Photo: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

CLAREMONT, Calif. (Feb. 26, 2022) – The Whittier College women's basketball team are SCIAC Postseason Tournament champions at long last.

The fourth-seeded Poets downed third-seeded Pomona-Pitzer Colleges on Saturday evening, 79-63, completing an incredible run to becoming postseason tournament champions for the first time in school history. The Poets did win a share of the SCIAC Championship back in 1986, though there was no postseason tournament at the time, and ironically, the Sagehens were the team they shared the title with. This time, however, Whittier will stand alone atop the SCIAC mountain, having taken one of the toughest roads to the championship in recent memory. In order to make it to Saturday's game, the Poets needed to beat No. 5 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges on Tuesday, then win two consecutive games outside the confines of Dave Jacobs Court beginning with top-seeded University of Redlands on Thursday. The championship game ultimately took place inside CMS' Roberts Pavilion, and in the end, it would be the Poets who would cut down the nets.

"Winning feels great, but I'm especially happy for our three seniors," Head Coach Roy Dow said. "I have said we can compete with the elite of the country including the best of SCIAC. Now we have an opportunity to find out. A wonderful challenge awaits."

Whittier's three seniors, Shaeleigh Wright (Long Beach, Calif. / Long Beach Millikan), Daisy Cardenas (Santa Clarita, Calif. / Canyon) and reigning SCIAC Women's Basketball Athlete of the Year Teani White (Burbank, Calif. / Viewpoint) all made meaningful contributions throughout the tournament, and all three were entirely necessary to the championship-level effort. White reminded Whittier and SCIAC basketball fans why she was voted Athlete of the Year by the conference's coaches by scoring 28 points in the title game on 10-of-18 shooting. She also had nine rebounds and six assists to go with a 2:1 assist-turnover ratio and played every minute of each of the last two games, both of which have seen overtime. By her standards, Saturday's game was just another day, but Wright got a chance to show why she is just as important to the Poets' defense as players like White and junior Lainie James (La Habra, Calif. / Sonora) are to their offense. Faced with a size disadvantage against the Sagehens' two low-post players, Wright responded by leading all players with 14 rebounds, 13 of which came on the defensive end. She also led the Poets in holding the Sagehens to just two points in the overtime period, which will go down as not only the most important five minutes of basketball the team has seen this season, but the best.

The Poets saved the best possible time to post the greatest overtime differential in a conference game this season, scoring 18 points in what nearly became a higher-scoring frame than any of the four preceding quarters. While the Sagehens were certainly tested coming into Saturday's contest having knocked off No. 2 Chapman University on Thursday, the Poets needed two overtime periods to put away No. 1 Redlands, thus carrying a fresh, successful and valuable experience with them simply needing to replicate the end of Thursday's game. However, the Poets did more than just replicate their semifinal performance – they surpassed it and broke the Pomona-Pitzer defense in the process. White had six of her points during this stretch, four of which came at the free-throw line. In fact, 12 of the Poets' 18 points came at the free-throw line in what can only be defined as a clutch team performance.

"I think when we were down by eight in the fourth quarter, we actually relaxed, stayed in the moment, upped our commitment to each other, and offensively finally started to flow and share the ball," Dow said. "That may have had something to do with the double-overtime game, tired legs, and Pomona-Pitzer playing us well. We got the ball off the dribble, cuts were hard and complete, and player movement plus ball movement combined with defensive stops. What happened in overtime was an extension of the confident play and execution at the end of regulation."

After falling behind by eight points with six and a half minutes to go in regulation, the Poets embarked on an 11-3 run to get the game to overtime that included nine-consecutive points from White. The senior's run included two successful and-1 opportunities, followed by an ice-cold three-pointer that cut the Sagehens' lead to one. Though the third-seeded team would retaliate, the final points in regulation would come courtesy of White and Wright, with the former finding the latter beneath the basket following a steal from James, a Second-Team All-SCIAC recipient. The junior was every bit as important to the champions' early-game effort as she was late, where she knocked down three consecutive triples, staking Whittier to a 9-0 lead early. James finished the game with 26 points and combined with White accounted for 68 percent of her team's points. The two SCIAC honorees also combined to shoot 15-for-16 at the charity stripe, while Whittier shot over 90-percent from the line as a team.

"Teani and Lainie are where they are because they have put the work in all year round," Dow said. "They are shot makers, and yes, tonight they were wonderfully dominant throughout much of this game but when we are successful others have stepped up to provide balance."

Other key contributors for the newly-minted champions included freshman Rhe Nae Leach (Riverside, Calif. / John W. North), who blocked a shot to go with nine points and three rebounds and sophomore Kailynn Tuck (Portland, Ore. / Jesuit), who gave Whittier 27 minutes of smothering defense off the bench in addition to some depth scoring with eight points. 

The win moves Whittier to 16-8 overall, securing the SCIAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. The selection show is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 28 at 11:30 a.m. PDT on NCAA.com. The show will reveal who the Poets are slated to play in the first round, in addition to where and when. Shortly after the show, the 64-team bracket will be live here. The tournament will begin Friday, Mar. 4, and will run all the way to the national championship Saturday, Mar. 19 at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse in Pittsburgh, Pa. For Dow, 2022 will mark the coach's third trip to the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, having won back-to-back SCIAC Postseason Tournaments with California Lutheran University between 2012 and 2013.

"Tonight is a well-deserved confidence booster because we have worked extremely hard to be successful," Dow said. "We will embrace the March Madness opportunity while continuing to enjoy the moments we have shared, and the time with each other. Our goal will not change following Monday's selection show. We will always be working at our team and continuing to improve. If we want continued success, we'll need to stay hungry, execute at a very high level and have fun."

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