On many occasions, and in so many ways, Suzanna Ohlsen made a difference for the Seattle Pacific University women’s basketball team this past season.
Ohlsen, a senior point guard, led the Falcons to the NCAA Division II tournament, and she did so with her scoring, her passing, her defense and her leadership. She was first on the team in points (17.7 per game), assists (3.9) and steals (2.3) for a team that finished with a 17-7 record, placed second in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, and reached the second round of the NCAA playoffs.
In addition, she was a first-team All-GNAC pick and a Women’s Basketball Coaches Association All-America honorable mention selection.
“We won a lot of games because of Suzanna,” said SPU coach Julie Heisey. “Obviously we’ve been successful because we had a (good) team, but Suzanna was also a big part of that team. … ”
She was so versatile. On any given night you knew she might score 20 points, and on any given night she might get eight or nine assists.”
“She’s the complete package and we’re going to miss her so much,” Heisey said of Ohlsen, The Herald’s 2014 Woman of the Year in Sports.
A 2011 graduate of Monroe High School, the 22-year-old Ohlsen made an impact in each of her four years at SPU. But she had her best season as a senior, not only in games, but also at practice and even off the court.
“My leadership was one thing I really wanted to work on this year since it was my senior season,” Ohlsen said. “And since I was a captain and the point guard, I was kind of thrown into that position. But I think I did a pretty good job with that, which I’m happy about. And overall I was very happy with how the season ended up.”
As for her own statistics, “I’d always prefer to have a few more assists,” she said. “But I can’t complain with the numbers I had.”
As a point guard, Ohlsen loves to distribute the basketball. Which is good, Heisey said, but only to a point.
“She was really unselfish many times,” Heisey said. “She’d be looking for other people before herself, and I finally had to tell her, ‘Sue, no one can stop you. We need you to take it to the rack.’
“But as good as she was as a player, she was even better as a person. She’s so talented, and yet she was still one of our hardest workers. Suzanna was really special. She was a great athlete, she became a very smart player and a leader on the floor, and yet she was this great person off the floor, too.”
Among other accomplishments, Ohlsen set an SPU record for career free-throw percentage at .872, converting 260 of 298 attempts.
Ohlsen picked up additional awards for her academic achievements. She maintained a 4.0 GPA as a biochemistry major in four years at SPU, and this year was named the NCAA Division II Academic All-America Player of the Year by the College Sports Information Directors of America. In all sports, she was the GNAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Having completed her college career, Ohlsen is looking forward to new opportunities. She has already been accepted into a graduate program in pharmacy at the University of Washington, but she is also eager for the chance to play basketball professionally, most likely overseas. She is leaving early this week for South Korea (where her mother was born) and a tryout with a women’s pro league there.
But she leaves SPU “with a lot of good memories,” Ohlsen said. “It was obviously a high achieving season for us, and there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm. You could definitely tell the whole team was working together for one common goal, and we ended up achieving our goal of getting back to the national tournament.”
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