Aubrey Ward-El has a long list to pull from when she starts to catalogue her favorite basketball memories.
First, there’s the 2012 4A state championship she won as a sophomore at Skyview — a game in which Ward-El hit the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer. Then there’s the two years after, when she played with her longtime friend and teammates Stephanie McDonagh. The two teamed up to help lead the Storm back to the Tacoma Dome.
Her dream became a reality, she said, when she received a full scholarship to play basketball at University of San Diego.
“That was something I’ll never forget knowing I worked really hard to get that,” Ward-El said. “Not many kids do, that was something I’ll never forget.”
Now, as she nears the end of her collegiate journey, she reflects on the imprint she’ll leave on her college program, and deliberates her first post-college. Ward-El, now a senior guard/forward for the Toreros (15-12, 8-8 West Coast Conference), will play the second-to-last regular season game of her collegiate career Thursday when USD takes on Gonzaga in Spokane.
She’s one of five women on the roster from Washington. That’s after former Prairie standout Cori Woodward graduated last year. Woodward and Ward-El were teammates for three seasons after starring at different Clark County high schools.
Ward-El was The Columbian’s Multi-Sport Athlete of the Year as a junior, then The Columbian’s All-Region Player of the Year during her senior season in 2014.
Ward-El has been on two San Diego teams that have beat the WCC powerhouse Zags — a win she called “one of the craziest things ever.”
In each of her four years at San Diego, her role has steadily risen. As a freshman, she cracked the rotation with 6.1 minutes per game, which came to her pleasant surprise. Each season after, her minutes more than doubled as she grew into a prominent role in the Toreros’ backcourt.
After college, where she expects to graduate this spring with a communications degree, Ward-El hopes to keep her basketball dream alive by playing professionally overseas — she’s not picky, she said. She’ll play anywhere. Two of her former college teammates play professional basketball in Germany, and the experiences they returned sharing about only further sold Ward-El.
In the long-term, she hopes to return to school and study to become a speech language pathologist and potentially work in schools. Former Skyview girls coach Jennifer Buscher, who was Ward-El’s coach from sixth to 12th grade, sees her being a great fit in that field. “She’d be great with kids,” Buscher said.
The two have maintained contact throughout Ward-El’s college years. Buscher carved out time in her schedule formerly as a coach, and now as an administrator and master’s student, to attend her games when the Toreros played at University of Portland (where Buscher takes classes).
Buscher, who is now the dean of students at David Douglas High School in Portland, always held Ward-El in high regard.
“She’s just one of the best all-around people I’ve ever had the opportunity to coach,” Buscher said. “She helped set the standards for Skyview girls basketball. I never doubted she was going to be successful at the next level.”
In the meantime, as Ward-El’s time winds down at San Diego, she wants to do something similar to what she did at Skyview.
“I want to leave a legacy behind,” Ward-El said. “It’s kind of my thought process as a senior, like what am I going to leave behind?”
The Toreros suffered a four-game skid stretching to early February, but rebounded by winning three of their last four games. They are currently fifth in the WCC, and will need to win the conference tournament to likely secure a berth to the NCAA Tournament.
And on the home stretch of her final season, she is focused on providing veteran leadership.
“Thinking after I’m gone and everyone kind of forgets about you, what do you want to see in that program when you come back to watch the game?” Ward-El said. “You want to see people diving after those loose balls, people playing as hard as they can and picking each other up–all those things that sometimes go unnoticed but are super crucial in general to just being a hard worker definitely that’s some of the things I’d like to see after I’m gone and even on the freshmen now when they’re seniors hopefully they’re doing that as well. It does have a trickle-down effect as long as you’re aware of it, but that’s how the whole legacy thing continues on and on after you’re gone.”
And even since leaving Vancouver for sunny Southern California, she’s set on one day returning.
“Vancouver is home,” Ward-El said. “I definitely want to come back and give back to my community. That’s in the plan. San Diego has been awesome, amazing and beautiful, but there’s just something really special about being home. One day down the road I’ll be back.”
