Border Country Sports Blog-March 31st
Good Morning! With the Border Country Sports Blog, I'm Keith Harrington.
Hadley-Luzerne Connection to Women's Basketball Final Four
If don't have a rooting interest in the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four, I may have a just the team for you! And the team has a local connection as well. One of the star players for defending champion Stanford is the daughter of a former standout player for Hadley-Luzerne.
When I was attending high school in Hartford, the most dominant player in the Adirondack League was Hadley-Luzerne's Michelle Bain, now Michelle Bain-Brink after her marriage to her husband Greg. Michelle and Greg's daughter, is Cameron Brink, the outstanding sophomore for the Stanford Cardinal.
Bain-Brink scored 1,398 points before graduating from Hadley-Luzerne in 1984. Bain led Hadley-Luzerne to back to back Adirondack League titles in the 1982-1983 and 1983-1984 seasons and the Section II Class C title her junior year. Bain went on to play college basketball at Virginia Tech. While playing for the Hokies Bain-Brink finished with the second-most field goals in school history. She graduated with the highest career field-goal percentage in program history at 52.5. Bain scored 1,068 career points, pulled down 618 career rebounds and blocked 108 shots. In 2009 Bain-Brink was named to the Atlantic Coast Conference Basketball Tournament Legends Team.
The list of accomplishments for Cameron is quickly surpassing her mom's. It is really to long to list here without me being late for work this morning. As a freshman last season for the Cardinal Brink won a national championship, Played in 32 games, starting the final 20 games of the season, averaged 9.9 points, 6.6 rebounds, 0.9 assists and 2.8 blocks per game. Brink set the Stanford single-season blocks record with 88. She made the NCAA Tournament Alamo Region All-Tournament Team, Pac-12 Tournament All-Tournament Team, Pac-12 All-Freshman Team and was All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention.
This season at Stanford Brink was named to the Associated Press All-America Third Team, was a Naismith Trophy Semifinalist, Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Semifinalist, Wooden Award Late Season Top-20, Katrina McClain Award Finalist, Pac-12 Player of the Year , Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year , All-Pac-12 Team, Pac-12 All-Defensive Team and Pac-12 Tournament All-Tournament Team.
Brink averages 13.4 points per game with a season high of 26 against USC. She also averaged 8.1 rebounds per game.
As a side note, Michelle and Greg were very close friends of Del and Sonya Curry while playing at Virginia Tech. Michelle was college roommates with Sonya and Greg was teammates with Dell the parents of Stephen, Seth and Sydel Curry. The two families are close friends; Cameron is the goddaughter of Dell and Sonya Curry. Golden State Warrior's star Steph Curry is like a brother to Cameron and she has taken a great deal of career advice from one of the NBA's greatest players, perhaps the greatest shooter of all time.
So there you go, if you're like me and really don't have a horse in the race in the NCAA Women's Tournament race, how about checking out Cameron Brink and the Stanford Cardinal? I know I will be.
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With the Border Country Sports Blog, I'm Keith Harrington.
