Mercer Islanders cheer Gonzaga to March Madness final

Three Islanders cheered the Gonzaga basketball team to a victory in the school’s first-ever Final Four appearance on April 1, then in the NCAA tournament final on April 3.

Gonzaga students and members of the 16-man Bulldog cheer squad Emily Lightfoot, Danni Noonan and Joshua Bradley have had a front row seat to Gonzaga’s Cinderella story season.

They traveled with the team to Salt Lake City for the first and second rounds of the March Madness tournament, then cheered the Zags as they took on West Virginia in the Sweet Sixteen and Xavier in the Elite Eight.

Gonzaga entered the tournament as a No. 1 seed, and beat the South Carolina Gamecocks Saturday in Phoenix to advance to Monday’s national championship game. Gonzaga played North Carolina in the final game, losing 71-65.

Lightfoot graduated from St. Monica in 2010 and Mercer Island High School in 2014. Noonan and Bradley are also St. Monica alumni (class of 2011) and Noonan went to MIHS, while Bradley went to O’Dea High School in Seattle. Lightfoot and Noonan were MIHS cheerleaders, and Bradley played football for O’Dea.

Lightfoot is a junior nursing major, Noonan is a sophomore business major and Bradley is a sophomore kinesiology and physical education major.