LEXINGTON, Va. — After a historic campaign, the Catholic University women's basketball team's season came to an end in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night at the hands of No. 19 Washington & Lee.
The Cardinals battled all the way until the final buzzer but struggled to deal with strong General three-point shooting. No. 11 Catholic defended the paint relatively well, which is a massive tasks against one of the strongest bigs in the country, but this opened up space on the perimeter that the Generals exploited.
Behind a raucous home crowd, Washington and Lee got out to the perfect start, opening up an 11-0 lead that caused head coach Matt Donohue to burn a timeout. After that spurt to start the game, Catholic went blow-for-blow with the Generals to trail 39-27 at the halftime break.
Catholic held likely all-American Mary Schleusner to just 2-of-8 shooting in the first half but the sophomore did go 8-for-8 from the foul line to secure a first-half double-double. Washington and Lee shot 7-for-15 from beyond the three-point line in the opening 20 minutes with five different players connecting from deep.
The Cardinals stayed in the game by winning the turnover battle in the first half. Catholic only turned the ball over four times while forcing nine takeaways as Sarah White led the defensive energy forcing two steals. Kerry Flaherty provided stability on offense with eight first-half points while Carly Mulvaney was huge on the boards with eight rebounds. Tori Fernandez provided vital minutes off the bench, connecting on a three on her first offensive possession before grabbing a steal in the back court that led to an and-one opportunity.
It was in the third quarter that Catholic got the closest, using a 7-0 run to cut the General lead to 53-48 with three-and-a-half minutes remaining in the stanza. Alexa Kenah, who was huge off the bench for the second-straight evening, delivered a big three during the run before a White jumper brought the Cardinals within five. Kenah hit another jumper later in the quarter to keep the deficit at five but Washington and Lee held Catholic scoreless for the final two minutes of the quarter to take an eight-point lead into the final stanza.
The Cardinals did not stop fighting, and despite being down 14 with four minutes remaining, Catholic cut the lead to just six with two-and-a-half minutes remaining. The fight-back was made even more impressive by the fact that Anna Scoblick, White and Kenah had all fouled out and Keegan Douglas left the game early in the fourth quarter with an injury. Landmark Conference Player of the Year Scoblick struggled with foul difficulty throughout the contest, making it challenging for her to find a rhythm.
White led the way with 15 points, six assists and three rebounds. She also forced four steals, pushing her to 92 on the 2023-24 season, second-most in a single season in Catholic program history. Fernandez produced a career-high 11 points, Kenah was one rebound shy of a double-double (10 points, 9 rebounds) and Mulvaney grabbed 14 rebounds. Catholic's bench outscored that of the Generals, 27-13.
For the Generals, Schleusner finished with 24 points, 24 rebounds and seven blocks while Quinn McGuinness was immense, dropping 17 and shooting 3-for-4 from deep.
The historic season comes to a close for Catholic but Donohue's team has plenty to be proud of. The Cardinals conclude the season with 26 wins, second-most in program history. They also produced a program-record 20-game winning streak to start the season and was ranked as highly as No. 8 in the D3hoop.com national poll, a program-record high.
Tonight's contest marked just the second time in program history that the Cardinals competed in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, while the win saw Washington & Lee advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time ever. Catholic only lost to two teams all season, both of which were ranked in the national top 20.
Catholic Post Game Presser
