Sports

UAA women set sights on 7th Shootout championship

Forget turkey and cranberries and Cowboys and Lions. The UAA women's basketball team has its own Thanksgiving tradition, one that frays nerves and fills trophy cases all at the same time.

We're talking about the team's knack for pulling out close victories in the championship game of the Carrs/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout year after year.

The Seawolves begin pursuit of a fifth straight title today when it plays San Jose State at Sullivan Arena, and if they get past the Spartans and advance to the championship, history tells us to expect drama. And not just the drama of David -- aka the Seawolves, the lone Division II team among a field of Division I -- beating Goliath. The drama of David beating Goliath at the buzzer.

UAA's four straight Shootout titles, won under the guidance of coach Tim Moser, have come by a grand total of 10 points.

Add the 2003 Shootout won in Jody Hensen's first season as coach and the historic 1990 Northern Lights Invitational title won in Linda Bruns' final season as coach, and the UAA women have claimed six tournament championships by a mere 13 points.

Three of the titles were decided by one point, including last year's 49-48 win over Cincinnati and 2008's 58-57 thriller over Syracuse. One was decided by two points and another by three. Given the context, Moser's first championship in 2006 qualifies as a romp -- UAA 72, Riverside 67.

Moser cautions that a fifth straight championship is not a given. The Seawolves lost point guard Sasha King for the season to an anterior cruciate ligament injury, they're not playing every possession with purpose and they're guilty of too many turnovers, he said.

ADVERTISEMENT

"So many things are going wrong," Moser said of his nationally ranked 4-1 team. "This Shootout is going to be a challenge, no doubt."

Nikki Aden, a senior who has been on board for three Shootout championships, makes the case that it's the Division I teams -- San Jose State, Washington and Kent State -- that should be coming into the tournament with great expectations, not the Seawolves.

"Winning four years straight, I think there is some expectation for us to win it again and I know the teams we play want to be the one to take it from us. But in actuality, we're still the underdogs," she said.

As the Seawolves have shown on six occasions, though, underdogs sometimes turn into top dogs.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of UAA's first tournament championships, which in some ways is also its greatest, because it came back when the women hosted an eight-team tournament called the Northern Lights Invitational, which was played on campus rather than at Sullivan Arena.

That year, the Seawolves had to beat three Division I teams before they could cut down the nets and accept the commemorative watches each player received for being on the championship team.

The three wins came by a total of five points. In the championship, Greta Fadness -- one of the most accurate shooters in Seawolves history -- sank a free throw with 1 second left to lift UAA to an 88-87 win over a South Alabama State team fueled by a 45-point performance by Adrian Vickers. A frenzied crowd packed UAA's sports center for the game.

Jodi Bellamy was a guard for that season's Seawolves. She lives in Idaho now -- she just became a grandmother -- and recently visited former teammate Wendy Sturgis, who had the unhappy task of guarding Vickers. Their conversation included memories of their Northern Lights championship.

"What I remember is Greta making that free throw and the fact we won those three games by (five) points," said Bellamy, 47. "I remember the loudness of the crowd, and I remember it was so great to get the watches. It was really cool to be standing there, getting to be the ones who got the watches."

Kelly Mullican Kowal, a center on the team, was on the bench when Fadness shot the winning free throw.

"I remember grabbing my teammate and almost nail biting," she said. "I can picture to this day Linda in her stance, screaming."

Neither Kowal nor Bellamy could believe it when South Alabama put Fadness on the line. A slender redhead from North Dakota, Fadness still owns the school career and single-season record for 3-point shooting, and she was deadly from the foul line.

"Of all the people to foul," Bellamy said. "We were like, yay! yay! They fouled her!"

Kowal, who teaches language arts at Romig Middle School, said just being in the championship game was huge. Winning it was beyond huge.

"The first thing that come to mind is just how excited we were just to be in that game, to know the opportunity was there and within our reach," she said. "To win it, it was like we had won the NCAAs. It was a packed house -- friends, family, people from out of state -- and there was the excitement of a small arena."

Each of UAA's subsequent tournament championships has come in a four-team field at Sullivan Arena, but the smaller field and bigger arena hasn't lessened the thrill for the Seawolves. And the Seawolves still haven't figured out a way to win a tournament title in the first 38 minutes instead of the last two -- which is OK with Aden.

"A win is a win and however you get it, (it's) nice," she said. "But being in close games is a lot more challenging."

ADVERTISEMENT

By BETH BRAGG

bbragg@adn.com

ADVERTISEMENT