Lehman women set for banner season

They were brought together one last time last week, a final chance for Lehman College’s women’s basketball team, the City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) champions for the 2015-2016 season, to gather as one to celebrate the school’s first title in nine seasons.

Former Lightning standouts Jennifer Navarro, Amani Lightbourne and Yarmese Jones, now former Lehman players who were key contributors to the championship run, came back to campus to help former teammate and current Lehman senior Amely Del Rosario and coach Eric Harrison raise the CUNYAC championship banner the Lightning earned last season with their overtime victory over Brooklyn College in the CUNYAC championship game. There was also another banner that needed raising, this one paying tribute to the NCAA Tournament trip the Lightning were awarded for winning the CUNYAC crown.

The team had already received their championship rings at a half court ceremony as they watched the banners rise to the rafters in the Apex gym, as the crowd stood and cheered. There was a little trouble with getting the NCAA banner into place and after some tinkering with the ropes by Harrison and Lehman Athletic Director Martin L. Zwiren, Ph.D., it was left until after the game to figure out how to straighten it out as it hanged crooked for the Lightning’s season-opener against CCNY.

It was a slight malfunction to an otherwise memorable pregame ceremony and it was also about the only thing that went wrong that night as the Lightning shook off some early foul trouble from Del Rosario and used a strong second half from newcomer Lynda Fields and Del Rosario as the Lightning rolled to a convincing 78-44 victory over the Beavers.

Lehman then posted an impressive 84-45 victory over John Jay this past Saturday to complete a memorable week for the Lightning as they said good-bye to last season and in the process started their 2016-17 CUNYAC season with two wins in their first two games. Champions indeed.

“The pregame ceremony, it was just great,” said Harrison, the CUNYAC’s all-time leader in wins in women’s basketball history. “Anytime you get a chance to re-live last year’s success and see the seniors come back, it was so great to have them here.”

As the twin banners were being lifted to their spots high above the Lehman bench at the Apex – one reading 2016 CUNY Women’s Basketball Champions, the other 2016 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament – thoughts of last season danced through the heads of both Harrison and Del Rosario. Mostly it had to do with the hard work and sacrifice that went into building that championship team.

“It was a fun experience for us. The new players got to see something that they know is possible to get to at the end of this season as well,” Del Rosario said. “And it was great to see the old seniors come back – Ya-Ya [Yarmese, Amani  and Jen. It was so much fun. It was the last time we were going to be together as a team, especially in this type of atmosphere. And I thought about all the hard work we put in and all the dives on the floor and all the assists.” Harrison thought the pregame ceremony was a fitting acknowledgement of the Lightning’s achievements of last season while also turning the page to the task at hand this season.

“It all comes back to you. You see the players all there and it reminds you of what we did last year, all the accomplishments,” Harrison said. “But we were also excited about it because we also wanted to progress into this season. So that’s why the banners are good, it’s sort of showing the end of one season and going right into the new one. We knew this was going to be the last event together as a team so we were excited about having this night.”

Once the actual game got underway, Lehman, in general, and Del Rosario, in particular, appeared to have a bit of a hard time shaking off the pregame love-fest. Del Rosario, the defending CUNYAC Player of the Year, picked up a pair of early fouls that forced her to the bench in the game’s first two and a half minutes and Lehman found itself trailing, 13-11, at the end of the first quarter.

“I kind of expected with the excitement of the first home game that Amely was going to come in and put too much pressure on herself and I think that’s exactly what she did,” Harrison said. “She did not play smart at all in the beginning and it got her to where she had to sit. And we’re not used to having her sit so it was an adjustment out there for us. But we figured it out and we kept it close.”

Most of that was due to Lynda Fields.

Fields, in her first season with the Lightning, helped fill the gap left by Del Rosario’s temporary absence as she scored 15 points in the first half as Lehman took a 29-23 lead at halftime, then added another 20 points in the second half as Lehman systemically pulled away and cruised to the easy win.

Fields’ performance opened a lot of eyes to fans of the Lightning program but not to those in the Lehman locker room.

“We’ve always known Lynda Fields is very good. She’s on the same level as Amely,” Harrison said. “We knew she is an explosive type of guard and we knew if she continued to listen to her coaches here, she would be a big-time player. It’s more about building up her confidence level to where she will be a take-charge type of player. This was a big game for her. Amely is already playing at that level so now when you get Lynda doing the same thing it makes our backcourt very dangerous.”

“This was her game,” said Del Rosario, who finished with 20 points. “She had the hot hand. She just couldn’t miss anything. She was hitting from everywhere. She would just get the ball and turn around and it would go in for her. It was a great night for her.”

Lehman increased its lead to 49-36 at the end of the third quarter as both Del Rosario and Fields contributed seven points apiece in the quarter. And when Del Rosario sandwiched a pair of buckets around a three-point play by Fields, the Lehman lead had skyrocketed to 26 points at 64-38 and it was time for CCNY to warm up the bus for the trip home.

“Lynda can absolutely do this every game,” said Del Rosario, who was not sporting her championship ring after the game, choosing to have her mom, Olga Garcia, hold onto it. “She came in with the mentality that this was going to be her game. She didn’t come in expecting to get 35, but if it comes, it comes. It was an exciting night. But she’s that type of player.”

Last year’s championship and all its memories are now in the past for the Lightning as they turn their focus to defending their title this year. And with wins in their first two CUNYAC games - and if the performances in the win over John Jay last Saturday are any indication when Del Rosario finished with 29 points, Krystal Pearson with 21, Fields with 15 and Shakira Artist with 17 points and 17 rebounds - they are off to a solid start of doing just that. But Del Rosario, the lone senior on this year’s team, thinks the Lightning will be a better team once all the new pieces on the roster start to mesh – even if it appears that Fields may have already done that.

“I think we’re still trying to build that chemistry,” Del Rosario said. “We’re trying right away to get into that championship mentality but it’s a little hard with so many new players. We’re building it there slowly but it will get there.”