108-106 triple overtime win catapulted Lady Blue Devils to record 31 straight wins
by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
It was the greatest single season in Kansas City Kansas Community College women’s basketball.
Built on a foundation of a team that had won 28 games and shared the Jayhawk Conference championship at 15-1 the previous season, the 1996-1997 Lady Blue Devils wrote marks into the record book that will never be broken:
The winningest team in KCKCC history (35-2), the Blue Devils also won an all-time best 31 straight games and became the first team in Jayhawk Conference history to finish 18-0. Their only two losses came at the hands of the No. 1 seeded team in the NJCAA Division I national tournament (Central Florida) and the 1997 national champion, Trinity Valley.
The Blue Devils were also the first and only KCKCC to ever qualify for the Division I national tournament, finishing fifth and fourth in the final NJCAA poll – both all-time bests. Two members of the team, Jurgita Kausaite and Rima Petronyte, would go to earn Hall of Fame induction at four-year universities, Kausaite at Emporia State and Petronyte at Kennesaw State.
The outstanding feats of the 1996-1997 team will be recognized Friday when it will be inducted into the KCKCC Athletic Hall of Fame, only the second Blue Devil team to be so honored. The induction will come about 7:45 p.m. between the KCKCC women’s and men’s games in the Keith Lindsey Classic. While members of the team have spread as far away as Europe, head coach Leslie Crane will attend along with at least two players, current KCKCC softball coach Kacy Tillery and Heather Horyna.
“Coach Crane told us from the beginning that we had a chance to go to the national tournament,” said Tillery, a Piper graduate. “I remember she had a pyramid drawn up with bricks and whoever had a good game, got to color in one of the blocks. I believe I got the Highland game because I scored 12 or 14 points. It was a pretty tight team. We hung out and did things together.”
Not only did the 1996-1997 team re-write the record book, it took part in what is widely recognized as the greatest game in Jayhawk Conference history. Playing at Independence, the team that prevented the Blue Devils from a national tournament berth the previous season, the Blue Devils won 108-106 in three overtimes in a game that would set the tone for the remainder of the season.
“I’ll remember it until I die,” said Crane, who ironically is in her fourth season as head coach at Independence. “Coaching here now, I think about it often. We may have scored first but on Indy’s first possession, the Feurborn kid from Garnett who I had recruited had a shot from the far corner hit the corner of the backboard and bounce in and right then I knew we were in for a battle. It was great offensive battle. No defense.”
KCKCC lost Petronyte on fouls in the first overtime; the All-American, Kausaite, in the second.
“I thought there was no way and then Sonata (Pranaityte) and Erica Lewis turned it on in the third overtime. They just took over, bringing ball down the floor, rebounding, scoring. I think Maryam Malone was still in the game at the point and maybe Heather Horyna, Anne Shepherd, Mellisa Washburn or Kacy.
“It was a total team effort. Everyone played and contributed and they were not going to be denied. When you get mentalities like that, it grows and after that game, I saw a complete change. They were not going to face anything tougher. That game shaped the rest of the season for us.”
When the dust had settled about 11 o’clock (the men’s teams had played the first game), Kausaite had scored what still is a KCKCC record 44 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. A Kodak first team All-American, who averaged 21.6 points and 10.9 rebounds while shooting 58.6 percent from the field, Kausaite was also named the MVP for the Jayhawk Conference and was selected to the all-tournament team at the national tourney.
She was also one of four Blue Devils to average in double figures for the season. Sonata Pranaityte, a 5-11 forward, averaged 14.7 points; 6-0 Erica Lewis averaged 14.3 points and 8.2 rebounds; and 5-9 Rima Petronyte averaged 11.8 points and led in assists with 196. Maryam Malone, a 5-8 point guard from J.C. Harmon, was the fifth starter averaging 5.5 points while other members of the squad included Heather Horyna, 6-5 Rasa Sukeviciute, Anne Shepherd, Kacy Tillery, 6-5 Tanya Williams and Mellisa Washburn.
“You can’t compare that kind of talent,” said Crane, who would go on to serve as an assistant coach at the University of Missouri and then was head coach at Western Illinois from 1998-2011. “They were better than many four-year college teams. Any of our starting five could have started for any team in the conference and we had a 6-5 post coming off the bench.
“Jurgita Kausaite was a machine, a scoring machine. I’ve never had players as good as Jurgita and Rima (Petronyte) at those positions. They made me look good. Great players make great coaches.” Kausaite is now a coach in Sweden while Petronyte has a business in her native country of Lithuania.
To get to the national tournament, KCKCC knocked out Cowley 76-56 and Barton County 62-50 before ousting Seward County 76-56 in the championship game.
“Going into the final game, I had two or three of the players come up to me and say, “There’s no way we’re going to lose. Their goal was the national tournament and they weren’t going to let it get away.”
KCKCC opened national tournament play with a 77-51 rout of Savannah Tech but then fell in the quarterfinals to No. 1 seeded Central Florida 78-58. Dropped into the consolation bracket, they finished the season with wins over Casper (Wyo.) 81-57 and North Idaho 71-59. The Blue Devils only other loss had come in just the third game of the season, a 74-64 setback at Trinity Valley (Texas), the team that would go on to win the national championship over Central Florida.
A footnote to the national tournament. The head coach at Trinity Valley was Kurt Budke, a former men’s assistant coach at KCKCC and interim women’s head coach for one season. Budke was head coach at Oklahoma State when he was tragically killed in a plane crash while on a recruiting trip.
It was a great team with an outstanding coach and we were lucky to be a host family for two of the Lithuanian girls that we are still close to today.