Lansing Community College’s women’s basketball team had been waiting for Sunday for a full year, waiting for another chance to win their way to the NJCAA Division II national tournament, since coming up a win short last March.
The Stars took out 12 months of motivation and preparation on Jackson College, 94-60, in Sunday’s Region 12 Great Lakes District A championship at Mott’s Ballinger Fieldhouse in Flint, in a game they led 64-24 midway through the third quarter. This was the Jackson College program that beat them two years ago in this same spot and, just two months ago, pushed the Stars to the brink, before LCC hung on for a five-point win.
“They are locked in,” Stars third-year coach Megan Hudson said of her team.
“We figured some things out after that state tournament and we had a pretty darn good showing in the regional.”
LCC (27-3), which fell to No. 2-ranked Schoolcraft College, 74-69, in the Michigan Community Colleges Athletic Association state championship game, bounced back in the regional to pound Delta College, 102-44 in the semifinals, and then obliterate Jackson on Sunday, to earn an automatic bid to the 20-team NJCAA Division II national tournament, March 16-21 in Hickory, North Carolina. Had LCC lost, given its No. 7 ranking nationally, the Stars might have gotten one of four at-large bids. They won’t have to chance it now.
It’s the program’s first NJCAA national tournament bid in 30 years, since LCC won the national title under the late Ervin Brunson in 1996. Hudson played for Brunson and the Stars the following season.
“It’s pretty incredible,” Hudson said. “It means a lot to me personally, and being the 30-year anniversary is kind of a theme that we used this year, of history repeated itself, of going after not only getting to the national tournament, but making a nice bid for the title.”
It’s also the first time the LCC women and men have made their respective NJCAA national tournaments in the same season. The men won their district on Saturday, reaching the national tournament for the first time since 2016.
The men lost a 22-point second half lead Saturday and went onto beat Henry Ford College in overtime. Hudson felt good about her team’s 49-21 advantage at the half on Sunday, but they used what happened to the men as a warning to finish the job. They also hadn’t been happy with how they’d finished their state tournament games — after dominating conference play unbeaten — and put an emphasis on keeping their foot on the gas, moving the ball and getting out on the break “like your life depends on it,” Hudson said, during their two regional games.
LCC freshman Armonie Smith, who’s from Flint, had two enormous games in front of family and friends, scoring 23 points in both Sunday’s championship and in Friday’s semifinal. Smith was named the tournament’s MVP.
Sophomores Destiny Ochs, Claire Tobias and Ashlynn Putman also made the all-tournament team. Ochs and Tobias had 14 points apiece in the championship game. Freshman Alison Farr had 12. LCC set a two-game scoring record for the Region 12 tournament.
If you’re wondering if the Stars might exhale a bit now, consider that Hudson has been preparing for the national tournament all season, watching film on the teams she thought could be there.
“I’m a little psychotic,” she said. “I probably have film on every single one of them, and have at least watched one to two games on everyone. … And I feel like we’re pretty, pretty darn prepared from that perspective. And, obviously, I have 10 freshmen, so the mental side of it is going to be the biggest piece of being ready for the Big Dance, being ready for what that feels like once you get there. But so far, so good in this regional. I think even our freshmen stepped up huge, and our sophomores are absolutely anchoring the team, which has been incredible.”
FROM JANUARY: Couch: Lansing Community College’s nationally ranked women’s basketball team has reloaded, with one goal
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Lansing Community College women’s basketball dominates district, breaks through to NJCAA national tournament
Reporting by Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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