The Cecil College women's basketball team made 'herstory' Sunday afternoon. The Seahawks secured their first-ever national tournament berth by decisively defeating Chesapeake College 74-48 in the Region XX Division II tournament championship game. "It's amazing. It's exciting," said Cecil sophomore guard Alexis Stubblefield, who was named the tournament's MVP. "We're all just speechless. I don't know. It's just exciting." Trailing 14-7 midway through the first quarter, Cecil embarked on a 19-0 run to take command.
Game over. "After we had our run it was like, 'Ok. We got this. We got this," said Stubblefield. "But you never want to hold up or feel comfortable because they could come back but we just felt confident in ourselves." Top-seeded Cecil (22-5) led 33-22 at halftime and widened the lead to 58-35 by the end of the third quarter. "In the locker room we talked about coming out faster because we usually start out slow," Stubblefield said. "Our coach told us to pick up the pace, don't let up, because they might come back. They were a fighting team so no let up for anyone." Seahawks' interim coach Bill Dockery acknowledged he was a bit nervous when Chesapeake started fast. "Extremely on edge," he said. "Our girls, they weren't ready to take the fight to them. And when we saw that Chesapeake was ready, I had to really get on them to pick it up. And they woke up. Outcome was inevitable." Dockery wasn't even the head coach when the season started. He was elevated to the top spot on January 12, replacing Mike Hollingsworth. "The good thing is that I had a good head coach who already came with a lot of experience," Dockery said. "I had a good head coach who wasn't afraid to act like it wasn't all about him. So he was preparing me. He was preparing me the whole time, getting me ready. Sure enough, it happened." When the Seahawks struggled, Dockery delivered a simple message. "My girls realized they didn't know everything they thought they knew," said Dockery. "So I had to let them come to the end of their intelligence. Once I did, then I pulled them in and explained to them how to get out of this hole we were in. And they did. They did." Cecil did it on the defensive end, limited Chesapeake to 27 percent shooting from the field, compared to 41 percent for the host Seahawks. "We pulled through," said Stubblefield, who is from Woodbridge, Virginia. "We knew we could do it. We had supporters behind us so we felt very confident as a team." Six Cecil players scored at least nine points, led by 11 from reserve Chyna Steele. Stubblefield, Nyjayha Lockwood, and Tiana Garvin each added 10. Kearah Henry and Nicole Guy-Thomas both notched nine. Briana McAllister, a Harford Tech graduate, supplied seven points and had 14 rebounds to tie Lockwood for team-high honors. McAllister described her emotions when the final buzzer sounded. "I just couldn't believe it," she said. "I was happy to know that all the hard work we put in, everybody that doubted us, there was nothing for them to talk about anymore because we were the champions." Already spurred on by memories of last season,McAllister said Cecil got more motivated as the tournament went on. "Even the people we did beat, they pushed us into the championship," the sophomore forward said. "They told us good luck and to beat Chesapeake, and that was our number one goal. Last year, we fell short of that. This year, we're here and now you see what the outcome is." Participating in the national tournament also provides Cecil's players an opportunity to impress coaches from four-year colleges. "This is it," said McAllister. "All the coaches [from four-year programs] are going to be there. Everyone is going to be there. It's not about who's better and who's not better. Everybody is just about the same. I'm looking at them as the same as we are. Everybody wants to wants to win the championship and everybody wants to get a win. So we're going to start with the first round then look ahead as we go." The NJCAA Division II National Tournament will be contested March 20-24 in Harrison, Arkansas. The Seahawks are the 12th seed and will open up against fifth-seeded Mesa (Arizona) Community College Wednesday, March 21, at 2 p.m. "It's like a dream come true," Dockery said. "We had a lot of people who weren't sure we were going to do it. But, deep in my heart, I knew that we could. Trust in God and here we are. Now, we're ready to go to Arkansas." Said Stubblefield: "I'm very happy for our team. But now we've just got to go down there and win that, too. We've got to keep pushing." Comments are closed.
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