Beacons light it up in third season.

Byline: Chris Hansen The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 3/10/06): Kasey Sconce and Stacy Cordell each have been with the Northwest Christian College women's basketball team for all three years of the program. A story on Page D1 on Tuesday did not include them in that group.

Robin McMahon remembers the early days of the Northwest Christian College women's basketball program, when it was a struggling team filled with players more rounded up than recruited.

"It was really hard to be motivated," McMahon admitted.

Not so anymore.

In only three years of existence, the Beacons have gone from club team to postseason qualifier after finishing the regular season 16-11 to earn an invite to the 12-team United States Collegiate Athletic Association national tournament. The event starts Wednesday on the campus of Rhema Bible College in Broken Arrow, Okla.

Northwest Christian is the seventh seed and will meet 10th-seeded Saint Joseph's College of Brooklyn, N.Y., at 5 p.m. Wednesday in a first-round game.

The four-day tournament ends with the championship game Saturday at 3 p.m.

"This means a lot," said McMahon, a senior forward from Monroe who is the only player on NCC's 12-woman roster who has been with the Beacons all three years. "We worked really hard to get here."

Getting to the postseason is a huge step in the development of the program, said head coach Charlie Olds, who suspects it will help legitimize the team in the eyes of recruits.

"This will make us a little bit better known and people will realize we do have a program and, I believe, a good program," Olds said. "Three years ago it was, `NCC, where's that?' Starting up a program has been difficult, but we've been lucky enough to get some good kids in here. You can't do anything unless you have good kids to do it with, and I think we have them."

He didn't have to go far to get them. Nine players come from area high schools, including four from Eugene - all of whom are Willamette graduates - and another from Springfield.

"I'd just as soon recruit the local kids," said Olds, who was a longtime head coach of the Springfield High School girls varsity team before taking over at Northwest Christian. "If the athletes are here in this area, why go out of the area to recruit?"

That strategy paid off this season.

Of the seven freshmen Olds brought in this year, five are locals and three of those became impact players.

Emily Gray, the tallest player on the roster at 6 feet, leads the team in scoring and rebounding with averages of 14 points and 6.6 rebounds.

McKenzie Gambee, 5-10, is second in both categories with 7.8 points and 6.3 rebounds. Elise Gray, Emily Gray's 5-11 twin sister, averages 7.8 points off the bench.

The Grays are from Willamette, while Gambee is a Junction City graduate. All three are posts.

"It's a new program, and I figured if I came here I could be an important part of the building process, as well as my sister and McKenzie Gambee and all the other newcomers," Emily Gray said. "We figured if we stayed here for four years, we could be the ones who brought the program up."

They've certainly done their part this season.

"One thing that we really needed was that," Olds said, pointing in the general direction of the Gray sisters and Gambee, who were scrimmaging at the end of a practice session last Thursday.

"Our inside game is where we really lacked last year. Our outside game was OK, but if you don't have both an inside and an outside, you're going to really struggle. We added three really decent posts."

But even Olds admitted he has been surprised by how quickly everything has come together for the Beacons.

"We've got a good core of kids this year who are really good players, and with a couple more good recruits we can be even better next year," Olds said. "But as far as making the tournament this year, it was hoped for but not really expected."

Olds wasn't the only one pleasantly surprised.

"I actually can't believe how quick we got here," McMahon said. "We started off (three years ago) just trying to find people to play. It took a while to get recruiting down. But we just found a bunch of awesome local girls who wanted to come out and play. Now you have to fight every day for your spot. It's really exciting."

CAPTION(S):

Assistant coach Liz Bolton gives instruction to Northwest Christian post players Emily Gray (from left), Elise Gray and McKenzie Gambee. Emily Gray leads the team with averages of 14 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.