Lady Bison capture National Championship

For Salish Kootenai College Lady Bison basketball guard Shanelle Skunkcap, it was her third attempt to try to capture the elusive AIHEC National Basketball Tournament title.

Skunkcap, who juggled her duties between class, basketball and raising two children, finally got to see all of her hard work and sacrifice pay off as she and her Lady Bison team captured the program’s sixth AIHEC National Championship title in the last 16 seasons under Lady Bisons’ Coach Juan Perez.

“I am the only member of the team with children and trying to be in school, be a player and a mother at the same time,” Skunkcap said. “I mean if I can do it, anyone can. It was tough to keep my grades up and being away from my kids but if you really want to do something, then you have to push just a little bit harder is all.”

According to Skunkcap, her fourth AIHEC may be her last now that she has is finally a member of an AIHEC Championship team.

“I am pretty sure that I have one more year left and I am debating if I am going to come back or not,” Skunkcap admits. “I am sure the coaches are going to talk me into playing another season. But it is pretty tough because I am starting to get more into classes and working towards my degree. The classes are a lot harder and I am a student before I am an athlete so that depends on where I am at in school.”

Skunkcap said she felt the main reason the Lady Bison won the AIHEC National Championship this season was simple: chemistry.“We have a lot of team chemistry with this team and I’ve noticed this was by far the best team that I’ve ever played on,” Skunkcap said. “We’ve had a lot of chemistry and connection as a team. In the past few weeks because of school assignments, half of our team has been missing at practice. But when it comes to playing on the court, we’ve had the chemistry we needed.”

Early in pool play, the Lady Bison experienced a setback when they lost to Stonechild, a team they had beaten three out of four times during the regular season.

Lady Bison’s head coach Juan Perez said this was the “turning point of the tournament” for his team and after the loss to Stonechild, they wouldn’t lose again.

SKC proceeded to win four out of the five games they played in the tournament.

“I think that is what changed because after we lost, the girls realized they had to be more aggressive offensively,” Perez said. “We needed to dictate the game and that is what kind of happened after the loss.”

Skunkcap agreed with Perez that the loss to Stonechild was indeed the turning point.

“Playing in the tournament was a bit rocky but we knew we could pull it off,” Skunkcap said. “We tend to get a little too excited and fall apart sometimes. Our team came back together and we worked on our communication throughout the rest of the tournament. We just knew that we would be able to fix everything.”

Lady Bison guard Braylee Stone said the loss was “eye opening.”

“That was the turning point for us,” Stone said. “During our season, we played Stonechild four times and beat them three. We came into the game knowing that they were a good competitive team and ended up losing to them by two points. We realized that we had to play better basketball games for the rest of the tournament like we knew how to.”

After the loss, the Lady Bison coasted through the tournament en route to winning their sixth national AIHEC championship title in the last 16 seasons.

“It was amazing and winning is always a great thing,” Whitney Malatare said. “When you win something like that, it’s just an awesome feeling. My little brother won state for Arlee and it was nice for me to win something, too. It was an honor getting alternate on the All-Tournament team and to have people there encouraging you even though they didn’t think they were pulling for your team.”

For Malatare, a transfer from Montana Western University, this was her first-ever experience at the AIHEC National Tournament.

“It was the first year of playing and going to SKC,” Malatare said. “My first season in college, I played at Western and it was a little different. I enjoyed playing for SKC. It was like home for me, I guess.”

Malatare admitted during her first year at AIHEC, she didn’t know what to expect.

“I didn’t know much about it so I tried not to get my hopes up too much (about the experience),” Malatare said. “Winning AIHEC was our goal. At the tournament, a lot of teams aren’t too fond of SKC because of our winning record. Every year our goal is to win the championship and it is hard when you have people rooting against you.”

Malatare attributed the team’s success to the momentum they built throughout the tournament.

“We started off strong and really had the momentum going,” Malatare said. “We were playing well together and passing and sharing the ball around in the third quarter. We had a moment where they were able to come back within eight points. We have really good coaches and they helped us put our heads together. The team captains were really encouraging.”

Because of the Lady Bison and their Bison counterparts that established excellence at the AIHEC, Coach Perez knew his team would get the best performance from any team they faced in the tournament. Perez also said each year winning AIHEC gets tougher because of the increased level of competition.

“There are some teams out of North Dakota that are getting full schedules of games throughout the season,” Perez said. “(Because of their full schedule), I can really see the difference in those teams.”

During the AIHEC championship game, the Lady Bison “won easily,” according to Perez, with an 80-72 victory over Box Elder.

“It was pretty one-sided for most of the game and we actually really jumped out fast and strong,” Perez said. “I don’t think we were ever behind at all except in the first five minutes of the game. We were up by as much as 30 points, pretty much led the whole way and were in control for the whole game.”

Perez said he felt the victory was “big for his program.”

“It is always big because I think people that see our success want to be a part of that success,” Perez said, “We ended up getting some new players with the quality program and they just wanted to be a part of it. This reinforces that they come to SKC and they strive to be champions.”

Official Tournament Statistics not availible as of press time