The Marquette women’s club basketball team is very appreciative of second-chance opportunities — it was a second chance at making the National Basketball Championship that led to their successful title run.
A mix of “blue” and “gold” squad members mixed and matched throughout the season. The combined squad made a statement early on with their win at the Wisconsin State Championship, where they beat teams like Wisconsin-Whitewater and Wisconsin-Madison.
At the double-elimination regional tournament, Marquette collected wins against California and Ohio before being eliminated by Ohio State.
Senior Katie O’Connor said she believes the team took a lot away from the loss, as they still had one more chance to make the National Championship.
“The team definitely worked harder from there knowing that we only had one more shot to qualify for nationals,” O’Connor said.
There isn’t much video or statistics to prepare for a club sports game, but president Katie Lee and some of her teammates did their best research to brace themselves for their next opponent.
“In our own time, we scouted some of their pool games,” Lee said. “It was between Delaware and Virginia Tech as to who we were going to play next. I was nervous.”
Those nerves were on display in the semifinal against East Carolina. They narrowly escaped with a 45-43 victory on a layup with four seconds left.
Marquette was trailing by one and with four seconds left in the game, sophomore Kelsey Rajchel was fouled and sent to the line. She made her first free throw but missed the second. Junior Courtney Martin got the rebound before posting it up for the lay-up. Her heroics sent the Golden Eagles to the championship game against Delaware.
Delaware led by 12 points at one point in the half, but Marquette would cut it down to six at the intermission, where Lee said a few adjustments were made at half-time.
“We just needed to calm down, shoot the ball, and continue playing our defense,” Lee said. “When our defense was good, our shots started to sink.”
With 14 players on the team, Delaware had the depth to keep their players fresh in the second half, but Marquette clawed their way back to take the lead. Junior Chantal Newman sank a pair of three-pointers in part of Marquette’s 8-0 run that put them up 28-26.
Marquette notched its biggest lead at five points after Newman drained two free throws in the final minute. Delaware chucked up a three-pointer at the buzzer, but it was too little, too late, as the Golden Eagles held on for the 35-33 victory to clinch the national championship.
The team will only be losing three senior players when it attempts to defend its title next year. Coach Matt D’Amato sees a likely boost in popularity of the club sport on campus with more girls trying out, and at the same time, more invitations to tournaments across the country.
“We’re always looking for new players to come. It’s a great experience outside of being successful and winning games,” D’Amato said. “We’ll hopefully get more invites. We realize that by winning the national championship that other teams will be looking to beat us.”