75-72) over High Point (Nov. 17) were really the key for us," she said.

Nowatski described this year’s version of the Lady Knights as a more balanced club both inside and out largely due to "a 1-2-3 punch (with Therese, Dawn and Megan)."

Balance has also helped Army, she added.

One asset that Nowatski has come to draw on is the belief that her teams are consistently better conditioned.

"We are much more of a transition team now," Nowatski said. "We can really get up and wear teams down. We can just flat out man-to-man full-court press people where we couldn’t do that in the past. We have the athletes to do that now."

The relentless defense that the Lady Knights have shown has led to them being nationally-ranked in opponent field goal percentage.

"That’s a true test of our defense over 40 minutes. We are not blazing, or overly quick in any area, but we are kind of relentless for 40 minutes," she said.

Lastly, she attributes the team’s success to their much-improved free throw shooting percentage.

Going into Tuesdays game they had made 71.6 percent of the foul shots -- the highest it has ever been, Nowatski said.

"You win games down the stretch by executing better, taking care of the ball and making free throws," Nowatski added.