Saint Xavier’s women’s basketball team were not able to make a return to the NAIA Division II championship game as they fell to Dakota Wesleyan by a score of 81-66.
Points were at a premium early on but the Cougars managed to jump out to a lead and maintained that lead at the end of the first quarter. However, Dakota Wesleyan got right back into it in the second quarter.
The game was a back and forth affair in the second with the two teams trading shots. The lead changed multiple times in the second, but Dakota Wesleyan were able to take ahold of it midway through the quarter. Saint Xavier headed into the half trailing 37-32.
The Cougars came out in the third quarter trying to get their rhythm back to trim down their deficit. As was the case in the second, the teams traded buckets with Wesleyan still able to keep Saint Xavier at arm’s length. A big three-pointer by Kara Krolicki in the final seconds of the quarter brought her team to within two.
Another huge three-pointer by Maddie Welter in the opening seconds of the fourth gave Saint Xavier their first lead since the first quarter.
Again, Dakota Wesleyan responded right back and reclaimed the lead. A three-pointer by Krolicki evened things up, but that would ultimately be as close as Saint Xavier would get to winning the game.
After Chanel Fanter converted on her free-throws with 6:14 left in the game, the Cougars went the next five minutes without scoring a single point.
During that time, Dakota Wesleyan increased their lead and to make matters worse, Kara Krolicki would foul out with 2:48 to go. WIth Krolicki having to go off, Saint Xavier lost their leading scorer of the season as Dakota Wesleyan advanced to the final.
Kara Krolicki, in her final game as a Cougar, led the team with twenty-four points. Brittany Collins finished with a double-double as she had thirteen points to go along with ten rebounds. Chanel Fanter rounded things up with twelve points.
It was a frustrating second quarter for the Cougars as once they dropped the lead, they weren’t able to get back into the swing of things.
Offensively, they were quite successful in matching Dakota Wesleyan point for point. The problem was defensively where the team was unable to get a stop after getting a shot and cutting down the lead.
They did manage to take the lead in a couple of instances in the second-half, but they did not last long. Going nearly five minutes without scoring a bucket in the fourth was one of the nails in the coffin.
The other one was losing Kara Krolicki, the team’s best player, in the final minutes of the game. Fouling out of a semifinal game is probably not how Kara Krolicki imagined her Saint Xavier career coming to an end, but that’s the way things go sometimes.
Despite not reaching their ultimate goal of winning a championship,it does not deter from what was another great season for the Saint Xavier Cougars and coach Bob Hallberg.
The team finished the season with an overall record of 32-3 and won a second consecutive CCAC Tournament Championship. They also became the first team since 2010 to finish with a perfect regular season conference record to go along with their conference championship.
Departing seniors, Krolicki, Collins, and Tomei Ball, finished their careers as the only current group of seniors with thirty or more wins in all of their four seasons at Saint Xavier.
It is disappointing to fall short of their goal, but each and every player on the team should be proud of the run they’ve taken the fans these past two seasons. The returning players and the coach now must look ahead to next season and build upon the success of this season.
Ernesto Hernandez
Sports Editor