The Loyola women’s basketball team is 5-4 in their first 12 games of the 2024-25 season.
According to sophomore forward Deniya Thornton, the season “didn’t start off as great as older seasons,” but they began picking back up, as they are on a three-game winning streak.
While the tougher schedule at the beginning of the season did pose some pressures, she said it taught them “perseverance, heart, and good spirits.”
Sophomore forward Libby Thompson said the team has faced some other challenges this year, such as losing seniors from last season. Due to this, she says that they had to establish a new identity and find new leaders for the team.” While the girls are still adjusting to the new dynamic of their leadership, they continue to grow every day.
According to Thompson, the team is close and hangs out both on and off the court. To build better team spirit, the team has gone out to eat together on trips, bowling, and is planning a Christmas party.
She says they “push each other to be better and all respect one another.”
Thompson believed the University of Louisiana game has been one of their best this season.
According to Thompson “while it was a loss they grew a lot as a team and executed their game plan very well.”
In addition to this, Thompson mentioned that the matchup against the University of Mobile was also a good win for them because it boosted the morale of the team.
As the season progresses, she said that they are focusing on some of the most important pieces of basketball such as learning to communicate on the court and execute plays at the right timing.
Thompson says that when they can be consistent with these skills, it will help them enforce them on the court.
The girls will compete in a tournament in Arizona from Dec.18 through Dec. 21 which head coach Kellie Kennedy hopes that the team will see success in.
“It will be tough competition,” Kennedy said. “But hopefully it will be a good test.’
As they begin to wrap up their regular season, Thornton hopes to conclude like they did last year.
“We want to go in as the underdogs and come out as number one,” she said. “Then take that confidence to the NAIA Championship game.”
Thompson hopes to win the rest of their conference games. She says that because they had a rougher start to the season, some of the other teams may view them as weaker.
Thompson said her goal “is that we show up every day, at practice and in games, getting better every day, and showing those other teams they were wrong about us.”
