Note: As spring sports have been canceled this semester, the athletic communication office will be adding a weekly Washburn Wednesday to the website. Today's edition will be the 2005 NCAA National Champion Lady Blues basketball team. The team was inducted into the Washburn Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016 and was inducted into the MIAA Hall of Fame in 2013.

Game Recap:
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The No. 2 Washburn Lady Blues captured the first NCAA Division II title in school history with a 70-53 win over No. 3 Seattle Pacific.
Washburn, which finished the season with a school record for wins at 35-2, won the first national championship for Washburn since the men's basketball squad won an NAIA crown in 1986-87.
Juwanna Rivers, starting for the injured Jennifer Harris, had a season-high 22 points. She made two 3-pointers to ignite an 8-0 run to open the second half and finished with 14 half.
After Seattle Pacific opened with the first basket on a layup by Carli Smith, the Lady Blues stormed back with a 10-0 run. Rivers hit a jumper in the lane with 16:17 left to give Washburn a 10-2 lead.
Washburn kept the lead by holding the Falcons to a 20 percent mark from the field on 7 of 35 shooting and took a 29-19 advantage at half behind Rivers and Brooke Ubelaker's nine first-half points.
Ubelaker, who was held scoreless for the first time in her career in the semifinals against Central Arkansas, made two 3-pointers in the opening half and finished the game with 20 points.
Washburn used an 8-0 run to extend the lead to 37-19 on Rivers' 3-pointer and took its biggest lead at 49-25 on another Rivers basket with 14:41 left. The basket capped an 18-4 run to open the half, including 11 from Rivers.
Seattle Pacific finally got its offense going and countered with a 23-7 run over the next 5:44. Mandy Wood's only 3-pointer of the game pulled the Falcons within 54-46 with 6:28 left. Seattle Pacific got no closer the rest of the way.
Washburn had a nine point lead with just over a minute left before Carla Sintra's second career 3-pointer iced the game with 1:02 left to make it 65-53. Sintra was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Lora Westling finished with 12 points and was named to the all-tournament team with Sintra and Rivers. April Roadhouse had a career-high eight rebounds.
Smith and Brittney Kroon led Seattle Pacific with 14 points apiece, while Michelle Beaumont added 10 points. Smith added a game-high 13 rebounds.
 
NCAA DIVISION II WOMEN'S ELITE 8
NOTES AND QUOTES FINALS – WASHBURN VS. SEATTLE PACIFIC
Head Coach Ron McHenry:
"Wow. It almost feels like it was just a couple of days ago when this journey started and now we're here at the end. Our seniors led us all year and they did it again tonight. The first half was the best we can play and thank goodness for that first half. This team is tough and gritty. They're talented too, but they work so hard."

On holding Seattle Pacific to 20 percent shooting in the first half:
"All year long we've guarded people. In this day and age it's a little bit harder to get the kind of kid that is committed to working hard enough to play good defense. We spend the majority of our time in practice working on defense and it paid off tonight."

On senior Juwanna Rivers replacing the injured Jennifer Harris in the starting line-up and scoring 22 points:
"Juwanna was special tonight. She has played a couple of different roles for us and I told her before the game that she was a scorer in this game and we needed it tonight."

Lora Westling on the feeling of winning a national championship:
"It doesn't seem real right now. It seems like it's just another weekend and we'll pack up next weekend to go to another tournament. I'm just really proud of this program and this team."

Juwanna Rivers on her approach to tonight's game with her different role:
"My approach wasn't any different, but I just shot a lot more tonight. For the seniors, it was our last go around. Tomorrow we're regular citizens – we're not basketball players anymore."


MIAA Hall of Fame Release
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Lady Blues 2004-05 NCAA II women's basketball national championship team will be inducted into the MIAA Hall of Fame as members of the 2013 class.
 
Washburn went 35-2 overall that year and won its last 19 games to claim the school's first NCAA national title. The Lady Blues swept through the NCAA South Central Region tournament in Springfield, Mo., then won all three games in the Elite 8 in Hot Springs, Mo. They beat Seattle Pacific, 70-53 on March 26 in the championship game.

Washburn outscored teams by 19.0 points a game in 2004-05 while holding opponents to 53.1 points a game. Only four teams scored more than 65 points against Washburn during the year. A 57-48 win over Emporia State on February 23 clinched Washburn's third straight regular season title and then the Lady Blues beat Emporia State in the MIAA tournament final to win that title. Washburn also beat the Lady Hornets in the regional championship game.
 
Ron McHenry coached the Lady Blues to the title in his fifth year with the program. Junior forward Carla Sintra was named a first team All-America and the MIAA MVP that year and was second on the team with 13.5 points a game and first with 6.8 rebounds. Jennifer Harris, a junior guard, averaged 14.4 points a game to lead the team one year before she went on to average 24.2 points in 2005-06 to earn national player of the year awards from three different organizations.