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Beehler, Carter, Nance, O’Dell all commit to play for Ricker at JCC

From DHS to JCC together

Jessica Beehler

One of the most heart-breaking stories from the winter sports season was that the Dunkirk Lady Marauders girls basketball team could not complete its journey toward a state title. Seeking the program’s first ever state championship, the all-senior Dunkirk starting five saw their high school hoops journey come to an end when the coronavirus outbreak cancelled the state championship tournament.

As it turns out, for four of the five Dunkirk seniors, their journey together isn’t over after all — it will just have to continue at the next level.

Dunkirk seniors Jessica Beehler, Amari Carter, Kymi Nance and Nadara O’Dell all verbally committed to play women’s college basketball at Jamestown Community College earlier this week. They will be following their head coach for the last two years, Ken Ricker, who was named the JCC women’s basketball head coach earlier this week. Ricker is also bringing Dunkirk assistant Bill Canfield with him to JCC.

“When this came about, we were hoping to get a few of them. To get four of them is surreal,” said Ricker.

The Dunkirk starting five of Beehler, Carter, Nance, O’Dell and Olivia Smith — who has already committed to Niagara County Community College — had played together since most of their varsity careers began. Despite only winning one game as freshman, the group returned as sophomores to lead the Lady Marauders to Buffalo State College for a Section VI championship game appearance, where they lost to Fredonia.

Amari Carter

As juniors, Ricker took over the program and Dunkirk started to hit its stride. The year began on a high note with an 8-0 start, but once Beehler came down with an illness that kept her out of the lineup for most of the league schedule, the team struggled and only won two games in league play. Once Beehler returned, the Lady Marauders pulled off a first-round playoff upset before falling to Olean in the second round.

As seniors, once the Dunkirk five got to play together under Ricker all year long, the true potential of the team became reality. Dunkirk won its first league title in nearly 30 years, while Nance and O’Dell each surpassed the 1,000-point mark for their careers. Nance passed her sister, Khee, to become the program’s all-time leading scorer as the postseason began.

The Lady Marauders then followed up with an upset of previously-unbeaten City Honors and then a win over Iroquois to earn a Section VI, Class B1 Championship. It was the program’s first Sectional title since 1991. Dunkirk then defeated Southwestern in the Class B crossover game in one of the most thrilling comebacks in Section VI postseason history. After trailing 60-40 in the third quarter, Dunkirk outscored Southwestern 35-2 the rest of the way for a 75-62 victory. Nance had a career-high 38 points in the win, which will go down as one of the greatest individual performances in

program history.

The win should have earned the Lady Marauders a berth in the Far West Regional game, in which the winner would go off to the state tournament. However, the coronavirus outbreak ended the Lady Marauders seniors’ high school careers prematurely.

Kymi Nance

What began as the group pleading with Section VI not to cancel the state tournament on social media turned into touching goodbyes to the sport they love. Nance posted on Facebook, “Dear high school ball, I wasn’t ever ready to give you up just yet but things don’t always turn out the way you’d like.” Beehler shared the sentiment in her own post, in which she said, “Although I’m still in disbelief that my senior year of basketball has come to an end, I know that we’ve made history.”

In all the posts the group shared, they spoke to the bond that they shared with each other. From the 6 a.m. summer workouts they attended together during the summer to all the long bus rides they went on as a group, everything was done together. It comes as no surprise that four of the five will now continue their journey together at the next level.

“One thing that stood out is how much they care about each other. They genuinely love each other and love playing together, and that’s what makes them so good together,” said Ricker. “… With the way things ended, to get two more years together with them is outstanding. It’s really exciting.”

In the end, the goodbye posts to high school basketball turned to proud announcements to continue their academic and athletic careers, shortly after their coach made his own proud post to share his new job at the head of the JCC program. With what a special group Dunkirk was, it was an obvious choice to keep as much of the unit together as possible to begin their next journey together.

“Not a bad first week on the job,” Ricker said.

Nadara O'Dell

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