Oakland City women’s basketball receives bid to NCCAA tourney

OAKLAND CITY, Ind. (WFIE) - The Oakland City University women’s basketball team put together a fantastic season, qualifying for the NAIA national tournament for the first time in program history.

Despite OCU (20-9) losing its first-round game in the NAIA tournament to Campbellsville, the team’s season isn’t over yet.

The Lady Oaks will now play in the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) tournament later this week. Since Oakland City has dual affiliation with the NAIA and the NCCAA, this enables the Oaks to compete in either tournament, or both as it worked out this year.

“That tournament is always played at the same time as the NAIA tournament, so with us having such a good season, we actually received an at-large bid,” Oakland City head women’s basketball coach Fahkara Hawkins said. “So if we don’t do as well as we want to in the NAIA tournament, that gives us the opportunity to continue to chase a championship. These kids have worked so hard this season to change the idea of what Oakland City women’s basketball is. Just to be able to give them, just again, one more chance to bring home a championship.”

“It’s really something we should be thankful for,” Oakland City junior Emilee Hope said. “We had a few chances, and we should’ve won those, but we didn’t and this is another chance for us and I just think that we’re grateful for that.”

“It’s really all to Coach because she’s really changed this program when she came in,” Oakland City junior Jalaya Dowell said. “I think the first year she was here we had eight wins, and then the year after that I think we had 19, so we just keep building every year.”

Oakland City is the No. 1 seed and will play Kentucky Christian in the NCCAA quarterfinals at Grace College on Wednesday at 9 a.m.

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