(Bryan Brenize -- The Beacon)
By PJ Marcello, Staff Writer -- marcello13@up.edu
The Pilot women's basketball team advanced past Santa Clara 75-64 before falling to Gonzaga in the WCC semifinals 96-71.
The Pilots received a first round bye after earning the fourth seed in the tournament. Their first match up was against fifth seeded Santa Clara. Junior guard ReZina TecleMariam led the Pilots to an 11-point win with a career-high 28 points.
"I wanted to leave everything on the floor," TecleMariam said.
Junior forward, Natalie Day, continued her dominance with her sixth double-double in seven games. She finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds.
"I attribute my success to hard work in the offseason and playing with the Virgin Island team," Day said. "I hope to do the same thing next year and continue to learn."
The semifinal game was a tough loss to the WCC champion Gonzaga. After leading briefly in the first half, it was all Zags as they went on to outscore the Pilots 96-71.
Even with the loss, the team has a lot to look forward to and a lot to be proud of. They will find out if they get a bid to a postseason tournament over the next week or so and have a lot to build toward for next season.
"I feel like we held our own this season," Day said. "We went from having 14 players down to about eight by the end of the year due to injuries. It feels good to know we still did this well and it is a building block for next year."
With so many young players stepping up, the Pilots expect to be even stronger next season, returning with more experience and depth.
"We faced a lot of adversity and had to have freshmen step up. We are returning a lot of players and expect everyone to bring even more to the team next year," TecleMariam said. "Everyone has an opportunity to play if they're ready and focused and a lot of players made the most out of that opportunity."
The Pilots will be building off of a strong campaign, but are also losing four seniors.
Their youth, however, provides a lot of spark and has benefited from the example of the seniors.
"This season shows that we have improved in a lot of areas and we reached some milestones. We have a lot of versatility and good depth especially with the freshmen," Day said. "Everybody can look for us to be a running team and to push the ball. Our freshmen this year added to that and we can build on that with our incoming freshmen."
With all the success on the court this season, much of the growth of the team was formed off the court.
"I'm most proud of how close we are on and off the floor," TecleMariam said. "I feel like compared to my freshman year we've become closer and are more of a team."
The Pilots hope to take this new and improved team into a postseason tournament.
The tournament selections will be announced sometime after spring break.
