Lady Hornets go to second straight national championship

3/7/08

By Andrew R. Koch
Sports Editor

The Lady Hornets women’s basketball team returned from Oklahoma on Sunday after competing in their second straight USCAA National Championship. The Lady Hornets finished their season with a record of 16-12.

The Lady Hornets won two out of their three games in the tournament, despite getting beaten handily in their first-round game against Robert Morris College-Springfield, 80-56. The team would go on to win their next two games in the loser’s bracket, including a 69-57 win over Southern Maine Community College, against whom the Lady Hornets split two regular season games. In their last game of the tournament, the Hornets managed to hang on for a 79-75 win over the University of Cincinnati-Clermont despite nearly blowing a 27-point lead in the second half.

Leading the way for the Hornets were Jackie Wetzel, who averaged 12 points a game during the tournament, along with Jen White and Whitney Hoyt, who each averaged 11.7 points per game. White capped off her season with one last double-double against Cincinnati-Clermont (13 points, 12 rebounds).

“It’s always nice to be in a national tournament, especially with the competition at the level that it was at,” junior forward Sara Fetterhoff said. “It’s nice to play teams that we don’t usually see.”

“Being in the national tournament showed us other teams and how they play,” said freshman forward Marissa Baggarly. “There are better teams down there in the South.”

The women’s basketball team, along with Lyndon State’s other varsity teams, have been using the last two years to get ready for their move up to the NCAA, as well as into the North Atlantic Conference. Those moves will be officially completed starting next semester with fall sports.

“We’ve had two free years to prepare for the NAC,” Fetterhoff said. “Our coach and the athletic department have prepared us with tougher schedules.” Fetterhoff added that over the last couple of years, they’ve seen a diverse number of teams, and the different styles those teams play with.

The USCAA Men’s Division I and Women’s National Basketball Championships are held every year at Rhema Bible College in Broken Arrow, Okla., near Tulsa. When the women weren’t playing games there, they would make trips over to Tulsa, where they visited the zoo, mall and Hooters. The team also enjoyed meals at Fudrucker’s, which is a southern burger joint chain. According to Fetterhoff and Baggarly, the food in these restaurants is “some good stuff.”

Baggarly and Wetzel both wrote about their experiences in Oklahoma in their blogs, which are featured on the school’s Web site. Baggarly says that she got into doing her blog when she asked Head Coach Vinnie Maloney for a job, and he proceeded to introduce her to Tak Shimamura, the Web master here at LSC. Shimamura proceeded to get her into blogging.

The Lady Hornets will look to use their success over the last two years as a springboard to what they hope will be continued success in the North Atlantic Conference in the 2008-2009 season.