Subscribe

Bethany WalcottBasketball

Rota

Last week: Walcott, a 5-foot-10 junior post player, averaged 22.3 points during Rota’s three-game foray into RAF Alconbury, England, the team’s first test this season against DODDS-Europe competition. On Friday, she scored 18 points in a 34-20 victory over defending European Division IV champion Brussels and 20 in a 50-14 romp over Alconbury. She then scored 29 points in Saturday’s 58-34 victory over Alconbury. “… Bethany is one of our two post players and she has settled in very well,” Rota coach Greg Jacobs wrote in an e-mail about Walcott, who moved to point guard for the European D-III runners-up last season. Jacobs wrote that Walcott’s out-of-position sophomore campaign, her first at point guard, helped her game. “It really developed her as an all-around player,” he said. “She can run the break as well as lead it. She also passes and rebounds well.” Jacobs said Walcott has other traits that help the team. “Two strengths of Bethany are toughness and leadership,” he said. “She gets banged around … and she doesn’t complain. She is the ‘mother hen’ of the team and helps everyone work together.”

Alan DowdenBasketball RotaLast week: Dowden, a senior shooting guard, lived up to his job title in a big way last weekend at Alconbury. He sank 15 of 22 three-point attempts (68 percent) in 75-38 and 67-38 romps over Brussels and Alconbury, respectively, on Friday and Saturday. Dowden, 7-for-10 from behind the arc en route to 24 points against Brussels and 8-for-12 on his way to 25 against Alconbury, honed his touch with the three-pointer in games Rota plays against Spanish club teams, according to his coach, Ben Anderson. “The international game is definitely more wide open, and that impacts the amount of threes that (Dowden) takes, and that we as a team will shoot,” Anderson wrote in an e-mail. “It has been very exciting to watch Alan develop over the last three years.” Dowden’s more than a scorer, added Anderson, who said the senior had 13 steals, seven assists and 15 rebounds in the sweep. Dowden, who averaged 17 points in last year’s European Division III tournament, “plays with passion and desire, and is a relentless defender,” he wrote. “Alan does a great job of leading our team, on and off the floor.”

— Selected by Stars and Stripes staff

Sign Up for Daily Headlines

Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets from around the world.

Sign Up Now