Dan Ninham
Special to ICT
The Haskell women’s basketball team clinched the conference championship for the second year in a row on Sunday, March 1, defeating top-seeded Georgia Gwinnett College 66-56 on the Grizzlies’ home court.
The Haskell Indian Nations University team will now advance to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ National Women’s Basketball Tournament later this month.
The Haskell women held on during a tight game in the Continental Athletic Conference finals, hosted by Georgia Gwinnett. The game was tied 26-26 at half-time, but the Haskell team began to pull ahead decisively in the final minutes.
Senior 5’8” point guard Myona Dauphinais played the full game. She was a highlight reel on both ends of the court, with a game-leading 28 points and seven rebounds. Although she had six turnovers, she shone with her leadership of the team-first mentality.
“We executed TRUST,” Dauphinais texted to ICT after the game. “Everything that tied into winning was all of us being in sync on both ends of the floor, and we never lost that confidence throughout the entire game.”
Timeouts were used in key times to re-focus the team to their strengths and to get back on track. Ball-handling remains an area for improvement, however; the Fightin’ Indians had 21 turnovers to Georgia Gwinnett Colleges’ eight.
The intangibles included scoring, and Haskell shot the ball very well while the team defense held the opponents to low percentages.
Haskell sank 22 of 53 attempted two-point shots, or 42.5 percent, and got 8 of 24 three-point shots, for 33 percent. They hit 70 percent on free throws, with 14 of 20.
The Grizzlies were held to 16 of 70 two-point shots, for just 22.9 percent, and 5 of 29 for three-pointers, or 17.2 percent. The Grizzlies’ hit 19 of 26 free throws, however, for 73.1 percent.
The only other double-figure scorer for Haskell was Ivy Fox with 13 points. Other scorers were Tierzah Penn, with 9; Angela Astorga, 8; Jaylah Flient, 6; and Allie Greene and Chehalis Aleck, with one point each.
Both Dauphinais and Fox were named first-team All Continental Athletics Conference.
Georgia Gwinnett was paced by Peyton Hearvey with 14 points, and Jamya Griffin and Christen Collins with 12 each.
The Haskell team knew going into the game what was at stake, Head Coach Adam Strom told ICT before the conference tournament.
“Our team understands the magnitude of the moment,” said Strom, a Yakama citizen. “There is a heightened awareness that we are now in a ‘win or go home’ situation.”
The 16 host locations for the 2026 NAIA Women’s Basketball National Championship First & Second Round have been announced, marking the beginning of the 64-team tournament Friday and Saturday, March 13-14. The full field of qualifiers will be revealed Thursday, March 5, at YouTube.com/PlayNAIA.
Each first and second round site will feature four teams in the first two rounds of a single-elimination tournament. The winner of each four-team location will advance to Sioux City, Iowa, and the Tyson Events Center, for the NAIA Women’s Basketball National Championship finals March 19-24.