Article Courtesy of The Daily Nonpareil
Council Bluffs, Iowa
In October, when the NJCAA women's basketball season was planned to initially start, as everything continued to be postponed teams like Iowa Western were wondering if there would even be a season.
All they wanted was a shot. Fast forward to now, the Reivers earned their way back to the national tournament for the second time in five years after defeating Triton College 105-57 in the North Central district championship game.
"I'm so excited about this group," Iowa Western head coach Lindsey Vande Hoef said after the win. "These girls have worked so hard and it's been such a challenging year. It's just an accumulation of things, I just feel so much joy right now for the girls, I'm really happy for them."
"It feels great just playing here, doing it on our home floor means a lot," Berfield said. "One of our goals this year was to not lose at home. We did lose one time to Kirkwood (on Jan. 30), after that we worked hard to make sure that wouldn't happen again."
Berfield was 7-11 behind the arc while scoring a team-high 21 points. The Reivers shot 50% on 3s, going 16-32. Berfield claims she may have found a good luck charm.
"Coach has a bunch of quotes in her office," Berfield said. "I took one of them and put it in my sock. So I feel that may be my thing."
Alongside Berfield, five other Reiver players scored double digits. Geassy Germano was one of those six, posting 16 points and grabbing 10 rebounds as well for a double-double. She also had seven assists.
After battling all season and capping it off with this authoritative win, Germano and the Reivers look forward to traveling to Lubbock, Texas for the national tournament. She says it's all the more exciting to look forward to her first trip to the Lone Star State.
"It's going to be an exciting trip," Germano said. "We're going to enjoy it, but we still have to grind it out for a few games yet. We aren't done yet."
By halftime Iowa Western already held a 50-31 lead. Iowa Western stormed out on an 18-4 run within the first four minutes of the third quarter. Following that, Iowa western went through the end of the third up to the first two minutes of the fourth quarter on a 14-2 run.
Bottom line, much to Vande Hoef's liking, Iowa Western's offense was firing on all cylinders all game long.
"When we did our scouting report we felt like there might be a number of opportunities to hit some 3s," the coach said. "We knew we still had to get the ball inside to create those shots, but I didn't want them to force too many.
"In the first half, we were shooting a red hot 56% from the 3-point line and just around 50% for 2s. So I think we were taking our shots at the right time and when you have so many capable scorers it's nice to see them share. They weren't selfish, they don't care who scores and that's the cool thing about this group."
The program's last trip to nationals was in 2017. Dustie Obah, who scored 13 points off the bench and was a rebound away from a double-double herself, speaks for the team when she says this team's mission is far from done.
"The job isn't done for us," Obah said. "We want to go down and make a name for ourselves in Texas and I think we have a great group to do just that."
The NJCAA Division I national championship tournament in Lubbock, Texas will begin on April 19 at the Rip Griffin Center.
This will be the second Reiver team Vande Hoef takes down South.
Iowa Western will play in the first-round of the National Tournament against No. 16 Western Nebraska. Western Nebraska is heading into the tournament with a record of 15-5 on the season. Although they lost in the opening round of their Region IX tournament, they earned one of eight at-large bids. The Reivers will take on the Cougars on Monday, April 19, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. CST.
Follow the action and team updates on social media:
Twitter https://twitter.com/ReiverWBB
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reiverwbb/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ReiverWBB
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