The Loyola Women’s Basketball team will officially advance to the second round of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics nationals tournament after beating the Southeastern Fire 84-78.
The game was neck and neck throughout all four quarters, but at the end of the third quarter, the Wolf Pack gained a lead that would aid them through the fourth quarter to victory.
At the end of the first quarter, the score was 20-18 with the Fire in the lead. Loyola trailed by 5 points with fifty two seconds left before halftime. However, Loyola ended the first half trailing the Fire by only one point with Wolf Pack senior #22 Sydni Tangle scoring 2 free throws and a 3 pointer from Wolf Pack freshman #10, Caitlin Travis. The Wolf Pack sat at 42-41 with the Fire in the lead.
The Wolf Pack came back strong after halftime, but so did the Southeastern Fire. The third quarter was neck and neck, with the teams tying multiple times throughout the quarter. However, at the beginning of the third quarter, the Fire had 50 points for almost two minutes, and the Wolf Pack took that opportunity to climb the scoreboard. Within those two minutes, the Wolf Pack scored 7 points to tie the game before the Fire scored again.
The Wolf Pack advanced more and more in the last minute of the third quarter. However, the Fire continued to close every gap that the Wolf Pack would achieve, keeping the scores within 3 points of one another until the end of the quarter.
The score was 65-63 Loyola heading into the fourth quarter. Keeping the neck and neck theme throughout the game, the fourth quarter was no different. The Southeastern Fire and the Loyola Wolf Pack remained close on the scoreboard. However, the difference was that in the fourth quarter, the Wolf Pack remained ahead of the Fire throughout the entire quarter.
The Wolf Pack stood their ground throughout the fourth quarter, resulting in a 84-78 win at the end of the game, advancing them to the second round of the tournament.
The Wolf Pack and coach Kennedy remained collected throughout the game, as the Fire had two technical fouls and many arguments with the referees.
Although this game was close throughout, the Wolf Pack did struggle with ball possession, with 14 turnovers in the first half. The Wolf Pack made quite the correction with only four turnovers in the second half.
“You’re not as comfortable as you want to be when the game starts with it, and you just kind of have to play through some possessions before you actually are, for us it seemed like we had to play through the first half before we were really comfortable with it” Head Coach Kellie Kennedy said when asked about the number of turnovers that occurred in the first half.
The team will be playing the winner of the Georgetown College v. Milligan game Saturday night at 5 p.m.
The Wolf Pack achieved many offensive rebounds, aiding them in their victory tonight.
“In practice, our coach was just saying how we gotta rebound, we gotta rebound, we gotta rebound, that’s how we’re going to win games,” graduate student Taylor Thomas said.
The Wolf Pack has gotten the first round out of the way along with the nerves that came with it and are excited to be moving forward according to Kennedy.
“They came in determined and I think they’re still determined,” Kennedy said.
