NETT LAKE- Last winter, freshman Brynn Chosa was a spark plug for the North Woods Grizzlies girls basketball team, coming off the bench to drain key three-pointers, push the ball up the court, and add extra defensive intensity.
Last week, Chosa took her talents to the international stage at the 2023 North American Indigenous Games in Nova Scotia, the premier event showcasing young Native sporting talent from over 750 Indigenous nations across Turtle Island (North America).
Held every four years, NAIG attracts over 5,000 athletes, coaches, and team staff competing in 16 different sports in a festive celebration of both sporting ability and Indigenous cultures.
Chosa was selected as a member of the 16 and under girls basketball squad for Team Mni-sota, and was the only Bois Forte Band representative in the state contingent of teams and athletes. She competed against other girls from around the state in tryouts last spring at Cass Lake, and was chosen by Head Coach Corey Littlewolf, who was somewhat familiar with Chosa’s basketball skills already through her participation on a Deer River AAU team, said her father, Brent Chosa.
Brynn didn’t hit the court cold in Nova Scotia. She hasn’t skipped a beat with either basketball or volleyball this summer. According to Brent, she’s been playing with a Minnesota North AAU hoops team, including a trip to Orlando last month for a national tournament.
“She’s been on the go all summer,” Brent said. “The weekend before this I took her down to Minneapolis to a University of Minnesota volleyball camp. I don’t even know how she finds all her energy.”
Brent coordinates all the scheduling and traveling with Brynn’s mother, Amanda Goggleye, who made the trip to Nova Scotia with her, along with grandparents Turk and Jeneal Goggleye and Brynn’s six-year-old brother Jarvis. And for those who pay attention to North Woods basketball, the name Goggleye holds significance that’s rubbed off on Brynn.
“Athletics is in the family,” Brent said. “You’ve got Cade Goggleye, that’s her first cousin, and Robbie’s her uncle. There’s Darnell and Darius, the ones who went to state, they were all who she was watching and growing up with playing basketball. Plus, with me and her uncle she was constantly around sports, so she’s a little tomboy.”
The family raised money for Brynn’s participation by hosting a wild rice hot dish fundraiser. A basketball tournament was in the works, but Brent said the dinner was successful enough along with what family pitched in to cover the costs.
Just like the Olympic Games, the NAIG kicked off with an opening ceremony, Panta’tumkl milita’mkl, on July 16, an event that showcased the Host Nation of Mi’kma’ki and the 5,000 plus who participated in the games.
“We went to the opening ceremony, and it was amazing,” Amanda said. “There weren’t very many United States teams, but there were teams from throughout Canada. They all walked down the street and into the building (Scotiabank Centre arena). It was the coolest thing ever.”
The NAIG has a dual focus of celebrating Indigenous athletes and also celebrating Indigenous culture, and toward that end a cultural village was set up in Halifax Commons with cultural demonstrations, vendors, and Indigenous performers that operated most of the week until record rainfall on Friday and Saturday forced it to shut down. Closing ceremonies scheduled to take place in Halifax Commons were also canceled.
“In the cultural village they had a bunch of different shops with people selling beadwork and stuff to make ribbon skirts, and they had different performers performing at certain times of the day,” Amanda said. “I don’t really know how to explain it, but it was just a really cool experience, and I’m glad Brynn got to go.”
When it came to competition, Brynn’s team mostly had to find their rhythm and cohesiveness in the heat of battle. Unlike many of their opponents, they had only limited opportunities to practice together ahead of the games.
“We had two practices in Cass Lake and one in Canada before our first game,” Brynn said, and she knew the competition would be stiff. “Our coach told us it was going to be fast paced. We had only six girls and all the teams we played had full rosters.”
That lack of depth became even more challenging when one of Brynn’s teammates got injured, forcing them to play with only five against teams with depth that could substitute freely and often.
Nonetheless, Team Mni-sota got off to an encouraging start, defeating Saskatchewan in their opener 50-41, with Chosa tossing down 14 points. The team picked up a second win in a dominant 66-28 romp over Nova Scotia. Chosa connected on a pair of treys for six points in that one.
Chosa led Team Mni-sota with 19 points in a 62-27 quarterfinals victory over Eastern Door and the North, their third and what would turn out to be last win of the tournament.
Team Mni-sota drew Alberta in the semifinals, a tall and talented team with twice the number of players, and Alberta breezed to a 73-36 win. Chosa’s squad squared off against British Columbia in the bronze medal game but came up short, 75-49. Chosa had another good scoring effort in the finale, dropping in 14.
While Chosa admitted she likes to score, with her team shorthanded she took on the role of point guard rather than scoring guard, concentrating on distributing the basketball to try to make things happen.
“I think they really surprised a lot of people,” Amanda said. “All those other teams were bigger and they had more girls. If they would have had a couple more girls where they could have sat for a few minutes during each game they probably would have had a chance to win more.”
And as for her daughter’s performance?
“She really enjoyed it,” Amanda said. “She likes to score, obviously, because everybody does. But she likes to see her teammates scoring and likes helping them score. I’m just really glad she got to go and experience it because it’s kind of like a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was cool to see how many Native athletes there were.”
With a competitive age range of 13 to 19 years old, Brynn could possibly qualify to return to the next NAIG in 2027 with the 19 and under team, when she will be 19.