Deanna Tuchscherer of the University of the Fraser Valley women's basketball team is a co-winner of the Cascades Female Rookie of the Year award.
The highly skilled forward from Chilliwack, B.C. shared the honour with Bryana Buttar of the women's soccer program.
Tuchscherer earned a series of conference and national accolades in 2019-20. She was theÂ
Canada West rookie of the year,Â
a member of the CW all-rookie and third team all-star squads, andÂ
a U SPORTS all-rookie selection. She finished second on the Cascades in points (15.4) and rebounds (6.2) per game, and ranked 10th in the conference scoring race. She also set a UFV team record for points in a CW game,Â
racking up 35 vs. Trinity Western on Jan. 16.
To celebrate the occasion, we asked UFV women's basketball head coach
Al Tuchscherer to tell us the story of the moment he knew Deanna could be a special player. Al's history with Deanna goes beyond the typical coach-player parameters – he's her dad. And thus, the story goes back a little farther than most.
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AL TUCHSCHERER:Â "Deanna had done a number of sports all through elementary school, but we didn't push her towards basketball in a major way. It was never about major basketball achievements through Grade 5, though she did play a lot of basketball. Grade 6 was the first time she could play on a school team, and they won their Chilliwack league which was pretty neat.
"One day she came home from school, and told us they'd had this annual boys vs. girls game at her elementary school (Promontory Heights), and the girls had won. They'd never won before. And that was a big deal, but it wasn't a big deal to her. She was just like, 'We beat the boys today.' And I remember thinking, 'Wow, she could be a really good basketball player.' I didn't even see the game, but it's the first time I remember thinking that.
"The coach texted me and he was excited. It was kind of like, 'Hmmm, OK. That's cool. She could be a baller.'"
DEANNA TUCHSCHERER:Â "I actually don't remember that, no. I remember that there was a game vs. the boys, because that was always a tradition at our school, but I don't remember the outcome. That was so long ago.
"At our school, it was really crowded, so you didn't get to play school sports until you were in Grade 6. In some ways, it was kind of cool (to play for your school for the first time). My friends were always older than me – when I was in Grade 5, my best friends that I'd played with in club were in Grade 6. I'd watched them play for their school team, and the next year I got my turn."
AT: "The way school works around here, she ended up going to G.W. Graham Secondary in Grade 7, and at the end of Grade 7, they asked her to come play on the senior team for a couple tournaments. That was another moment – 'Wow, she's playing on the senior team with girls six years older than her.' She wasn't a star, but she scored a few hoops, got a few minutes. I was like, 'That's not normal.' And then in Grade 8, she moved up to the senior team (full-time), and was an impact player for the next five years there.Â
"She didn't do any provincial team stuff until U15 – we just kind of held her out of that. And then at U15, she tried out for that team. I didn't know where she stood in the rest of her age group because she was always playing older kids, but she went into that tryout and was quite dominant and had a great summer there. That's when she was identified by Canada Basketball and had her first Canada Basketball experience."
DT:Â "I remember those first games (at the senior level, as a Grade 7 player) a lot better! I was on the Grade 8 team, and there were two of us that Sara (Mouritzen, G.W. Graham senior girls coach) had come and talked to. She asked the two of us to play in a tournament because they had a couple injuries. We drove there together, and we were both so scared and so nervous. We were both freaking out.Â
"It was the York House tournament. We played in it every year except my Grade 12 year, and it was always special to come back to because it was my first senior tournament. We each had a couple shifts in each of the games – I think Sara knew she'd want us to play senior the following year, and it was her way of showing us what it would be like. I remember I took a couple shots. I was really close to the hoop on one of them, like right in the post, and I shot it right over the rim because I was so nervous! I might have hit one shot, but that was probably it!"
AT:Â "My tendency when I'm talking about Deanna is, I don't want to come across as a braggadocious father. But at the same time, she deserves her due. She's had a great year for us.
"For her to have a season like she had, it didn't surprise me – I know the type of player Deanna is. But at the same time, it takes a lot of people for it to happen. It takes your senior players to really embrace her. It takes Pat (Lee, Cascades assistant coach) to have a vision for her defensively. It takes Dan (Nayebzadeh, Cascades assistant coach) instilling some game-day routines that really helped her. And it's been that way her entire career – there's been a whole lot of people who have contributed to her success over the last 10 years."
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