From early state exit to national title

CEDAR RAPIDS - Last year Ashley Piper helped lead her Cedar Rapids Washington basketball team to the state tournament. That ended with a first-round loss.

This year, the freshman at Colorado Christian University helped lead her team to the National Christian College Athletic Association tournament. That ended with a national championship.

Piper and her eighth-seeded CCU Cougars played the role of Cinderella all the way to a 62-44 win over second-seeded Cedarville for the national championship.

“We knew we were going to play some really good competition,” Piper said. “We were still really excited to be headed to the tournament and we (thought) could do pretty well.”

The NCCAA held its annual tournament last week in Winona Lake, Ind. The Cougars were able to win three tough games in four days, mainly with a stout defensive effort.

“We probably worked for a week getting down our defense,” Piper said. “We knew we needed to be able to play well on defense if we were going to do well.”

CCU started the tournament by upsetting top-seeded California Baptist, 67-56. The Cougars held California Baptist to a 22.7 percent shooting and created 27 turnovers.

Piper and her teammates then had to take on the host school, Grace College. The Cougars rolled through the semifinal game and on to the championship with a 66-53 win.

The last obstacle were the Yellow Jackets, who had posted a regular-season record of 22-7 and an offense that had been shooting better than 35 percent in their first two tournament games.

Cedarville opened the game with a 9-0 run, but the Cougars' defense held the Yellow Jackets to only six points for the rest of the half and CCU held a comfortable, 29-15, lead at intermission.

The second half was more of the same with the Cougars holding Cedarville to 29 percent shooting and only 16 baskets.

Piper contributed all of her team's second-best 9 points from behind the 3-point line and also had five assists and three rebounds.

“Coming out of high school we knew she (Piper) could be successful at this level,” CCU Coach Tim Hayes said. “By the end of the year we knew we could rely on her in important situations and coming up big for us in the tournament.”

Piper believes she has some work to do before she reaches her potential. Winning a national title as a freshman is good motivation.

“It feels good knowing that I can push myself and do even better than I was a year ago in high school.”