It’s tourney time for area women

By Joe Scalzo

Five local women are playing in the NCAA tournament.

North Carolina A&T senior Amber Bland was celebrating on the bench with her teammates on Saturday following the Aggies’ victory in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament when the P.A. announcer called her name as the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

“It’s kind of funny because we were just celebrating, living in the moment and my teammates said, ‘Amber, that’s you,’ ” said Bland, who spoke by phone on Monday afternoon. “I was like, ‘Oh.’ I wasn’t expecting it at all.

“It was a really nice thing. I was really shocked.”

The Boardman High graduate is one of one of five area players in the NCAA tournament, joining college teammate Jaleesa Sams (New Castle), Michigan State freshman Courtney Schiffauer (Boardman), Pitt freshman Kate Popovec (Canfield) and Howland High graduate Alexa Williams, a freshman at Lehigh.

Bland is making her second trip to the NCAA tournament, having played for Penn State as a freshman in 2005 before transferring to North Carolina A&T a few months later. Bland played extensive minutes for the No. 4 seeded-Nittany Lions, who were upset by No. 13 Liberty 78-70 in the first round.

“They were the Cinderella that year,” said Bland, who decided to leave Penn State after that season. “It was good to get that experience, to get a feel for it.”

After sitting out a year due to NCAA transfer rules, Bland found immediate success with the Aggies, averaging a conference-best 19.6 points per game as a sophomore, the first of three straight all-conference seasons. Despite playing just three years, she is second on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,576 points — the leader has more than 1,800 — and has also excelled with her passing, rebounding and defense.

She is averaging 16 points per game this winter — second-best on the team — along with five rebounds and two steals. Sams has played in 25 games, starting 23, and averages nine points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

The No. 14-seed Aggies (25-6), who are in the tournament for the first time in 15 years, will play No. 3 Florida State on Saturday in Duluth, Ga.

Bland, who will graduate with her journalism degree in May, said she’s grown as a person and a player over the past three years, with the only downside from her transfer being her recently acquired Southern accent.

“It’s just getting worse and worse,” she said, laughing. “But I’ve learned to take the initiative, learned to be a leader.

“I’m ready for life after college. I’m not scared about graduation. I know what I want to do with my life.”

Bland plans to either play basketball overseas or begin her writing career for a university’s sports information department, a magazine or a newspaper.

“I may go to grad school, but I need a break,” she said.

After she graduated from Boardman, her parents moved back to Houston — Bland was born in Houston but went to Boardman from kindergarten through high school — and she said she’d like to stay in North Carolina.

Bland hasn’t spent much time in Youngstown the past few years, but she returned last summer for her friend Courtney Davidson’s graduation party. Davidson played at Ursuline and Michigan State.

“I miss home,” Bland said.

Schiffauer averaged 4.4 points in 30 games (13 starts) for the Spartans (20-10), who earned an at-large bid. Schiffauer was in eighth grade when Bland was a senior.

The No. 9 Spartans will play at home in the first round (and second round, if they win), opening with No. 8 Middle Tennessee State on Sunday.

Popovec, a 6-3 forward who played in 25 games and started one, averaged 4.6 points and 5.4 rebounds per game for the No. 4 Panthers (22-7), who earned an at-large bid and will play No. 13 Montana in Seattle on Saturday.

Williams averaged 5.5 points and 4.4 rebounds per game for Lehigh, the Patriot League champions who are in the tournament for the second time. The former All-Ohioan played in all 32 games and started eight and was named to the conference’s All-Rookie Team. She was named the Patriot League’s rookie of the week three times this winter, including the second week of the season.

Still, she said going from high school to college was a big step.

“I think one of main things was just learning all the plays and staying focused,” said Williams in a phone interview Monday. “In high school, you’d just run down the court and put the ball in the net. Every play we ever ran was for me or [now-senior] Kelly Barzak.”

She got homesick at mid-season — “Classes are so much harder here and I missed everything about high school — my friends, being home. ...” said Williams, a business major — but she eventually adjusted and now says she “wouldn’t trade [this experience] for anything.”

The No. 15 Mountain Hawks (26-6) will meet No. 2 Auburn on Saturday in Piscataway, N.J.

“I’m still on Cloud Nine about it,” she said of making the tournament. “It’s such a different feeling, going from high school to now. I mean, I thought beating Canfield my junior year or making it to the regional final last year was the greatest feeling ever.

“That doesn’t compare to this.”

scalzo@vindy.com