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Special year could be just starting

| March 3, 2018 12:00 AM

If the season didn’t hang in the balance on winning — as well as some other scenarios in a loss — on Wednesday night, it might not have felt the same for the North Idaho College women’s basketball team.

Still, it feels pretty special.

IN CASE you missed it, the NIC women — as well as the men — clinched berths into the Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament, which begins next week at Everett Community College.

NIC’s men qualified for last year’s tournament, the program’s first year since joining the conference after moving from the NJCAA’s Scenic West Athletic Conference to the regionally-based NWAC.

This will be the women’s first trip.

“The girls played fantastic,” said NIC women’s basketball coach Chris Carlson, whose team beat Wenatchee Valley 82-74 in the regular season finale. “Wenatchee, they fought like hell. We came out and answered each call they had. It was a great win for our sophomores. We’re excited to head to the tournament. We mixed up our defenses really well. Down the stretch, we tightened everything up and had good pressure on their guards.”

Ashlynn Burgess had 29 points and 15 rebounds for Wenatchee Valley, which finished two games behind Big Bend for the final of four playoff spots out of the East Region.

Walla Walla, the East champion and Columbia Basin are the other two teams from the East to advance.

Sophomore Cierra Dvorak, a Lake City High product, had 23 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for NIC.

“Cierra stepped up and hit some big shots,” said Carlson of Dvorak, one of seven sophomores playing for the final time at Rolly Williams Court. “It was sophomore night, so some of them were a little emotional. Whitney (Meier), she’s had a fantastic career. Lana (Berg) played tough. It was really a total team effort. What a great way to cinch that third spot. It’s exciting.”

Likewise, NIC’s men will be the third seed from the East Region. Walla Walla is East champion, followed by Spokane in second and Yakima Valley fourth.

BOTH TEAMS will find out their next opponent on Sunday, with the conference holding a selection show on www.nwacsports.org.

The women’s program is at 2 p.m., followed by the men’s at 3.

The first two rounds of the women’s tournament are Thursday and Friday, with the men’s tournament on Saturday and Sunday. The semifinals and finals are March 17-18.

“It’s pretty cool,” Carlson said. “They’ll put the No. 1 teams from each region into a different side of the bracket and away from teams from their region. Each quadrant will be four teams from four different regions. We’ll play a No. 2 seed, but not ours. It will either be Lane — which beat previously unbeaten Umpqua — Lower Columbia College or Everett.”

Earlier this season, Carlson, who coached the Cardinals to the 2011 NJCAA title, won his 300th game with the program.

NIC lost twice to Umpqua this season by a combined nine points and beat Lower Columbia College. While they didn’t play each other this season, NIC — with most of the same players back — beat Everett in 2016.

“The girls want to go and make a run at the whole thing,” Carlson said. “We’ve played a lot of good teams this year. The East Region has been extremely tough and it’s going to pay off down the road. I think it will toughen us up. Just the way the girls played tonight, they wanted to get to back there. They know we’re as good as any team in the NWAC.”

Now, they’ll start trying to prove it next week.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.