It wasn’t easy. And it won’t be. Quality it has; a project, too; And not to mention his dreams. The Abogadas-Seminario team has the ingredients to dominate national basketball, although for now it only seeks to celebrate the hard-fought two-time championship won this week against CBA-Physical Care.
The first game of the final leaned in favor of the seminarians with a score of 66-45. Daniela Quesada and Amani Tatum, from Abogadas-Seminario, took center stage at the meeting.
In the second game, the competition was greater. CBA wanted to defend its home and force a third game, as reflected by the score at the end of the first half, with an advantage of 8 points (35-27) and the emotional balance in its favor.
The American Laura Gutiérrez added 16 points in the first half and, with a triple accompanied by a foul for the additional free throw at the end of the second quarter, made it clear that Seminario still could not stop her.
During halftime, it was time to make defensive adjustments for Abogadas-Seminario. “We already knew what we were going for. We knew this would be the most difficult game of the year because of the opposing team’s DNA. It is a hungry, winning, fresh team, and with a coaching staff that understands the game,” commented Pablo Martínez, coach of Abogadas-Seminario.
“The talk at halftime was, in part, a good slap on the wrist for the players, because it seems to me that there were things that we planned and trained that were not executed during the game. But it was also a call for calm. “There were 20 minutes left and, if we made the adjustments, we were going to win the game,” he added.
The coach’s strategy worked. They managed to limit their rival to only 2 points in the entire third quarter, recovering the difference and achieving a 5-point advantage at the end of that period.
The closing of the match recovered the intensity of the beginning. However, despite all the efforts of CBA, their rival won with a score of 54-58, thus achieving the second victory of the series and being crowned two-time champions of Costa Rican women’s basketball.
Laura Gutiérrez finished the match with 20 points, while seminarians Gabriela Alvarado and Daniela Quesada led their team’s offense with 14 points each. At the end of the match, Quesada received the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award of the final.
“I am quite excited, very happy and happy for everything we did during the season, because at the beginning it cost us a lot. We rise as a team, and the truth is that it is easy to receive an award like this when you have teammates like this. The assistance they gave me made the job much easier. So, more than anything, I would say that it is a reward for collective effort,” said Quesada.
Abogadas-Seminario enters the history of Costa Rican women’s basketball as a dynasty in the making. “I think all of us who are involved in this like to leave a mark on the history of national sports. I know that there have been teams that have built dynasties in women’s basketball, but we want to write a different story,” commented coach Pablo Martínez.
“We want to do something completely different and we are already on that path. What we had set out to do in the short term, which was to obtain these titles, we have achieved, and now we are already working towards the 2025 season,” he added.
Throughout history, several franchises have won consecutive championships. Eagles – Basket Consultants (2021, 2022) and Coronado (2018, 2019, 2020) are the most recent examples.
Before them, the UNA achieved a four-time championship between 1972 and 1976, while the UCR achieved a two-time championship in 1976 and 1977. In 1979, the largest dynasty of women’s basketball emerged: LACSA (Líneas Aereas Costarricenses), which accumulated 18 championships, several consecutively.
LACSA won its first three-time championship between 1979 and 1981. Between 1983 and 1990, it won eight consecutive championships and, in 1995, it reappeared with a streak of five titles in a row until 2000.
At the turn of the century, the TACA teams of Costa Rica and Coronado emerged. The first won four consecutive championships between 2004 and 2007, and then Coro dominated until 2012. In 2013, Goicoechea dethroned Coronado, also taking the 2014 title.
