pointafter_Stanislaus women not totally stuck Alaska

On the bright side, the Cal State Stanislaus women’s basketball team is safe and sound in a nice hotel in Alaska. They’ve practically had the run of a Marriott in Anchorage, where they went to play a couple games against the No. 3 Division II team in the country.

Only Alaska isn’t geographically united to the states the Warriors are trying to get back to. Grounded flights in Seattle thanks to weekend snow storms made it impossible for Stanislaus to come back the way they came. Booked flights and cost-prohibitive fares have made it impossible for them to get back any other way, either.

The young women have done their best to treat their unexpected extra three days in Alaska as an adventure.

“We weren’t expecting it, but we roll with the punches,” senior forward Lysandra Williams said.

The trip was worrisome from the start. Coach Sharon Turner-Dean worried about weather conditions, but hated to pass up the opportunity to play. Without the games against Anchorage, the gap between games would be too big and she saw how the Warriors suffered last year during a long holiday break.

Seattle is the major hub for Alaska-bound flights, and that’s where the team was really stuck on the way north last week. At one point, while supposedly waiting for the wings to be de-iced, the passengers were stuck on the plane on the runway for three and a half hours. They were not allowed to disembark – Turner-Dean said if they were in the terminal, she would have just come home. On the plane, Turner-Dean said there weren’t enough sandwiches to sell to everyone, so the team didn’t eat until midnight PST when they finally got to their hotel. Thank God for late pizza delivery.

The Warriors lost both games, in part because of the travel, Turner-Dean said. But Williams said lots of teams have to travel and didn’t want to use that as an excuse. Losing was her least favorite part of the trip.

Three seniors said the team is enjoying the snow in Anchorage and they all gushed about how attentive the University of Anchorage boosters have been.

“The people have been really awesome to us,” Williams said. “basically they’re taking care of us. We all went to different houses and they made us dinner and talked to us. We hung out with random families. It’s awesome for random people to open up their homes for us.”

Senior forward Rebecca Arent of Sacramento got to visit with former Sierra College teammate Tamar Gruwell and her Stanislaus teammates have had a good time crunching around in the snow.

“The snow up here is kind of dry,” Arent said, not suitable for building snowmen or starting snowball fights. “It doesn’t stick together very well. When we see little mounds that haven’t been stepped in, fresh snow, we start running through it whenever we can.

“I can take it in small doses. I was kind of expecting it to be worse. I don’t deal with the cold very well.”

Arent said everyone on the team – all California natives – had been in snow before and seemed to enjoy the novelty of it. She said everyone has stayed positive, even while family members back home fret about when to expect the players, hoping their flight takes off today and gets them back to San Francisco tonight.

“I’m having fun,” senior guard Antwinette Turner said. “We’ve been playing games at the hotel. We’ve been practicing. Our hotel is nice.”

Williams said she has been taking lots of pictures – from the moose on the street to the reindeer sightings.

“We were driving and all of a sudden there was this huge moose,” Williams said. “A lot of people thought it was fake, but then we saw breath coming out of its nose. It was really big. We also saw a real reindeer down the street. It’s pretty interesting. It’s really beautiful up here.”

So things could be worse. Arent said she might think twice about flying to a cold-weather destination, but she’s comfortable getting back on a plane. Turner-Dean hopes officials can find a way to reschedule the Warriors’ planned game at Seattle Pacific next Monday.

Turner-Dean would like to cancel after the travel problems her team has had. There is possibility they could get stuck in Seattle with their California Collegiate Athletic Association openers at San Bernardino and Cal Poly Pomona on Jan. 3 and Jan. 4. The CCAA games cannot be made up.

“The bottom line is, we cannot get trapped in Seattle,” Turner-Dean said. “If we don’t get out (Wednesday), I have not idea when we’re going to get out.”

One suggestion Turner-Dean heard from an official involved staying up north, playing the Seattle game on Monday and then going home. She said it is unacceptable for the players and their families. Unlike many schools across the country where players are unable to go home for the holidays, this was not something Stanislaus expected or prepared for.  

Then there is the matter of a $2,500 cancellation fee involved with Seattle Pacific and the Warriors may not be able to pay it, arrange to reschedule or transfer tickets. She said Stanislaus athletic director Milt Richards and officials at Seattle Pacific are trying to figure out solutions. Apparently a Seattle Pacific women’s soccer team canceled on Stanislaus, but still had to pay the school. As per their legal contracts, Seattle Pacific is responding in kind.

Turner-Dean planned to see what the airline ticket restrictions are, hoping another Stanislaus team can use them for a Seattle trip or the game can be postponed, perhaps to an earlier date next year before the winter storms come.

“We had good intentions,” Turner-Dean said. “We thought maybe it would be a good trip for the kids to experience a part of the U.S. a lot of people never get to. “I was worried about weather, but the weirdest thing is, I was worried about weather in Alaska, not Seattle.”