Unsung dynasty: Kirkwood Community College women’s basketball winning goes on and on

CEDAR RAPIDS — Over 3,700 men’s and women’s college basketball teams are in America from NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA, and three divisions in the National Junior College Athletic Association.

Entering Saturday, just eight were unbeaten. One, the 29-0 Kirkwood Community College women’s squad, won its 50th-straight game overall Saturday afternoon with an 83-30 victory over Marshalltown Community College in the first round of the NJCAA Division II playoffs.

It was the Eagles’ 69th-straight win at Kirkwood’s Johnson Hall. These are NJCAA DII records, the 50 and the 69. This is the defending DII national-champion, winner of two of the last three national-crowns and a 9-time titlist.

That is sustained excellence at a place and a level where you will never be shown on SportsCenter unless one of your players scores 100 points. Which won’t happen at Kirkwood because 11 players play significant minutes and the points are spread around.

“I don’t care what level, being undefeated is not easy,” said Eagles Coach Kim Muhl. “I think the reasons we’re undefeated is our depth and our chemistry.”

Eight of the 13 Eagles are Iowans. Saturday, Ellah Kissell of Wayland scored 16 points, Jenna Twedt of Atkins had 15, and Kaliyah Sain of Cedar Rapids and Lizzy Puot of Des Moines added 12.

Some will proceed to a 4-year basketball program. A couple others, Muhl said, may skip that in order to focus on studies in radiology and nursing.

The Eagles beat Marshalltown 84-30 and 79-30 in the regular season. The Tigers had just seven healthy players for this game. Besides not being as deep as Kirkwood, the Tigers weren’t nearly as tall. Nor, obviously, are they as talented.

Nonetheless, there are different kinds of winning. In its 29th game — 13 of them victories — Marshalltown showed a lot of spirit before and even in the final minutes of its third-straight lopsided loss to the Eagles.

“This program was 0-27 the year before I took over,” said Marshalltown Coach Dylan Longley. “This is the second year of me being here after going 3-27 last year.

“We just wanted to make improvement, and we wanted to be in this exact spot, making the playoffs.

“I don’t know if anybody in the country expects to beat Kirkwood. We definitely don’t. We just wanted to be in this position.”

Longley has five players from Las Vegas. He said that’s because of relationships he’s built with AAU and high school coaches out there.

Destiny Sao-Martinez of Las Vegas, the team’s leading scorer, is a premed student who wants to be a dermatologist or travel nurse. She says this on the MCC website:

“My favorite part of Marshalltown CC is how small the campus is, how lovely and supportive everyone is, and how beautiful and green it is out here.

“Something my dad has always told me is to chase my dreams no matter what, to give every practice or game my all like it’s my last, and to never give up because I have big dreams ahead of me. I came to MCC to help turn the program around and put a statement out there to let everyone know who we are.”

After the game, Muhl, 69, talked about how he thinks junior college ball still has purity. That seldom was said about juco ball in the past, but Muhl explained.

“With the transfer portal,” he said, “the mid-majors are the junior colleges. If they have a good player, they’ll keep him for two players, maybe three. Then they’re gone. Our players are tickled to get an offer of $5,000 (from an NCAA program), to get their education paid for.”

Muhl’s career record is an absurd 1,074-171. This is his 36th season.

“If you’d have told me in 1989 that at Kirkwood we would accomplish all the things that we’ve done, all the national-championships and stuff in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I’d have said ‘No, that will never happen.’

“It’s been an unbelievable journey. It just kept rolling and we got better and better.“

The crowd at tipoff Saturday was under 100. But there was one moment of pomp.

During pregame introductions, they shut off the lights and put on the Alan Parsons Project song “Sirius” that was used in Chicago during every pregame intro of Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

Music for a dynasty.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com