Former Black Hills star Emma Duff headed to the Division II championship game with Western Washington
Western Washington guard Emma Duff is ready to play on the final day of the final season of her college basketball career.
Friday night, the fifth-year senior and program’s leading scorer will look to help guide the Vikings to one more win — in the NCAA Division II national championship game at the Birmingham CrossPlex in Alabama.
The fifth-seeded Vikings, in their first appearance in the game in school history, meet third-seeded Glenville State in the title game at 5 p.m. Pacific.
For Duff — who has already played 125 career games in a WWU uniform — this moment is years in the making.
“I don’t think I could ask for a better senior year,” she said. “ … It just means so much to me to be here, and to be able to play until the last day possible of the Division II women’s basketball season.
“We’ve talked about that a lot on our team. We just love playing together and being around each other.”
That’s what has made this season — during which the Vikings (25-5) have secured a Great Northwest Athletic Conference regular season title, and already upset four higher-seeded teams in this national tournament run so far, including top-seeded North Georgia in the semifinals Wednesday — so special.
Duff has seen the Vikings continually progress throughout her career to finally reach their first title appearance.
“It’s crazy thinking back,” she said. “It does not feel like it’s been five years.”
Five seasons ago when she was a freshman, WWU posted a losing record. When she was a sophomore, the Vikings advanced to the GNAC semifinals, but not a national stage.
Then, when she was a junior, they advanced to the NCAA West Regional quarterfinals following a runner-up finish at the conference championships, but the national tournament was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
WWU finished undefeated during the shortened season last spring, but there were not any postseason events.
Now, in her final season, Duff has helped lead the program — which is 82-43 during her five seasons — to new heights alongside a talented roster guided by longtime coach Carmen Dolfo.
“She just believed in us every game of my freshman year, every game of my sophomore year, junior year, senior year,” Duff said of her coach, now in her 31st season with the program.
“She has just put so much confidence into us. … I feel honored to play for her, and to be able to take this program to a new level is just amazing.”
Duff arrived in Bellingham in 2017 after an impressive career at Black Hills High School, where she guided the Wolves to back-to-back Class 2A Evergreen Conference titles and 2A Southwest District championships both her junior and senior seasons, as well as a pair of state trophies.
She left Black Hills as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,248 points, was a two-time 2A EvCo MVP, The Olympian’s All-Area player of the year as a senior in 2017, and a first-team all-state pick that season.
“Emma came in with a lot of ability,” Dolfo said during Thursday morning’s pregame press conference in Alabama. “She’s a good shooter, and she’s really worked on taking the ball to the basket.
“But, a lot of it is, she’s just worked hard and she’s diligent and she’s put the time in and competed every day. She’s done an amazing job of leading us this year.”
Duff’s production — on both offense and defense — has consistently progressed since her first season with the program, and she has now started 99 games in her career, including every game the past three seasons, and all but one the past four.
She enters the weekend as WWU’s leading scorer this season (15.5 points per game), while adding seven rebounds per game. She has also collected 61 assists, 36 steals and 25 blocks starting all 30 games for the Vikings this season.
Those numbers earned her a unanimous first-team GNAC selection this winter, and an honorable mention All-American nod from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.
With one game remaining, Duff is also on the cusp of cracking the program’s top 10 in career scoring — right now she sits at 11th with 1,329 career points.
She has played more than 3,100 minutes for the Vikings the past five seasons, and is set to depart the program tied for WWU’s career appearances record with senior teammate and former Arlington guard Gracie Castaneda.
But, before her storied career wraps up, she is focused on one final game on the basketball court with the Vikings.
“Right now, I’m just trying to really savor the moment,” she said.
This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
