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Point Loma Nazarene has become a national power in NCAA Division II athletics.
Both the Sea Lions’ men’s and women’s soccer teams reached the NCAA regionals late last year after the PLNU women won the national championship in 2023.
The baseball team has reached the Division II World Series in two of the last three seasons and was national runner-up in 2022.
The women’s volleyball team reached the NCAA Tournament. And the men’s basketball team made six straight NCAA tournaments before last season.
Now both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are atop their conference standings almost a third of the way into their PacWest Conference season.
The reasons for the Sea Lions’ successes are many, including talented coaching staffs and a close-knit college community of just over 4,500 students.
Then there’s the “biggie.”
“Have you seen our campus?” asked Tavia Rowell, a senior guard on PLNU’s women’s basketball team. “It has to be one of the great college campuses anywhere. It’s a beautiful campus. The campus helped recruit me to PLNU. We’re a strong program. But honestly, wow, what a place to be.”
Rowell, the leading scorer on a PLNU women’s basketball team that is off to an 11-3 overall start and a 6-0 mark in PacWest play, first saw the Sea Lions’ campus while playing for Hawaii-Hilo in 2022.
“I fell in love with the campus as soon as I saw it,” she recalls. When her coach was fired, Rowell looked for a new home. PLNU was her first choice.
Three other regulars – forward Alli McDonald (Sonoma State) and junior guards Kaylee Byon (Utah Valley) and Grace Moyers (Wyoming) — transferred in from other programs.
The mix of transfers and program veterans have melded into a sharp-shooting, defensive-minded team that is off to its best-ever start in PacWest play.
The Sea Lions women take a nine-game winning streak into this week’s two-game road trip to Hawaii.
“We have a lot of good pieces,” PLNU coach Charity Elliott said recently. “And this team is extremely unselfish. That speaks to the character and quality of our athletes. And before the season started, we felt we had done a good job filling the holes and replacing the players we lost.
“But that was just on paper. We had to prove ourselves.”
The Sea Lions have done just that. PLNU is shooting 45.4% from the floor 74.6% from the foul line this season. The team is also shooting 41.3% (88 for 213) from 3-point range; Rowell, McDonald and Byon are as accurate from long-range as they are from inside the arc.
“We do have some really good shooters,” said Elliott, who routinely has four guards on the floor to take advantage of her team’s long-range skills. “But we’ve improved team defense as we’ve come along — trying to make things more difficult for our opponents. We want to play fast. We want our defense to create offense. We’re very aggressive on defense. We try to create chaos and do a lot of trapping.”
Rowell, a 5-foot-10, all-conference guard, averages 15.0 points a game while shooting 49.6% from the floor and 47.8% from 3-point range.
The 5-10 McDonald, an all-conference player while at Sonoma State, is averaging 13.7 points and 9.3 rebounds a game.The 5-foot-6 Byon is averaging 12.3 points a game; she leads the team with 66 assists.
Eiley Tippins, the Sea Lions’ 6-foot-2 center, averages 9.1 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. She and McDonald are tied for the team lead with 18 block.
“When you look at how we’re playing, it’s a progression of what we’ve done over the past three seasons,” Tippins said. “We had a good group back coming into this season. But you could see what the new players were going to add.
“I had a good feeling. I know what I am good at. Everyone knows what they are good at and what our teammates are good at. We can embody what the coaches are trying to create. The players are different. The mindset is building and growing. It’s opened more opportunities for everyone.”
While the Sea Lions average 69.2 points a game, the players will tell you they’re most pleased with their improvement on defense. Rivals are shooting 37% from the floor and 27% on threes.
“We’ve really stepped it up on defense,” said Rowell. “We came into the season struggling on defense. We’re trusting each other more. Trapping has been really effective for us.
“We only trap a few times a game. But we spring it on people and it comes as a surprise. I’m really excited about our defense. We have great chemistry.”
Elliott says the atmosphere at PLNU’s seaside campus is one of the building blocks of her program.
“We’re not a huge campus,” Elliott said. “But we have a lot of camaraderie between students, between students and athletes, between athletes and between coaches and athletes.
“We have kids who are doing extraordinary things. Our athletes have an overall higher grade point average than the general student population. All our conference games are played as doubleheaders with the men’s team. They support us. We support them.
“The campus camaraderie is so important and special.”
Every week, U-T contributor Bill Center highlights one San Diego college team that’s making strides on and off the field. To nominate a team, email wcenter27@gmail.com.
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