Lady ‘Cats make history

With the high school championships ending and the NCAA tournaments beginning, Bethel University’s ascension through the NAIA women’s national tournament might have gotten overlooked.

Well, how about that?

The Lady Wildcats played Monday in the NAIA Final Four at Sioux City, Iowa against the top-ranked Dordt (Iowa) University Defenders. The game will have already been played by the time this sees print. No matter, Bethel faced a daunting task, but that’s nothing new.

The Lady Wildcats had to scale crazy peaks just to get to this point. In the conference tournament, Bethel faced some of the nation’s best teams and achieved that summit. The Lady Wildcats defeated Sterling (Kansas), then  Benedictine (Kansas)  at Bethel’s Crisp Fieldhouse before it punched its ticket to Iowa.

 Then it had to get on the road for what should have been about a 12-hour drive to Northwest Iowa. A frigid blast blanketed the highways with blinding snow and slowed traffic to a crawl for travelers headed to the tourney.

Once there, however, Bethel thawed itself out to defeat Hastings (Neb.) in the Sweet 16, then rallied from 15 down in the second half to subdue Southern Oregon in the national quarterfinals.

I told Bethel coach Chris Nelson that this was Bethel’s time. This journey may be ordained somehow.

This program has come a long way. When I was a student at Bethel back in 1980, the women’s basketball experiment began. While the spirit was there, the results were slow in coming. There were some great kids on those early teams, but stepping up in the college realm is a different level of competition.

Some of the girls would play basketball for a year, then the next year, they participated in cheerleading, volleyball, tennis or leave the campus altogether. Consequently, first-year coach Sherry Walker was relegated to recruiting almost a brand new team every year.

Things got better. I remember in the mid-to-late 1980s, even UT-Martin played Bethel at the Baker Fieldhouse. As time went on, the program became competitive. Soon, it was playing in the NAIA national tournament at Jackson’s Oman Arena.

Bethel took its lumps on the national stage, but it slowly garnered respect across the county. Bethel would win a few games and advance to the Sweet 16, but run into some bad luck along the way. Missed shots, bad breaks in the waning moments, missed free throws at pivotal times all contributed to Bethel’s demise.

But coaches across the country regarded Bethel and its coach Chris Nelson a formidable foe. I remember talking to Vanguard’s coach and he spoke about Bethel and Nelson with reverence. Keep in mind that Vanguard is a team located near Los Angeles. The Lions have since transitioned to Division 2 NCAA. But no matter, that’s high praise from a championship-caliber program.

Bethel has come a long way since women’s basketball found purchase at the old Baker Fieldhouse. As I write this, I have no idea how things turned out for Bethel.

All I know is that I said this was Bethel’s time. And what a time the Lady Wildcats have had. But if they don’t win, there are still a lot of folks in West Tennessee these girls as winners.

Jim Steele is a correspondent for Richardson Media Group and may be reached on X @steelesports or via email at pressbox1@gmail.com.