Your future, our focus
They found each other from continents apart as student-athletes at Northwest College.
Luc Lombardy came to Powell from Villeurbanne, France — 4,985 miles away — to play basketball for the Trappers from 2016-18. Domenica Gomes traveled 6,123 miles from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to play for the Lady Trappers basketball team in the same two-year period.
Now married, their professional basketball careers are idled by the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.
And their thoughts have turned again to northwest Wyoming where their lives intertwined. Their one-year wedding anniversary approaches on June 9, 2020.
“We really miss Powell and Northwest College,” said Lombardy, “because the environment is really good for study and play. Everybody knows everybody, and we really miss this situation.”
Lombardy played Trapper basketball for Brian Erickson, now the athletic director at NWC. Erickson recruited Lombardy, a 6-6 forward, from Thetford Academy in Canada — the same institution from which former junior college All-American Chris Boucher migrated to NWC.
Erickson called Lombardy “one of the best shooters to ever wear a Trapper uniform.”
Gomes, a 5-4 point guard, played for former Lady Trapper coach Janis Beal. Erickson remembers her as “a very good point guard. She was great at facilitating and getting to the rim.”
The couple became engaged in the fall of 2018 and obtained a marriage license at the Park County Courthouse in November 2018. But before getting to the altar, they had a few things to take care of first.
Gomes and Lombardy played their final season in Trapper basketball uniforms. Both graduated from NWC in May 2018.
They wanted to give professional basketball a try, and both played professionally in Spain from the fall of 2018 to April 2019. They were married in a famed cathedral in Sao Paulo, Brazil on June 9, 2019. Luc played his second pro season for a team in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, finishing in December 2019.
Domenica hooked on with a team in Rio de Janeiro, and because the women’s professional season follows the men’s, she had not yet wrapped up her season when the coronavirus shutdown hit.
They are now whiling away the time with Domenica’s family in Sao Paulo.
“The COVID-19 affects our life because we can’t play basketball,” Luc said.
The effects are felt mentally, physically and financially. Luc’s contract with Brasilia was broken so he could be with Domenica in Rio, and the paychecks stopped.
“But we are still positive together,” Luc said.
They know the basketball world, along with all sports, will be affected for the next season. But they have each other and are dedicating themselves to practice and working hard to be ready when the pandemic has passed.