Sports

Wom­en’s bas­ket­ball re­flects on cham­pi­onship sea­son

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Lady Pilots finished their season strong winning the NCCAA championship for a second straight year.

This year the Lady Pi­lot bas­ket­ball team did some­thing that is of­ten times viewed as an ex­treme chal­lenge in sports: de­fend a na­tional cham­pi­onship. Af­ter fight­ing to achieve an 8-8 record in the MCC this sea­son, the team cap­tured the Mid­west Re­gion Cham­pi­onship with a nail-bit­ing win over Grace and earned a two seed in the 2011 NC­CAA Cham­pi­onship. From there the Lady Pi­lots were able to cap­ture three straight vic­to­ries and knock off Roberts Wes­leyan for the ti­tle.

Over­all, Coach Mar­tinez has had a blast coach­ing the team this year and is so glad that the group of ladies can share a great mem­ory of a na­tional ti­tle.

“To win 21 games is spe­cial but to win a na­tional cham­pi­onship at any level is very spe­cial and a mem­ory this team will al­ways cher­ish,” said Mar­tinez. “To de­scribe the team with one word would be ‘re­lent­less’.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mar­tinez, there are sev­eral fac­tors which led to the team’s suc­cess this sea­son. It is his be­lief that the team did a great job of per­se­ver­ing through the month of Jan­u­ary when there was un­ex­pected ad­ver­sity. He also claimed that the team worked very hard to find their niche and were very dif­fi­cult to beat when they played their game. Mar­tinez was also thrilled with the role play­ing that took place through­out the sea­son and how team­mates con­sis­tently sup­ported each other. Lastly, the team was led by out­stand­ing se­nior lead­er­ship and sup­port.

“Bekah Basinger, Car­lie Dun­bar, Heather Seyfred, and Mandy Yo­der wanted to fin­ish their ca­reers on a great note,” stated Mar­tinez.

Al­though this is the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive sea­son that the Lady Pi­lots have won the NC­CAA Cham­pi­onship af­ter not re­ceiv­ing an at-large bid to com­pete in the NAIA Tour­na­ment, Mar­tinez be­lieves that the MCC is a very chal­leng­ing con­fer­ence to play in but that his team is not un­der­rated. He claimed that MCC teams have a great rep­u­ta­tion of be­ing tal­ented and com­pet­ing well in post-sea­son play.

“I think teams in the Mid-Cen­tral Con­fer­ence have great re­spect across the na­tion,” said Mar­tinez. “Our teams in the MCC that par­tic­i­pate in the NC­CAA Na­tion­als usu­ally do re­ally well.”

Apart from this be­ing a great way to send out the se­niors and re­ward the team for their hard work all sea­son, Mar­tinez also feels that this cham­pi­onship has fu­eled the team to com­pete hard in the off-sea­son and be pre­pared for next win­ter.

“My re­turn­ers al­ready want to play open gym and start spring work­outs. We have a sopho­more class who is hun­gry to play. They have had to play roles be­hind our up­per­class­men and now it is their time to shine next sea­son,” stated Mar­tinez.

Coach Mar­tinez is also ex­cited about next year’s new­com­ers that will be en­ter­ing the pro­gram.

“Los­ing a great bunch of se­niors is tough to re­place but we have a great fresh­men class com­ing in that is go­ing to push the re­turn­ers to the limit,” said Mar­tinez.