WBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ron Boerger]

St. Thomas at TLU has been cancelled due to COVID concerns.   TLU will advance to play the winner of CC-UD.

https://twitter.com/SCAC_Sports/status/1367905735896690692

[jekelish]

St. Thomas at TLU has been cancelled due to COVID concerns.   TLU will advance to play the winner of CC-UD.

https://twitter.com/SCAC_Sports/status/1367905735896690692

What is wild is that, in theory, someone could win the conference tournament without ever playing a game if enough teams have to bow out due to Covid at the "right" time.

[jekelish]

Colorado College advances due to Covid related protocols. What's unfortunate is that, as I understand it, Dallas was already in Colorado Springs.

Austin College with a pretty convincing win over Schreiner 80-63 to take on Trinity. So TLU and Colorado on one side, with neither team having to play to advance, while Austin College and Trinity will be on the other side of the bracket. Austin College got some players back from injury today, including one starter and one key reserve, and it clearly helped.

[Pat Coleman]

The SCAC has officially limited the number of girls on the bench, no matter if you are hosting or traveling. This has to be the dumbest decision ever. These girls practice with each other every day, but yet can't sit on the bench!

I don't know what the number is for SCAC play, but in NCAA Tournament games you can only suit up 15. The SCAC is not the only conference to limit number of players in uniform.

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity has recently had to cancel a number of games due to COVID-related reasons (according to the school paper the campus suffered somewhat of an outbreak thanks to the recent weather disaster), so I'm hoping that both of their basketball teams can stay healthy.

[Ron Boerger]

All-SCAC Teams have been announced.

POTY:  McKenzee Gertz, (Sr. G/F), Colorado College
Newcomer (tie):  Audrey Bayston (FY G) Colorado College; Addy Tremie, Centenary College, (FY G)
DPOY:  Jordan Rudd (Sr. G), Trinity
COTY:  Bri Calver, University of Dallas

2020-21 ALL-SCAC FIRST TEAM
McKenzee Gertz, Colorado College, 5-11, Sr., Guard/Forward  Fort Collins, Colo.
Reagan Chiaverini, Austin College, 5-10, Sr., Forward, Parker, Colo.
Jordan Rudd, Trinity, 5-6, Sr., Guard, Brownsville, Texas
Lauren Fulenwider, Southwestern, 5-5, Jr., Guard, Abilene, Texas
Hailey Coleman, Trinity, 6-0, Jr., Center, Kansas City, Mo.

[jekelish]

Well deserved for Coach Calver. From seeing UD play in the opening games of the year, it was clear they were DRAMATICALLY better than last season.

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity gets past Austin 70-60 and will host Colorado College for the SCAC championship next weekend.   The Tigers were led by 15 from both SCAC DPOY Jordan Rudd, and from Maggie Shipley, part of a 28-13 bench advantage for the victors.  Austin's Sarah Gwin led all scorers with 19, and Ally Longaker added 17.   After missing all nine of their threes in the first half, Trinity went 6-10 from beyond the arc in the second half.

[Ron Boerger]

Despite getting almost nothing from their bench (9 points) yesterday, Trinity jumped out to a double-digit lead most of the game and this time withstood Colorado College's second-half comeback to post a 73-63 win, clinching the SCAC tournament championship to go along with their regular season crown.   

Trinity led by 15 midway through the third before Colorado made its push, with conference newcomer-of-the-year Audrey Bayston doing most of the damage with a pair of threes, a layup, and four of five FTs to close the lead to six at the end of the quarter.   From there it was a see-saw affair with Colorado closing to within four at the three-minute mark before Jordan Rudd would drain a three off a long pass with the shot clock expiring plus getting a steal on the ensuing play to stop the bleeding.  The visitors would close to within four again with under a minute to play, but Trinity would hit all of its free throws down the stretch to post the final margin of victory.

With a career-high (and Trinity leading) 22 points to go with 6 rebounds, Jordan Rudd was named tournament MVP.   Also named to the SCAC all-Tournament team:  Trinity's Ashlyn Milton (19 points yesterday including 5-of-6 late FTs) and Hailey Coleman (10 points yesterday); Colorado College's Audrey Bayston (a game high 25 points including 4-of-5 3FG) and Anna Fanelli (11 points, 7 assists, 7 rebounds); and Austin College's Reagan Chiaverini.

Besides Rudd, Trinity graduates three seniors (Emily Daniels, Julia Ackerman, and Annie Wise).  Rudd's floor leadership and defense will be the hardest thing to replace, but the cupboard is still pretty full and I'd expect the two transfers to play a larger role next season. Colorado loses Abby Walz and McKenzie Gertz, who had early foul trouble yesterday but still chipped in 11 points.   Colorado's challenge will be to develop some depth next year as only eight players saw the floor yesterday and that was pretty much the case all season for them (in the entire season only ten players saw court time for CC).

[TroyP]

Super excited for Trinity! The last two games against Austin and Colorado College I thought were the best two games they played in this shortened season. According to my daughter Julia Ackerman is coming back for a 5th season because of the new COVID changes. Her understanding is that the other three Seniors have all been accepted into Masters Programs and will hang it up. What a great group of Seniors they have been, my daughter and the 4 other Freshman have some big shoes to try and fill over the next several years as they find their roles on this deep roster!

[Ron Boerger]

Good news on Ackerman returning, thanks, Troy.   Hopefully your daughter will see more playing time next season - it's tough for a first year to get much PT at Trinity but in a normal season there are usually enough blowouts to get some time on the floor.   We all know this was far from a normal season ...

This season was an outlier for Trinity for even more reasons than COVID.   It's been close to a decade since they didn't have an absolute go-to player they could almost always depend on in tough situations.   Before Abby Holland, it was Micah Weaver, prior to Micah it was Monica Holguin, prior to that Anecia Richardson and Hannah Coley.  This year was much more a balanced effort (only two players averaged double figures, and barely at that) and it took them a while to find that balance.   It will be interesting to see if anyone develops into that go-to player next season - there are certainly some candidates - or if they will have to continue with the 'offense by committee' approach they had to use this year. 

[Ron Boerger]

The SCAC announced its 30th anniversary basketball teams yesterday - there have been a lot of talented women in the conference, and it couldn't have been easy to narrow the list down to these 15.   As a reminder, the 30th anniversary teams cover just the last 15 years, as the conference announced similar all-star teams during the 2005-6 academic year. 

Bryce Frank, Austin College – Forward **
Monica Holguin, Trinity University – Guard **
Maggie Prewitt, Centre College – Guard **
Liz Bondi, DePauw University – Forward **
Abby Holland, Trinity University – Forward *
Katie Kulavic, Oglethorpe University – Guard *
Micah Weaver, Trinity University – Guard *
Katy Williams, Austin College – Forward *
Melanie Auguste, Colorado College – Guard *
Chelsea Leeder, Southwestern University – Forward *
Anecia Richardson, Trinity University – Center *
Anna Findley, Oglethorpe University – Guard
Annie Bourne, Southwestern University – Forward
Krista Prato Matthews – Trinity University – Forward

* - Player-of-the-Year honor(s)

Details about the careers of these outstanding performers are available at the link above. 

[Riley Zayas]

Some scheduling news: Trinity to host its annual tournament this year on November 5-6. UMHB will be in attendance.

https://truetothecru.com/2021/04/20/umhb-womens-basketball-to-play-in-trinitys-tournament-in-november/

[Ron Boerger]

Congrats to Colorado College's McKenzee Gertz, today named to the D3hoops.com All-America third team.  She was the SCAC's sole representative (appropriately so).

[gordonmann]

Thanks, Ron.

It was really tough to put these teams together this year with such little information in terms of crossover games, postseason results, etc.

McKenzee had a great season for CC.