Carden has Albion beating the MIAA elite again

Albion College is making it known that the Britons will be a factor in next month’s MIAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
Hope and Calvin have been the dominant teams in past years with Hope winning the national championship in 2006 and advancing to the national title game again in 2010. Calvin is the defending MIAA tournament champs.
Well, Albion looks ready to make its first NCAA tournament appearance since back-to-back trips in 2004 – when it won the MIAA tourney – and 2005 when it tied for the MIAA regular-season title.
The Britons (12-5, 7-2) have won 11 straight since a 1-5 start, earning their statement win with a dominating 63-46 win at No. 12 Hope on Saturday while silencing the crowd of 1,835.
Hope (15-3, 7-2) had won 104 of 106 games on its home floor at DeVos Fieldhouse prior to the outcome. It was its first regular-season home loss since a 60-57 setback at the hands of Calvin five years ago.
And, Albion won with defense, limiting the Flying Dutch to 23.2 percent shooting (6-of-37 three-pointers) and their lowest point total in DeVos history.
“It was a great win for our program,” said Doreen Carden who is in her 11th year as Albion head coach. “None of our kids had beaten Hope before so it’s good to be back. We feel we can play with any team in this league and it definitely puts us in the race.”
Carden praised 6-foot-1 senior center Patty Rewa and senior guard Nicole Dennis for leading the Britons. Rewa had 19 points and 11 rebounds and is averaging 16.4 points and 10.4 rebounds. Dennis (St. Clair Shores Lakeview) had 11 points and five assists and is averaging 12.9 points and 3.8 assists.
Carden feels this year’s team is similar to the NCAA tourney teams of 2004 and 2005.
“A lot of it is the same makeup of the NCAA tournament teams with a real good post player in Patty Rewa and a real good guard in Nicole Dennis,” Carden said. “We also have good players surrounding them, similar to what we had back then.
“Nicole has overcome so much adversity (with injuries to both knees). She’s a hard-nosed kid who definitely wants to win and knows what it takes to win.”
Sophomore guard Brett deBear (Salem) is averaging 10.1 points.
Next up for Albion is a showdown at No. 4 Calvin (17-0, 9-0) Wednesday night. Calvin defeated the Britons at Albion 69-60 earlier this season.
“Patty Rewa was sitting for most of the game the first time around due to foul trouble,” Carden pointed out. “We still had the chance to cut it down to one late in the game. We’re looking forward to it. We’ll be going in confident.”