Starting Dec. 20 through Dec. 29, we are reliving the top games, championships, awards, firsts, and memories from the year that was in the Ten For 2010 series. You the fans can vote on your top story of the year starting Dec. 29, and the results will be unveiled on New Year's Day. We present our top 10 in chronological order, not in a ranking of any sort.
Ten For 2010
Dec. 20:
The Hall of Champions
Dec. 21:
Women's Basketball In The NCAA Tournament
The most nerve-racking moment of the 2009-10 women's basketball season didn't take place on the court. It wasn't during a game, a practice, or a road trip. It was while sitting around watching TV.
March 1, 2010. Less than 48 hours after losing at home to Messiah in the Commonwealth Conference championship game - and missing out on automatic qualification to the NCAA Tournament - the women's basketball team gathered in the gym lounge to see if their name would be called as an at-large team in the bracket.
"I was just excited," recalled coach Todd Goclowski, who had taken his program from 7-17 in his first year in 2006-07 to 23-5 and looking at their first-ever NCAA trip in 2009-10. "I was overwhelmed with the excitement of just sitting with my team and watching the NCAA selection show."
The excitement quickly turned to nervousness. There was a good sense that the Dutchmen would be in. They were 25-4, nationally-ranked, and runners-up in the CC. They had a formidable line-up, led by CC Player of the Year
Andrea Hoover, sharpshooter
Eryn Schultz, and inside presence
Suzie Noyes. But anyone familiar with the NCAA selection process knows that there is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to at-large selections. And as the selection show wore on, there was no sign of the Dutchmen on the bracket.
"I remember people started to get antsy, and so did I after we weren't on the list after twenty minutes or so," remembered
Caitlin Murphy. "Watching team after team fill the lines was agony."
Before long, it was down to the final region, the bottom right of the bracket, and still no Lebanon Valley. Pairing after pairing went by, until the final possible four-team pod. Knees were bouncing, hands were tapping, fingernails were gone.
"Marymount..."
"The University of Scranton..."
"And making their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the Flying Dutchmen of Lebanon Valley College."
Cheers, hugs, tears. And so the team was off to their first Big Dance, heading to Virginia to play Medaille. But to the players in the room, that extra half hour seemed as long as the 106 years the program had waited for their first postseason opportunity.
"The timing of the announcement in the field just made the moment even more special coming right at the end the way that it did," Goclowski said.
"I remember all of us simultaneously shouted, jumped, and fist pumped. I couldn't erase the smile off of my face for an hour afterwards," Murphy said. "After all we were the first women's team in LVC history to make the NCAA tournament. That alone really made us all appreciate the second chance we had been given."
