Members of the 2004 Wilmington College women’s basketball team that won the 2004 NCAA Div. III national championship, from left to right, standing, ball boy Scott Liermann, assistant coach Scott Reule, assistant coach Bill Newland, student assistant coach Lisa Zimpfer Sextro, Siobhan Zerilla, Katie Newman Hein, Erica Smith Fields, assistant coach Shari Stauffer, Emily Cummins, Kelly Peters Morgan, Tara Rausch Main, Abby Newhouse Hicks, Nicole Koenig Taylor, head coach Jerry Scheve; kneeling, Brittney Morris Overman, Amy Kincer, Alyss Hart and Kara Robinson Small. Not pictured but arriving later were Samantha Hood Rohrbacher and Amy Eichner McConnaughy.
Half a lifetime has passed for the players on the 2004 Wilmington College women’s basketball team that won the NCAA Division III National Championship.
Yet that moment — now frozen in time — continues to resonate in their lives and take on a meaning they never could have imagined while in their late teens and early 20s.
The team for the ages knocked off — in dramatic fashion — previously undefeated Bowdoin College 59-53 in Virginia Beach, Va. for the national title.
Players, coaches and others associated with the 2003-04 Lady Quakers came from as far away as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Maine as they gathered Saturday to observe the 20th anniversary of that incredible season. The team was recognized at halftime of the 2023-24 Lady Quakers’ 60-56 victory over Heidelberg — their win a fitting tribute to the college’s most celebrated team accomplishment.
“It’s great to reconnect again after our lives have gone in different directions,” said Tara Rausch Main, the winner of the 2004 National Tournament’s Most Valuable Player award. “So many life lessons come to mind when I think of Lady Quaker Basketball: overcoming obstacles, coming together as a team.
“Looking at it from 20 years later, I cherish the experience even more.”
Siobhan Zerilla especially enjoyed seeing her former teammates and renewing the lifelong connection related to their shared experience. “It’s great to see everybody,” she said. “It’s like revisiting a different life. These people are family.”
The last time such a large contingent of players and coaches got together was in 2014 when the team and head coach Jerry Scheve were inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame.
Amy Kincer said that 2004 season remains “a big part of our lives. It doesn’t feel like 20 years. It’s probably one of the best times in most of our lives.”
Scott Liermann was nine years old as the team’s ball boy that season. Now 29, he still relishes the memories. “It literally brought me to tears watching the replay of the championship game earlier.” (The game appears on WC’s YouTube channel)
“I remember the game so vividly. Bowdoin was 30-0 and we were 26-6 going into the championship game — everybody loves an underdog story,” he said. “Tara and Siobhan dominated the boards. Emily (Cummins) made a four-point play and Sam (Hood) sealed it with a three-pointer.”
Scheve enjoyed seeing his former players and coaches, as well as all those others who shared in the team’s success. “They’re all doing well in life — that’s the most important thing,” he said, adding that all of his teams and players constitute the sum of a memorable 30-year career at WC. He retired in 2021 after 44 years on the accounting faculty and 30 years as the head coach.
“The 2004 team won it all — that’s a really special accomplishment,” Scheve added. “Some of those other teams we had could have won the championship but didn’t get the breaks. Those teams are just as special to me.”
