The St. Thomas University women’s basketball team is set to host the 2025 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) national championships from March 12 to 15 at the Richard J. Currie Center.
The national championship host team is chosen on a rotation by conference each year.
This will be the first time in the program’s history to host a national event.
It is not the first for STU Athletics though. In November, STU hosted the CCAA men’s soccer national championship.
“Nobody does that,” said Director of STU Athletics, Meaghan Donahue.
“To have an institution put their hands up to do that, especially an institution as small but mighty as us at St. Thomas, really just elevates our profile on the national stage.”
STU Athletics started the organization when the bid they placed in December 2023 was accepted by the CCAA.
Donahue explained that the 16-month process involves extensive coordination, from securing facilities and managing budgets to recruiting volunteers and handling logistics like ticketing and merchandise.
“We’re having fun, so everyone’s really committed to it and we just want to give the best experience we can to everyone who’s going to be at the event,” said Donahue.
She said that the experience of hosting the men’s soccer nationals has helped the team provide an “even better” experience.
“How can we do even a little bit more than what we did with soccer? Knowing that we are not up against the same types of challenges with creating a facility and dealing with the weather,” said Donahue. “It gives us a little bit more time to focus on the finer details that are just going to elevate the experience.”
She said that this is a great opportunity to showcase what the women’s team and the Fredericton community can do on a national level.
“Our women’s basketball program has such a storied history … Coach Connors has been our head coach for over 20 years, so to be able to have this event here and have somebody who’s been with us for so long on home soil is really exciting,” said Donahue.
The women’s team Head Coach, Fred Connors, considers it an honour that the league has trusted the program as it takes a “lot of respect from the league and respect from our university to support the team.”
“For the university to support this is just a real sign of how much they believe in us and how hard we work and they know that we’re going to represent the school in the right way,” said Connors.
Even though the girls in green and gold are not going to play in their home gym, the Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium, Connors believes this will not be a problem and the team will still feel the home court advantage.
All games will be played at the Richard J. Currie Center on the University of New Brunswick campus, near the Lady Beaverbrook Gym.
“To be able to be in our home city, not have to go travel and be around a lot of family … that’s more important than the actual gym itself,” he said.
“It’s just the environment will be different, but it would be like any away game we would go to, we’d have to get used to the new space,” added second-year guard Paige Leblanc.
Even though nationals are around the corner, Connors said that the team plays game by game and their focus is on the ACAA championship that will be played from Feb. 28 to March 2.
STU women’s basketball will face the University of King’s College in their first game of the conference championship on Feb. 28.
“We believe, as a coaching staff, we have a good chance to win a championship, so we’ll deal with nationals when it comes time for nationals,” said Connors.
This will be the first nationals for the current student-athletes, despite this, the team feels no pressure added, according to third-year wing Katie Vidito.
“I think we’re all going in with a very positive outlook on what the experience is going to be … we’re just going to go out and play and work as hard as we can and whatever the result is, we’ll be proud of ourselves,” said Vidito.
