NCAA sharpshooter honed skills at Sisler

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This article was published 21/03/2020 (2333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Like most NCAA basketball players, Raizel Guinto will never know how this season was supposed to end.

Guinto, a third-year guard from Winnipeg who led Sisler High School to two provincial titles before taking her talents south of the border, was hoping to shock the college basketball world and help the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters win the Conference USA championship and earn a berth to the NCAA tournament.

In the conference playoff tournament, the Ruston, La., school were big underdogs. They finished the regular season with a 15-15 record, but with a mark of 6-12 in conference play, Guinto and her teammates were the No. 12 seed. But if you ask them, being the lowest-ranked team in the tournament wasn’t an accurate representation of their squad.

Down the stretch, the Lady Techsters proved they could hang with the best teams in the conference as they lost to the third-seeded Western Kentucky Lady Toppers 71-67 before falling to the top-ranked Rice Owls in overtime to close out the season.

In the post-season, Louisiana Tech was finally rewarded for their strong play and pulled off an upset. They took down the fifth-ranked UAB Blazers 66-63 in first-round action on March 11. Guinto was brilliant in the victory, with 14 points, a team-high seven assists, five rebounds and three steals.

The win advanced the Lady Techsters to the quarter-finals, where they were set to square off against the fourth-ranked Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. But the tournament was cancelled due to concerns surrounding COVID-19.

“She was huge,” Brooke Stoehr, who shares LA Tech’s head coaching duties with her husband Scott, said about Guinto’s first-round performance.

“She came in and immediately hit a three to kind of get us going. She had a big second quarter and third quarter for us to get us going offensively. She made some key plays for us at critical times to kind of spur us on to that win.”

Guinto’s big game reassured why she was voted the 2020 Conference USA Co-6th Player of the Year by the league’s coaches the day before. Guinto, who averaged 8.8 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.6 steals per game this season while hitting 62 three-pointers and shooting 79 per cent from the free throw line, was Tech’s top weapon off the bench all season.

“I wasn’t really expecting it to be honest,” Guinto said of the honour.

“I was in a hotel room with my teammate when we first found out. We just looked at each other and started screaming. I just felt overwhelmed with joy.”

As thrilled as she was to have won, it wasn’t the piece of hardware she’s been working towards.

“I don’t really pay attention or look for myself to get individual awards. It’s all about the team,” said Guinto, who grew up playing club basketball for the Manitoba Magic.

“Our main goal when we started the season was to win the conference championship, so that was the only award we had in mind,” said Guinto. We’ll never know now. It sucks to say that. We did open some eyes this year because we were competing with the top teams of the conference into the last-minutes of games. We were able to compete with the top four teams. I think that just fuels the fire for next year because we know that we can be one of those teams.”

It’s been a long road to becoming one of the top players in the conference. Louisiana Tech first took notice of Guinto at the 2016 under-17 Canada Basketball National Championships in Regina. In the bronze medal match, Guinto and Team Manitoba were squaring off against Team Saskatchewan, led by forward Macaela Crone. Scott Stoehr made the trip up north to get a better look at several Canadian prospects, including Crone, who went on to play a year for the Techsters before returning home to play for the Regina Cougars, but Guinto quickly added her name to Stoehr’s list. Guinto was named to the first all-star team for her dominant play throughout the week.

“She just had an ability to score with the basketball, lead her team and she played with a lot of passion,” Brooke Stoehr said. “You could tell that it was important to her. She had a knack for being at the right place at the right time and had a really good understanding of the game.”

Guinto committed to Louisiana Tech prior to her Grade 12 season at Sisler and it ended up being a perfect fit for both sides. The 5-5 kinesiology major, who was named to the C-USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll the past two years, is heading into her final year in Louisiana. After college, she hopes to land a professional contract overseas and eventually work as a physical therapist. But that’s not on her mind right now, nor will it be next season.

Louisiana Tech used to be one of the premier programs in the nation, qualifying for the NCAA tournament every year between 1979-2006 and winning a pair of national titles in the 1980s. They haven’t been a part of March Madness since 2011 and there’s nothing Guinto would love more than to get them back there in her senior year. In doing so, she’d become the first Winnipegger to play in the women’s NCAA tournament.

“That’s pretty crazy when you think about it because it’s not even that often young women (from Winnipeg) even get a chance to go to Division I. Just to get to that next level, or take that next step, just opens more doors for people after me to know that it is possible,” Guinto said.

“I just want to be that outlet and that light that people can look at and say to themselves ‘It is possible for it to happen. I can go Division I. I can compete with the best in the country. I can play basketball at the next level.’” 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31