Talk about a remarkable rookie season.
From a team perspective and an individual standpoint, Katlyn Roberts would never have imagined that her first year with the Grande Prairie Regional College Wolves would go so well.
Last week, the Wolves competed in the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association women's basketball national championship tournament. Playing at Niagara College in Welland, Ont., the Wolves posted a 1-2 record, with a 68-65 win against the Mount Saint Vincent University Mystics in their opener and subsequent losses to the Algonquin College Thunder (57-45) and the St. Thomas University Tommies (90-71).
But, really, they were a little surprised to be on national hardwood in the first place.
"At the beginning of the year our coaches said, 'We have a chance to win provincials and a chance to go to nationals' and we were all like, 'Yeah, right -- Grande Prairie, just a little town,'" Roberts said with a chuckle.
As it turned out, head coach Dave Waknuk and his assistants were right. The Wolves (17-3) finished the regular season in second place in the North Division of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, behind only the Grant MacEwan Griffins of Edmonton, who also went 17-3. In the ACAC playoffs, the Wolves beat MacEwan in the championship game and reserved their spot in nationals.
Naturally, Roberts and the Wolves were hoping for a better overall outcome at the CCAA tournament. Still, Roberts will remember the event as her season highlight.
"It was just great to play against all these teams that made it to nationals," she said. "Just the experience of being there and being in that environment of basketball was amazing.
"I felt I did pretty well," she added. "It was a challenge but it was a lot of fun. We stepped up to it but we just couldn't finish a lot of our baskets."
In the gold-medal game, the College Montmorency Nomades downed Algonquin 61-51. Capilano University, the B.C. representative, had the same 1-2 record as the Wolves.
During the season, the Wolves found themselves as high as No. 5 in the national rankings. All year, they were led by second-year forward Andria Carlyon, who was eventually named the top player in the CCAA. Carlyon piled up 525 points in 24 games (21.88 points per contest) and also ranked first in the country for offensive and defensive rebounds.
Roberts wasn't too shabby herself. As a rookie, she was either a starter or the first player off the bench. She averaged 5.83 points per game and had the highest three-point shooting percentage on her team. In 24 games, she hit 23 of the 64 three-balls she attempted, for a percentage rating of .359.
Roberts played her high school basketball at D.P. Todd secondary and is attending GPRC on an athletic scholarship.
