When the Lions womens basketball team fell short of their national championship goal last month, everyone thought a title shot was over. But another women’s basketball team on the Texas A&M University-Commerce campus may take their claim as national champions.
The Lady Sparks, intramural champions from the basketball season at the Morris Recreation Center, won the pre-season tournament that earned them a ticket to a regional tournament at Texas Christian University.
Portia Clemons, Candice Burden, Chavun Chadwick, Burgande Jones, Ashley O’Neal, Leticia Kelly, Jane Latu and Monique Hayes round out the eight player squad that has only lost one game throughout the entire season.
At TCU, the Lady Sparks played five games in two days and won all five: the championship game was won by double-digits.
“It was just different,” said Clemons. “A little bit more of a challenge playing against those girls than (it was) the sorority girls here.”
With the regional win at TCU, an expense-paid trip to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is where the team will play in the 2007 Pontiac ACIS Basketball National Championships.
“I’m ready, really excited,” Burden said. “Ready to play ball. I hope we play a good team and get that national trophy.”
Although the trip is expense-paid, the women will not receive any money until they get to North Carolina. So transportation and everything else the team needs will come out of their own pocket.
They have been and are still looking for donations. The team will get $2000 that will be split up during their five day stay in Chapel Hill, but that will have to pay for transportation, gas, food and anything else they will need during their stay.