 LEFT TO RIGHT: Sophomore guard Kori Seymour, junior wing Leada Berkey and junior guard Libby Stephens all played key roles in Western's 69-63 win against Cascade on Wednesday, Nov. 15. [Click to enlarge]
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Finally.
After two years, the wait has ended. The Western women's basketball team started its season a perfect 1-0 win a 69-63 victory over Cascade on Wednesday, Nov. 15. However, more importantly, the win ended a 33-game losing streak that dated back to the team's last victory on Feb. 12, 2005, when the Wolves defeated Seattle University 61-58.
Junior wing Leada Berkey led the charge with 38 points and 13 rebounds. She nailed 14 of 25 shot-attempts from the field, including five of nine three-point attempts. She also had three steals, two assists and two blocks.
"Leada was just absolutely phenomenal!" first-year head coach Greg Bruce exclaimed. "If she didn't have to sit out about seven minutes with an injury in the first half she might have scored 50! In my 37 years of coaching I've only had a player score more than Leada once! She is our hardest worker in practice so it is no accident that she is able to perform at a very high level!"
Other Wolves may not have had Berkey's gaudy statistics, but they did their part in the win, too. Sophomore guard Kori Seymour added 11 points and three rebounds, sophomore guard Brittany MacGregor had seven points, junior guard Libby Stephens added six points and four assists and junior post Jordan Wilde dished out a team-best five assists.
The victory didn't come easy, as the game was close the entire way. Western raced out to an early five-point lead on Berkey's jumper with 18:13 left in the first half. However, the Thunderbirds rallied, leading by as many as eight points on a couple of different occasions.
The Wolves clawed back to take a 34-31 lead with two seconds left in the first stanza on a layup by Berkey.
Western stretched its lead to 12 points in the second half when Berkey hit a trey with 8:59 to go. But the Thunderbirds weren't going to concede yet. Senior Kristin Woller pulled Cascade to within three points on a layup with 4:12 left, but the Thunderbirds would get no closer.
"Our win against Cascade was extremely important to the future of the program-particularly in the way in which we won-having a 12-point second-half lead cut to three with 4:12 left and again to four with 1:07 left," Bruce said. "A lot of teams with a prolonged losing streak would have folded at this and failed to break the losing streak-[so this is] a great testament to the character of our team. I was very proud of the team and how hard we battled despite some obvious distractions!"
The Wolves have dropped their next four games since the win: 77-62 to Montana State-Billings on Nov. 17, 96-72 to Metro State on Nov. 18, 62-52 to Humboldt State on Nov. 24 and 75-46 again to the Lumberjacks the next night.
The first two of those losses were at the MSUB Holiday Inn Yellowjacket Classic, where Bruce felt the team made some important gains in production and quality of play.
"Despite two losses over the weekend, I was encouraged with the progress of our team," Bruce explained. "We played two quality Division II teams, both of whom should qualify for post-season play. We had several players contribute to our offensive output. We obviously need to work on our defensive consistency and our effort on the boards. But despite facing large deficits at halftime in both games, we continued to work hard and compete and were only out-scored 79-77 in the second half of both games. All in all I feel the program took another big step forward!"
Western's next game is Dec. 8 at 7 p.m., at home against Willamette. During the layoff, Bruce has specific goals in mind for his squad.
"We want to continue to work hard in practice so our performance in games becomes more consistent," Bruce said. "We really need to solidify our defense, become a better rebounding team and learn to value the ball on offense. These next two weeks without games will allow us to get to working on fundamentals which we so desperately need!"
