The Seattle University Women’s Basketball team defied the odds and punched their ticket to the big dance for the first time in school history. The No. 4 seeded Redhawks traveled to Las Vegas for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) tournament, where they made their way to the championship game to claim the WAC Champions title.

The women kicked things off Wednesday, March 3 against University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC), coming out with a victorious 75-64 win against the Roos.

Senior Jacinta Beckley was pleased with the team’s result. “It was super exciting. We had expectations going in [to the tournament] that we could win. Accomplishing something that we had been wanting to do this whole time is awesome,” Beckley said.

The Redhawks were back in action on Friday as they took on New Mexico State for a chance to play in the championship game. The women’s basketball team was ready to play as they pushed passed the defending WAC Champions of the past three years with a dominant 84-61 win.

Alexis Montgomery’s impressive performance earned her All-Tournament honors

Sophomore Kamira Sanders was a central component to the attack as she racked up 19 points. First year Kallin Spiller followed close behind, putting up 18 points. Redshirt senior Alexis Montgomery added 16 points to the scoreboard while Beckley helped her team by contributing 11 points.

Junior Madeline Dopplick was also excited about her team’s performance. “We performed, simple as that. Something clicked, and that was us. We executed and had fun with it,” she said.

With little rest, the Redhawks were back on the court for a championship game against University of California Bakersfield this past Saturday. The Redhawks fought until the very end, where they barely squeezed by the Road Runners with a nail-biting 57-54 win to claim the WAC title. Sanders had a dominant tournament performance after averaging 17.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists which would lead her to tournament MVP honors. Montgomery earned All-Tournament honors by averaging 13.3 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists.

Head Coach Suzy Barcomb was thrilled for the team.

“We just carried out our game plan, we really did. We had a set plan for UMKC, we had a set plan for New Mexico State and then we had the set plan for Bakersfield. The kids just really carried out the scouts, they really dialed in,” she said. “We just executed incredibly well, it wasn’t an exceptionally pretty game [the championship game] but what do you expect; it’s your third game in four days.”

The Redhawks travel to Matthew Knight Arena to take on the University of Oregon for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Tip-off begins at 4:30 p.m. and will be shown on ESPN2.

Caylah may be reached at
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