Talk about durability — Alyssa Hayashi was the definition of that word during her college career for the Swarthmore College women’s basketball team.
Over four seasons, the Bishop O’Connell High School graduate started 99 of the 101 games she played in for the Division III team.
As a freshman, the 5-foot-6-inch guard started all 25 games for the Garnet, started all 25 as a sophomore and all 26 as a junior. This past season, Hayashi started 23 of 25 contests. Overall at Swarthmore, she amassed a streak of starting 77 straight games.
“That was a testament to her commitment,” Swarthmore women’s coach Dawn Grant told ARLnow. “She didn’t want to miss any games, and she didn’t.”
Hayashi also was a four-year team captain.
The local player “is a very compassionate person,” Grant said. “From her start here, her teammates looked up to her and she was vested in the program. She was a consistent producer as a player her entire time here, and was great to coach and work with.”
This past season, as a senior, was perhaps Hayaski’s best all-around performance for Swarthmore. She averaged 10.5 points per game to lead the team in scoring, and pulled an average 5.2 rebounds, second on the squad. Her 60 assists, 58 steals, 52 free throws and 32 minutes played a gamewere team bests. Her 16 three-pointers were second most.
One of Hayashi’s best games this season was against Rosemont College. She scored a single-game season high of 19 points, had five steals and as many rebounds, and had four assists.
For her college career, Hayashi scored 1,083 points, the 12th player in program history to reach that milestone.
“That was one of her big goals here, to score 1,000 points. She didn’t get to do that in high school,” Grant said.
For Swarthmore, Hayashi had 439 career rebounds, 221 steals, 200 assists, made 85 three-pointers and hit 192 foul shots. Her average playing time per game was 32.4 minutes.
At O’Connell, Hayashi was an all-Washington Catholic Athletic Conference honorable-mention selection. She helped the team win 23 games her junior season.
O’Connell did not play games her senior season because of the pandemic.
