NWC TOURNAMENT: Unbeaten Bruins Set to Host Whitman in NWC Semifinals Thursday

NEWBERG, Ore. – Fresh from an unprecedented regular season, the George Fox University Bruins are set for the Northwest Conference Women’s Basketball Tournament which tips off this Thursday when the Bruins host the Whitman College Missionaries at 7:00 p.m. at the Wheeler Sports Center’s Miller Gym.

George Fox (25-0), tied for second in the WBCA national poll and third in the D3hoops.com poll, won the NWC regular season championship with a 16-0 record and will have home-court advantage for all tournament games.  Whitman (18-7) tied for third in the conference with the Pacific University Boxers, both 10-6, but is seeded fourth in the tournament due to tiebreaking factors.

The other semifinal game has third-seeded Pacific (11-13) visiting the University of Puget Sound (17-8), which finished second in the conference at 11-5.  Pacific earned the third spot by splitting with Puget Sound during the regular season while Whitman lost twice to the Loggers.

Thursday’s winners will play Saturday at 7:00 p.m. at the site of the highest-remaining seed, with the tournament champion earning the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Tournament.

Tickets for all tournament games as established by the Northwest Conference are $6 for adults and $3 for students and children 18 and under and seniors 55 and up.  Regular season passes are not valid for post-season games, including the NWC Tournament.  Students from the participating schools in each game will be admitted to the NWC Tournament free of charge with the presentation of a valid student ID card.

It has been a record-setting year for Bruins in many ways.  Their 25 wins ties the single-season record for wins, set last year during a 25-5 campaign that took them to the NCAA Tournament’s “Sweet 16”.  This year’s team has shattered previous records for most wins at the start of a season (11) and longest winning streak (12).  The Bruins have already guaranteed themselves a new record for best winning percentage (the 2000-01 team was 23-3 for a .885 mark), and will set a new record for fewest losses in a season (3 by the ’00-01 team).  This is the first George Fox team in any sport to go undefeated through a regular season since the school affiliated with nationally-recognized athletic organizations such as the former AIAW, the NAIA, and the NCAA in the mid-1960’s (official records prior to that time are somewhat rare).

The Bruins’ 16-0 record is only the second unbeaten season for a team in the Northwest Conference or its predecessor, the Women’s Conference of Independent Colleges.  The only other known undefeated team was Willamette University in 1985-86, which went 10-0 in the WCIC.  Only one other conference team has won more than 15 games, Pacific Lutheran University going 17-1 in 1998-99 when there were ten teams in the NWC instead of the current nine.

George Fox has won or shared the last three conference championships, four of the last five, and has six NWC titles since the 1999-2000 season. The Bruins have made five NCAA Tournament appearances in the last nine years with three trips to the “Sweet 16” and one to the “Elite Eight”.  This year, they seem certain to make it six in the last 10.  They have been ranked in the top 25 in national polls at some point in eight of the last 10 seasons, including two weeks as the No. 1 team in the country in February of 2001.

Making this year’s season even more remarkable, George Fox had no starters back, only four returning letter winners, and counted 10 freshmen on the roster.  A freshman leads the team in scoring - guard Keisha Gordon averages 12.5 points per game.  The team’s only senior, 6-4 center Kristen Shielee, is second with 12.0 points a game, leads the team with 9.8 rebounds a game, and is fifth nationally in blocked shots (3.84 pg) and field goal percentage (.626).  Her 96 blocks are a single-season record.

Rounding out the starting lineup are freshman guard Sage Indendi (11.9 ppg, 2.84 assists), junior forward Elise Kuenzi (10.2 ppg, 5.2 rebounds), and point guard B.B. Gardner (4.2 ppg, 3.04 assists), whose 1.62 assists-to-turnovers ratio is among the national leaders.  Head coach Scott Rueck, last year’s NWC and West Region Coach of the Year, is 253-85 (.746) in his 13th season at George Fox. 

The Bruins’ Thursday-night opponent, the Whitman Missionaries, were the pre-season conference favorites before the Bruins surprised the rest of the league.  George Fox defeated Whitman 62-51 on Jan. 3 in Walla Walla, Wash., and 67-36 on Jan. 31 in Newberg in their conference series this season.  Leading the way for coach Michelle Ferenz’s team are Hilary White (13.5 ppg, 5.1 rpg), Rebecca Sexton (11.2 ppg, 5.6 rpg, .583 field goal pct.), Jenele Peterson (10.3 ppg, 3.68 apg), and Michelle Krall (10.2 ppg, 5.3 rpg).