No. 1 Bowdoin women outsmart opponents

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BRUNSWICK – Stefanie Pemper preaches the virtues of the “thinking athlete.”

It helps that her players include a former valedictorian, a scholar who reads Greek and Latin, and another whose favorite motivational saying comes from a Nobel prize winner, not from Nike.

Smarts – and a tenacious defense – have lifted the Bowdoin College women’s basketball team to the No. 1 spot in the NCAA’s Division III. The team ended the regular season 23-0 and will be a top seed in the national tournament beginning March 3.

It’s a given that many Bowdoin students are “wicked smart,” as they say on campus in true Maine fashion.

The median SAT scores for incoming freshmen are in the top 6 to 9 percent nationally. The women’s basketball team last year was named to the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association academic Top 25 honor roll with a median grade point average of 3.342.

Pemper, in her sixth season, says the players’ academic success helps advance the team’s on-court achievement.

Thinking athletes, she says, play to their strengths, know the difference between “educated and non-educated risks” in a game, and think like a coach on the floor.

“A thinking athlete has good judgment,” Pemper says. “They’re reading a situation, they’re reacting, and they’re not just playing with their bodies, so to speak.”

Bowdoin, in its 207 years, has a history of academic excellence. Graduates include a former president (Franklin Pierce), noted writers (Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), and prominent politicians (former U.S. Sens. George Mitchell and William Cohen).

But outside of distance runner and Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson, a 1979 graduate, the school is hardly recognized for its athletes. It has never won a national championship in any sport.

This year’s team could be the one to break the drought.

Led by Lora Trenkle, a senior All-American from Surry who leads the team in scoring (13.3 points per game) and assists (3.9 per game), the Polar Bears are 76-5 over the past three seasons. But Trenkle is hardly alone on the court.

The team pulls down seven more rebounds a game than its opponents. It has five fewer turnovers and seven more assists than opponents each game. And on defense, the team is tops nationally, giving up just 44.7 points per game.

Like all Division III schools, Bowdoin doesn’t give athletic scholarships. But that doesn’t mean the team is full of ringers, or that players are given preferential treatment.

The players, like all Bowdoin students, have full course loads and four to five hours of homework each night. When the bus leaves campus for away games, the laptops and books come out, and players gather in small study groups.

Justine Pouravelis is as proud of never missing a class as she is being the team leader in rebounds, blocked shots and steals. Players play up Erika Nickerson’s expertise in Greek and Latin; she is a classics major whose name can be found engraved into the school’s Latin and Greek prizes.

Courtney Trotta’s favorite motivational saying comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What lies before us and what lies behind us are nothing compared to what lies within us.” Lindsay Bramwell’s is from 1921 Nobel Prize winner Anatole France, a far cry from Nike’s “Just Do It.”

Trenkle says every player is committed to excellence no matter what they do.

“We all work hard and focus the intensity we have on the court off the court as well,” Trenkle said.

Word of the team’s success has filtered through the Brunswick community. The women draw more fans than the men’s team, which ended the regular season 16-8. Elementary school girls who live in town ask the players for autographs after games.

“Word is out in the community as to how good this team is,” said Tom Farrell, the town’s parks and recreation director.

They are good enough to win by an average margin of 23.5 points a game. They beat Trinity College by 61 points, and Maine Maritime Academy by 56 points.

That’s not to say there haven’t been close moments. The team went to overtime against Emmanuel College, and it took a three-point shot by Vanessa Russell with two seconds left in overtime to beat Williams on the road.

But it’s not all serious study and serious basketball for this team.

At a recent practice, the players bantered and joked and laughed out loud as Pemper told a story about how she drove her car on top of a snowbank, where it teetered precariously until it was pushed out. Before games, the players dance to Whitney Houston’s greatest hits CD.

But they say the No. 1 ranking won’t go to their heads.

“We just need to focus on being as good as we can be,” Trenkle said. “You can’t get caught up in your status.”

This may be the year that the team hangs a national championship banner on the walls of Morrell Gymnasium.

They’ve come close before. They’ve won the New England Small College Athletic Conference championship three years straight. They advanced to the Sweet 16 of the national tournament three years ago, and to the Elite 8 in each of the past two years.

But even if they win, the players and school officials promise to keep it all in perspective.

“Being No. 1 is incidental to who these young women are,” said Athletic Director Jeff Ward. “It’s great and it’s fun, but it doesn’t define who they are.”