Point Loma Nazarene University women’s basketball coach Charity Elliott isn’t sure whether the team’s recent tour of Costa Rica will translate to wins on the court during the season, but she knows it affected her players.
“This was the best team trip I’ve ever been on,” Elliott said. “Not only the basketball but the service activities, fun, adventure, team-building stuff we did.”
The trip Aug. 5-12, with five days in San José — Costa Rica’s capital — and two in the beach town Playa Herradura, included a basketball clinic for girls 12 and younger, three exhibition games against local teams, a day at an orphanage, a rafting excursion and some up-close time with a toucan in its natural environment.
Assistant coach Grace Ricafranca even overcame a fear of heights on a zip line.
“Anytime you go to a foreign country, your eyes open to how other people live,” Elliott said. “The basketball was amazing, but the trip itself, the memories we made and the impact we hope we had, that’s what matters.”
Junior center Eiley Tippins said “it was such a memorable trip to go on with my team. Looking back at everything we got to experience and the pictures we took to commemorate the trip, it was life-changing.”
According to Elliott and Tippins, the time at the orphanage was the high point for everyone.
“As soon as we walked into the main lobby, the kids are singing and they have personalized signs up and each kid is looking for their person,” Elliott said. “They are grabbing our hands and hugging us. These kids were all over our players, riding on their backs. … For kids who have so little, they have such joy in their heart. Every person needs love and hugs, and I think our players were overwhelmed by the babies we held and the toddlers we chased.”
“They had the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen,” Tippins said. “They didn’t speak English, so that was a little challenging, but a few of the girls, including myself, speak Spanish, so it was nice to connect on that level.”
The day after the orphanage visit, the team ran a girls basketball clinic sponsored and arranged through The WEST Project, a nonprofit that works to provide community service and team-building opportunities for college athletes.
The clinic, held at a private middle school, drew 30 participants, with a focus on rudimentary skills.
“I told [the team] afterward, ‘I felt like your parent today and I sat there watching with such pride,’” Elliott said. “They were just pouring into these kids and having so much fun engaging, and it was a beautiful thing to watch.”
With six new faces and eight returning players for the season, competing in the three exhibition games — all lopsided victories — against local club teams provided an early opportunity for the Sea Lions to develop on-court chemistry months before the season-opening tipoff on Friday, Nov. 8, against Cal State San Marcos.
“The three games were a starting point to see where we are at,” Tippins said. “It was a time to get used to each other on the court.”
The NCAA has stringent rules for organized offseason activities, and international tours often provide a bonus.
“It worked out to be the perfect year [to do this],” Elliott said. “With 10 days of practice prior [to the trip], we spent three weeks together nonstop. I think we will start clearly at a further-along place than we normally would. When we start back officially, I think it will be ‘ this? Let’s fine-tune this and move forward.’”
“We were learning stuff at such a fast pace, it was great to see how easily everyone took in information,” Tippins said.
Last season, the Sea Lions made it to the PacWest Conference semifinals and to the first round of the NCAA West Regionals.
The trickiest part of the Costa Rica trip has been paying for it.
The team collected nearly $5,000 through fundraising, and a foundation run by the aunt of junior forward Maddie Mersch helped foot the bill, but much of it still needs to be paid off.
“It’s a work in progress,” Elliott said with a laugh. “We’ve tried to find funding where we can. Really, it’s been family friends reaching out and doing some different fundraisers through the team. We might be paying it off for a bit, but that’s OK. It was worth it.”
Tippins said she came back “looking at the small blessings I have in life.”
“It was a mental shift,” she said. “What more could we be doing to help the people around us that aren’t as fortunate?”
To help fund the trip, donations can be made at bit.ly/3z2Pfrc.
