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By RICK PETERSON

TopSports.news

Washburn Rural product Kendall Michalski and her Bethel College women's basketball teammates will make history Friday night when they step on the court at Wichita's Garvey Center for the Threshers' opening-round game against Vanguard in the NAIA National Championships.

Friday's 8 p.m. contest will mark the first time in the 48-year history of the program that Bethel has advanced to the national tournament, a big milestone in a season of big milestones for Michalski and the Bethel program.

Washburn Rural product Kendall Michalski has set single-game and single-season 3-point records for Bethel, which is headed to the NAIA national tournament for the first time in school history. [Submitted]

Bethel, which will take a 16-9 record into the Vanguard game, was upset in the quarterfinals of the KCAC tournament, but ended up garnering the conference's second national bid behind conference champ and 29-0 Sterling.

"We were told we had a pretty good chance,'' Michalski told TopSports.news in a phone interview. "If Sterling won we were going, so we turned into some pretty big Warrior fans, cheering for Sterling.''

Bethel's trip to nationals is another sign of the dramatic progress the program has made under the fourth-year husband/wife Threshers coaching tandem of head coach Drew Johnson and assistant Nicole (Ohlde) Johnson, the former Kansas State star and WNBA player.

"(Bethel) actually only won four games the season before Drew and Nicole got here and they won a few more (12) Drew and Nicole's first year here and then when I got here my freshman year we went 20-10, which went down as the winningest team in school history,'' Michalski said. "And then just two years later here we are being the first team going to nationals, which is really cool.''

The national tournament appearance is an exclamation mark on the 2020-21 season for Michalski, a 5-foot-6 junior guard, who has already twice etched her name in the Bethel record book this season.

Kendall Michalski, a former All-City guard at Washburn Rural, holds the Bethel record and is tied for the KCAC record with 10 3s in a game. [Submitted]

Michalski hit 10 3-pointers en route to a 32-point performance in a win over Southwestern, establishing a school single-game record for 3s and tying the KCAC record.

Michalski, who averages 12.7 ponts and received All-KCAC honorable mention, is also Bethel's record-holder for single-season 3-pointers with 62 and counting entering Friday's game against 6-4 Vanguard, located in Lions, Calif.

Michalski credits her success to the fact that Johnson gives her the green light when she has an open 3.

"Drew definitely trusts me,'' said Michalski, who has attempted 180 3-pointers on the season. "There's a lot of times during games where Drew will tell me, 'We need you to shoot it. You're a shooter, if you're open, shoot the ball.' I definitely have the green light.''

And Michalski has the shooter's mentality, even when she may not get off to a particulary good start in a game.

"I feel like as a shooter you'll go through a little bit of a slump and you have to continue to keep shooting because at some point that ball's going to go in and once it starts going in it's going to continue to go in,'' she said.

Michalski, a former All-City guard, said that the lessons she learned at Washburn Rural under coach Kevin Bordewick have helped her be successful at the college level.

"I definitely give Coach Bordewick a lot of credit,'' Michalski said. "Freshman year I was the first sub off the bench for Washburn Rural and he taught me a lot of toughness and one thing he definitely taught me was, 'You don't quit, you don't give up,' and no matter how the game is going you compete through the whole entire game. No matter if you're up, you're down, you're playing well or not playing well you compete the whole game.''

Michalski said she also learned a lot about the game long before she stepped on Rural's campus.

"I also give credit to Scott Smith, Al Dean and my dad (Joe) for their help when I first started playing basketball,'' she said. "They definitely gave me the basics to let me have the success that I did at Washburn Rural and also carry that success over to here at Bethel.'' 

This season's success has been an unquestioned highlight in what Michalski said has been an amazing experience at Bethel, located in Newton.

"It has been, honestly,'' Michalski said. "It was a little scary walking in knowing that they hadn't won many games and they weren't this program that was known really,'' Michalski said. "No one really knew who Bethel was, so it's pretty cool getting to be a part of this change here and being part of these teams that are getting to check off many firsts.''