The memories of how the previous season came crashing to an end served as the perfect tonic the veteran members of the 2006-2007 Southern Connecticut State women’s basketball team needed to put together a historic season.

When Kate Lynch, Shamika Jackson, Babette Noah, LaShauna Jones and Michelle Martinik returned to form the nucleus of the 2006-07 squad, they were driven and determined to learn from their past missteps — falling in the 2006 regional finals and losing in the regional semifinals in 2005.

“The kids were really focused on getting back there to win that regional and get to the Elite Eight,” said former Southern Connecticut State coach Joe Frager.

The Owls ripped off 20 straight wins to open the season, but Frager considered the only two losses to be pivotal to the process of winning the program’s first NCAA Division II title.

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Perhaps they were too young to realize they were not supposed to end the championship reign of Division II women’s basketball powerhouse Cal Poly Pomona or simply too talented to be denied their date with destiny.

Buoyed by precocious sophomores Joy Jeter and Charlene Taylor, both of whom hailed from the athletic hotbed of Beaver Falls, Pa., and still rank No. 1 and 2 on New Haven’s career scoring list, the Chargers capped a remarkable season with a 77-75 win over the two-time defending national champions in the 1987 national title game.

The victory was the 28th straight for New Haven and gave the program its one and only national title.

Read Jim Fuller's complete story.