By Dan Weber
NKyTribune Sports Journalist
Her Thomas More Saints players will “have many fond memories” of their three straight years in Sioux City, Iowa, playing for the NAIA National Women’s Basketball Championship, Coach jeff hans said.
Even if Saturday evening will not necessarily be part of it. “Lots of tears,” Hans said after defending champion Saints appeared to run out of gas against a Clarke University (Iowa), losing 63-52, in their final NAIA game as they were returning to the NCAA next season.
But you wouldn’t have known it with 4:01 to go and the score tied at 50. These two little Catholic colleges were playing like mirror images of each other, which they almost are.
With just 654 undergraduates, the Dubuque, Iowa school, overlooking the Mississippi River, is a bit smaller than Thomas More. And unlike the defending champion Saints, Clarke Pride had never won an NAIA title in any sport.
Until Saturday.
When Clarke raced 13-2 to the finish, holding Thomas More scoreless on the pitch in those tough final minutes.
“They played really well, we didn’t,” Hans said of a 32-4 Clarke team that didn’t win their Heartland Conference championship. Central Methodist, the unbeaten No. 1 seed overall that TMU beat, 71-61, in Friday’s semifinals, had.
But the “great memories” at Sioux City will last, Hans said. “To play for the national championship three years in a row after moving to the NAIA from NCAA Division III is special. Few teams do that. And we won one of three.
“What these guys have done is really special,” Hans said.
Maybe not that night. “We missed shots, open shots, rushing shots,” Hans said. “Part of it was on us, part because of them.”
Clarke did it in the final minutes like Pride did all night, using their speed and aggression to make it extremely difficult for TMU, who finished 31-4, to score from the perimeter while not allowing the Saints drive the ball to the basket. .
Thomas More did what the Saints so often do, forcing Clarke to 22 turnovers while only giving it up nine times themselves. But that was more than offset by Clark’s larger team’s 44-22 advantage on the boards.
Thomas More only managed 19 of 58 (32.2%) of his field goal attempts (just six of 27 for 22.5% of three-point territory) including only two in the second half. “It could have been the worst we’ve shot all year,” Hans said. And the worst time for that to happen.
Clarke didn’t shoot much better, scoring the same number of field goals (19) on 45 attempts (42.2%) and just four of 13 (30.8) from three.
But one place where Clarke’s shooting has excelled – the free throw line. Pride got to the line 23 times of TMU’s 11 and converted 21 (91.3%) to Thomas More’s eight (72.1%).
Difficult to make up for a deficit of 13 points on the free throw line.
But Thomas More overcame a number of deficits in that game, opening 10-0 before closing 18-11 late in the first period. And at halftime, Clarke only led 26-25.
And despite trailing 10 again, 40-30, in the third, the Saints closed it at 42-41 to start the fourth. So even when they fell behind, 50-44, it was no surprise that after Courtney Hurst hit a three and then Zoie Barth drove to score and hit the free throw after being fouled, the Saints were all tied at 50.
“We kept coming from behind all night,” Hans said. Until they can’t come back.
Clarke had three field goals and seven free throws in the stretch while Thomas More failed to make a single shot from the field in five attempts and could only convert a pair of Emily Simon free spins.
The team from across Iowa, 300 miles east on US 20 from the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, had beaten a Saints team playing their third straight national championship game.
A Clarke team that hadn’t won their conference won it all when it all lined up for Pride. Before going out and scoring 17 points to lead Clarke, top scorer Nicole McDermott said: “This morning, I didn’t think I could play”, with an ankle injury. But she did.
“We knew we had to get them off the three-point line,” said Clarke Coach Courtney Boyd, only the ninth woman to lead an NAIA National Championship women’s team. “Going up one was our goal, I wouldn’t have said going up 11.”
Not after the way Thomas More handled Central Methodist the night before, a team Clarke couldn’t beat.
But you only have one chance at a national championship game and Clarke took it as Thomas More said goodbye to the NAIA and begins the transition to NCAA Division II next season.
THE SCORE OF THE BOX
CLARKE (Iowa) 18 8 16 21-63
THOMAS PLUS 11 14 15 11-52
CLARKE (Iowa) (33-4): Tina Ubl 9, Nicole McDermott 17, Taylor Haase 6, Emma Kelchen 4, Izzie Petewrson 4, Gina Michels 14, Mya Merschman 5, Skylar Culbertson 4, Anisha Vondenkamp 0, Madison Lindauer 0, Jenna Blunt 0, Beatrice Atienza 0, Lily Schilling 0, TOTAL: 63.
THOMAS PLUS (31-4): Zoie Barth 16, Courtney Hurst 13, Emily Simon 11, Kelly Brenner 3, Rylee Turner 0, Alex Smith 7, Maggie Jones 0, Mattison Vickers 0, Rachel Martin 0, Sammi Whiteman 2, Jenna Lillard 0, Callie Hunt 0, Natalie Noel 0, Hailie Morgan 0, Alyssa Elswick 0, TOTAL: 52.
