This week marks the 15th anniversary of
one of the hallmark events in the history of Blackburn
College athletics – the National Small College Athletic
Association championship season of the Blackburn women’s
basketball team.
It may seem hard to believe, but it has been fifteen
years since the 1992-93 Blackburn women’s basketball
squad captured the program’s first NSCAA title. Now is a
great time to look back–and remember one of the most
memorable seasons of any Blackburn team.
In retrospect, the national title season was hardly a
surprise. The Blackburn women’s basketball program was
at its zenith, coming off three straight successful
seasons with some of the best players in the history of
the program. After years of building, the Beavers had
broken through with a 15-11 season in 1989-90 that was
capped off with a third-place finish at the NSCAA
tournament in Midway, Ky. The 1990-91 team kept on
moving up with an 18-12 season and a share of the
first-ever St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
regular-season women’s basketball title. The Beavers
then rolled to the first-ever SLIAC tournament title and
went back to Midway, where they again captured the
third-place NSCAA trophy.
But the road to the national championship puzzle was
laid in 1991-92, when Blackburn racked up a 20-10 season
and another SLIAC tournament title. Next came the NSCAA
tournament, hosted by Trinity International University
in Deerfield, Ill., and the Beavers edged Mount Senario,
Wis. in their opening game before knocking off
top-seeded Wilmington, Del. in the semifinals. However,
the Beavers could not finish off their dream of a
national title, as Trinity prevailed 68-54 to send
Blackburn home in second place.
The elusive national title was among the goals set for
the 1992-93 season, as head coach Jim Sexton, who had
overseen the rise of Blackburn women’s basketball since
taking over the program in 1981, made it clear what the
objectives for the season were. Another SLIAC title was
expected, as was another conference tournament
championship. But topping it all was the goal of an
NSCAA championship, and those three objectives stayed in
the back of everyone’s mind throughout the winter.
Certainly, there were championship-level players to lead
the way. Scrappy guard Karen Tuttle was in the last
season of a legendary career, while junior Lisa Pliskin
ran the offense at the point. In the middle was 6'3
freshman Sara Frankford, who was about to open a career
that would land her in the Blackburn Athletics Hall of
Fame, while senior Marsha Campbell brought defensive
strength to the small forward spot. Senior Lynn
Whisenton added more strength in the frontcourt from a
long and deep bench that also featured the likes of
junior guard Teena Rhodes, a player who could have
started for most other teams in the conference. All in
all, it was a physically talented and mentally tough
group from top to bottom, and they knew what it took to
lead the drive to a title.
The nonconference schedule was loaded with scholarship
opponents, which, for a small NCAA Division III program
like Blackburn, always proves a challenge. There were
highlights before Christmas, to be sure; among them was
an overtime win at Illinois Wesleyan in the season’s
third game and the title of the DePauw Tournament in
early December. But a close loss at McKendree, an NAIA
program, followed, and the final game before Christmas
was a four-point home loss to longtime rival Eureka on
December 12 in a contest highlighted by rough play and
an exchange of cheap shots. As a result, Blackburn took
a 3-5 record into the holidays.
Still, the pieces were in place for special season. The
Beavers had played some good basketball against a tough
schedule, and the conference slate awaited. A sloppy
performance in a win over Maryville opened the second
semester, but Blackburn was about to rocket to the top.
The rest of the conference schedule proved a cakewalk,
as the Beavers won their next eight SLIAC games by no
fewer than 14 points. No team in the league could touch
Blackburn, as the Beavers combined their trademark
tenacious defense with an efficient offense that
featured strong fundamentals, excellent teamwork, and
intelligent, overall effort. It was hardly a “star
system,” as the Beavers spread the ball around and
recorded many of their wins with relatively low
individual scoring totals; not one Blackburn player was
named to the first-team all-conference squad that year.
As Blackburn charged through the conference, the crowds
at the Beaverdome grew as the squad captured the
imagination of the student body and set the tone for
what was to come.
When the Beavers did lose, which certainly wasn’t often,
they were even memorable in defeat. The first loss after
Christmas was at powerhouse Washington University on
Jan. 12, 1993, when the Beavers rallied from a 23-point
deficit to cut the lead to six late before falling. The
only other loss of the second semester was at SIUE, an
NCAA Division II program, as Blackburn trailed by only
five at halftime in an eventual 68-46 loss. Despite
playing an opponent whose enrollment was 24 times
larger, the Beavers actually left Edwardsville feeling
like they should have won, a thought shared by observers
as well.
The SIUE game was the middle of a key three-game stretch
for Blackburn that opened with a narrow five-point win
at Webster two nights before, one of only three
conference wins by a single-digit margin. On Feb. 15
came another huge test, as the Beavers played host to an
NSCAA district playoff game against Graceland College of
southern Indiana. A loss would dash the national title
hopes in a game that many fans and observers felt was
unnecessary, as the association allowed no provision for
a conference title team or an obviously top program to
earn automatic bids. As it was, Blackburn’s season
rested on a late-addition home date as over nine inches
of snow fell in Carlinville.
The deluge delayed Graceland’s arrival for over ninety
minutes, and when tip-off finally came, the impatient
Beavers were out of sync. But they regrouped, and went
on to a hard-fought 65-56 win to move on to the district
title. The final two conference games followed, and
Blackburn captured both to finish off a perfect 12-0
SLIAC season and another league title.
The district championship game was played on Feb. 24,
1993, which again proved to be a snowy night. This time,
the opponent was Midway, and Blackburn controlled from
the outset in a 61-43 win to ensure their spot in the
NSCAA championships, set for March 4-6 in Wilmington,
Del.
And back and forth from conference to nationals it went,
much to the delight of everyone involved. Now, the
attention shifted back to the SLIAC tournament on Feb.
27-28, 1993, which was to be played at Parks College, a
now-defunct school in Cahokia. Blackburn drew Webster,
whose competitive season was their best up to that time
(in the days when Webster was still a struggling
athletic program, far removed from their usual place
near the top of the SLIAC today) in the fourth meeting
of the season between the two schools. In a physical
matchup that was less of a basketball game and more of a
smackdown, Blackburn won 84-60 to sweep all meetings
with the Gorloks and move on to the finals against
Maryville the next day.
With so many big games over the previous two weeks, it
was understandable that Blackburn would be sluggish at
some point, and they certainly were in the opening half
against Maryville. But the mental toughness took over,
and the Beavers made big plays when it counted to edge
the Saints 58-55 and win the third of the program’s five
straight conference tournament titles between 1991-95.
The only thing left was the national title, and
Blackburn had only a day or two off before heading to
Delaware, where they routed Ohio Valley 79-59 in their
tournament opener on March 4, 1993. Waiting for them in
the semifinals the next day was Trinity, the top seed,
who had beaten the Beavers in the title game a year
earlier. With memories of that loss still fresh,
Blackburn shot a blistering 62 percent in a lopsided
69-53 win to advance to the championship once again.
Their opponent in the title game on March 6 would be the
hosts, Wilmington, as the Beavers would face the home
team in the biggest game of the year for the second
straight time. The teams battled into overtime in a
classic climax to an incredible season, and Blackburn
prevailed 81-72 to come back to Carlinville with the
program’s first national title.
The Beavers returned home in the midst of spring break
at Blackburn, but the celebration lasted well into
March. An enthusiastic pep rally was held when the
students returned, and billboards across town offered
their congratulations. Sexton was named Illinois
Basketball Coaches Association Co-Coach of the Year, and
the entire campus reveled in the success of their
women’s basketball team.
All told, went 24-7 that season, which is the most wins
ever by a Blackburn basketball team, male or female. The
24 wins were a SLIAC record for nearly a decade, finally
topped by the Webster women’s team in 2001-02. In
addition, no men’s basketball team in conference history
has ever matched the 24 wins of the 1992-93 Blackburn
women, which is unquestionably one of the greatest teams
the SLIAC has ever known.
Although Blackburn did not achieve the greatness of the
1992-93 squad, the rest of the decade saw a continuation
of success. The 1993-94 Blackburn team again won the
SLIAC regular-season and tournament titles and was given
the honor of hosting that year’s NSCAA tournament.
Although the Beavers finished fourth, it still proved a
memorable experience for everyone involved in the event.
In 1995, Blackburn won their fifth straight SLIAC
tournament title. Sexton left Blackburn following the
next year, accepting a position as women’s assistant
basketball coach at Navy (he later coached at Lehigh and
is now on the staff at Big Ten member Northwestern). In
his place came Matt Garrett, who led the Beavers to
another conference tournament title in 1997 and a
third-place finish at the 1998 NSCAA tournament, the
final appearance at that event for Blackburn.
In a sad twist of irony, longtime Blackburn public
address announcer Mark Smircina passed away on March 6,
2003–exactly ten years to the day that the women’s
basketball team won their national title in Wilmington.
As a decade and a half has passed, the glow of the
1992-93 national title at Blackburn is still evident.
There is no doubt that glow will remain in the hearts of
everyone who witnessed one of the most special seasons
that any Blackburn sports team ever enjoyed.
