Baby's Birth, End of Season Tug at Coach's Heartstrings
Published: March 18, 2020
Jina Douglas admits she’s never really been an emotional person. The events of the past three weeks, though, have had a way of changing that for the Hastings College women’s basketball coach.
First, she became a mother for the first time when Ava Dinae was born on Feb. 24. She was eight weeks premature, weighing 2½ pounds, and has been at Methodist Women’s Hospital near Elkhorn ever since.
Ava was born two days before the start of the GPAC tournament. Jina stayed with Ava during the three games of the tournament as Hastings, ranked fourth nationally, reached the final against No. 2 Concordia.
Hastings lost a tough defensive battle to Concordia, but the Broncos still earned the No. 4 overall seed for the NAIA tournament, which started last Wednesday in Sioux City.
Douglas planned to drive back and forth from Omaha every day during the tournament, but then came another turning point: The event had been canceled.
