The Gustavus Women’s Basketball team will wrap up a successful regular season on Saturday, Feb. 21 with a home game against the College of Saint Benedict. The women will then set their sights on the conference playoffs which begin the following week. Currently ranked third, the women are hopeful that despite having a rather young team, they will be able to rely on strong team chemistry and ability to play well under pressure to carry them through the playoff games.

“We have a lot of new girls and we were kind of expecting it to be a growing year, but we came in and we started really strong and continued to grow as the season went on,” Senior Captain Emily FitzSimmons said. “We’ve had some hiccups, but our team has actually responded really well to those, so I think that’s why we’re in the place that we’re in right now.”

This season the women’s team welcomes nine new players to the roster. The team is quite young, with thirteen of the twenty-one players being underclassmen.

“We have a good group of young players, and we are exceeding what some people thought we would do this year,” Head Coach Laurie Kelly said.

Despite the influx of new players to the team the women have been able to come together and create strong team chemistry on and off the court.

“Our team chemistry is unmatched in the MIAC, in my opinion,” Senior Captain Maddie Ehrich said.

In addition to their strong team chemistry, the women’s team also has been able to pull together during tough games and play well under pressure.

“We’ve had a lot of really close games that we almost lost but we’ve been able to grind them out which, is again, rare for such a young team. In the times that we really needed to score, really needed someone to step up, during different games different people have been able to do that.” FitzSimmons said.

Throughout the season the women have also been working on improving their defensive play. According to Coach Kelly, the women have significantly lowered their number of turnovers and have had two games of back to back single digit turnovers, a feat never before accomplished in the history of the Gustavus women’s basketball program.

As the playoffs begin next week, the women are moving forward with high hopes, already proud of the season they have had so far and what they have achieved.

“We have accomplished so much and I am so proud of this team. We are right where we want to be at this point in the season,” Ehrich said.

-Katie Allen