Papenburg joined the Tornado staff prior to the 2022-23 season.
Year-By-Year Season Recaps
2022-23: The Tornado played one of the toughest schedules in the region and possibly the country, finishing 9-21 overall and 8-12 in Conference Carolinas play. King earned the ninth seed in the Conference Carolinas Women's Basketball Championship and topped eighth seed Barton in the opening round. However, the Tornado fell at fifth seed Chowan in the second round. Earlier in the season, Jaden Potts drilled three-point basket at the buzzer to give King a 44-42 win at Erskine. The Tornado later overcame a 19-point deficit to defeat Emmanuel at home. Jhayda McKinney, Alexa Gramann and Potts all earned College Sports Communicators Academic All-District.
Prior to King
Papenbrug served as a coach and teacher at Magee High School in Mississippi while working on her master’s degree. She spent two years as an assistant coach for the girls basketball team and served as the head girls volleyball coach in 2021.
Personal
She played basketball at Belhaven University for two years following a two-year career at Southwest Community College where she was a two-year captain. She also earned NJCAA All-Tournament team accolades and played in 50 career games, helping the Bears to 36 wins.
At Belhaven, she played basketball for two years and soccer her senior year, earning second All-American Southwest Conference (ASC) East honors. She started all 20 games on the pitch and was second on the team with seven goals. On the hardwood, Papenburg started 47 games in 49 appearances for the Blazers. She was a two-time All-ASC East selection, second team in 2020 and all-defensive team in 2019. In her career she scored 642 points for an average of 13.2 per game. She also accumulated 107 steals and owns a career-high of 36 points in a game.
During her senior season she averaged 18.0 points and 6.8 rebounds per game while shooting 75.6 percent from the free throw line. She was the second-leading scorer in the ASC while ranking third with an average of 2.9 steals per game. Papenberg was selected Belhaven’s Women’s Basketball Player of the Year following the season.
Papenburg earned her Associate’s degree from Southwest CC in 2018 before earning her Bachelor of Science in Sports Medicine from Belhaven in 2020. She then earned her Master of Art in Teaching from Belhaven in 2022.
