Vanguards Plan on Sticking Around This Time
Last season, just getting to the women’s NAIA tournament was good enough for Southern California College.
This time, just getting there won’t cut it.
That’s the way the Vanguards will approach things at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Jackson, Tenn., for their opening-round game against Lipscomb University of Nashville.
SCC made a quick exit last season, losing in the first round to ninth-seeded Rockhurst of Kansas City, 75-61.
But Coach Russ Davis wasn’t discouraged. The Vanguards (29-6) set a school record for victories last season and Davis looked at the tournament loss as a learning experience. He took his five juniors aside not long after the tournament and set a goal for this year.
“Last year, we expended so much energy and heart and desire just to get there, that when we did, we had nothing left, no more goals,” senior captain Stephanie Sick said. “Our goal this time is to win one game.”
That won’t be easy for the unseeded Vanguards (26-8) against fifth-ranked Lipscomb (27-6). But after this year’s roller-coaster season, the Vanguards believe anything is possible.
“Seems like there were many more downs than ups,” said senior forward Kristi Wright, the Golden State Athletic Conference player of the year. “But we have really pulled together and we did what we needed to do in conference. Once we started to realize that we may be going back to Tennessee, we started to turn around.”
The Vanguards hit their biggest lull during a trip to Colorado in mid-December. Bad weather, illnesses and key injuries added up to three consecutive losses. That dropped the team out of the NAIA top 20 and it never returned.
“Colorado was rough,” Sick said. “We struggled through a lot of tough times. But everyone had similar goals. We wanted to get back to Tennessee and we fought through that adversity.”
Enough to tie Azusa Pacific for the GSAC title and earn the top seeding in the conference tournament by defeating the Cougars twice. The Vanguards went on to win their second consecutive tournament championship.
Still, that carries little weight in the seedings of the 32-team national tournament.
“We played five teams in the season that were ranked higher than us, all on road, so we could get better for conference,” Davis said. “We lost to all of them and that hurt us in the rankings. If we hadn’t played those games, if we had played a bunch of stiffs, it wouldn’t have hurt our rating. Until we go back there ranked, we’ll have to play one of the top 10 teams in the country every time. It won’t be easy.”
Of course, Davis, who is 74-24 in three seasons, is confident he can build a team that will someday consistently beat higher-ranked nonconference teams.
His players agree.
“He’s done a tremendous job of turning around this program,” Sick said, “just in the way he brought discipline and recruited players who fit in. He got us completely working hard.”