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The Year of The Posse The Springfield College women’s basketball team made a historic run to the NCAA Sweet 16 on the strength of its competitive culture and close bond.

By Hayden Choate

The scoreboard told the story: 1.1 seconds on the clock in overtime. 71-71. A spot in the Sweet 16 on the line.

Fans in the rowdy Ithaca College home crowd were hurling insults as loud as their voices would permit.

Springfield College guard Sidney Wentland eyed her team’s leading scorer, forward Sam Hourihan, on the left baseline. Wentland delivered the ball. Hourihan hauled it in, went up, and released the shot while tumbling to the hardwood. The only sound that followed was the scrape of the nylon.

In an instant, the boisterous crowd had turned silent. The ball sailed through the air landing in the hoop. All Hourihan could sense was her jubilant teammates’ shock and delight.

“Nothing will feel like that joy,” said longtime Pride head coach Naomi Graves. “I don’t think you ever feel like that again – and we got to experience it.”

This was the moment of the year for a team that went 13-0 at home, started the season with a 16-game win streak, and was ranked as high as ninth nationally. Although Springfield’s journey would end a week later with a loss to Trine, this buzzer beater in Ithaca was the shining moment of an unforgettable season.

It all began on the Senior Green months before …

Start of a Special Run

On a warm day last September, the players gathered on the Senior Green. They played a little volleyball, then sat and talked for hours. It was the start of what would become a strong bond.

Seniors Grace Dzindolet, Stephanie Lyons and Amanda Carr, and juniors Sam Hourihan and Rachel Vinton were the only players left from the roster two years ago. Springfield gained two graduate transfers in Wentland and Summer Matlack, along with several first-years and sophomores.

“I think there was a competitive culture part of it,” Lyons said.

When the Pride hosted RPI in their season opener on Nov. 5, it was their first game in Blake Arena in 616 days. Springfield sprinted out to a 21-2 lead on the way to a 73-38 win.

The next week, after dominating cross-town rival Western New England 72-45, the Pride traveled 200 miles north for their first road games, against Southern Maine and Maine Maritime.

After a five-hour bus ride, the team arrived in Castine, Maine, in cold, pouring rain. The players were hungry, but nothing was open close to their hotel.

“We asked Coach if we could walk to get pizza,” Lyons said with a laugh.

Lyons, Wentland, and senior forward Amanda Carr walked more than a mile in the pouring rain to get three large pizzas. They stuffed the boxes into a huge trash bag to keep them dry, then trudged back to the hotel, where their famished teammates awaited.

“That just shows the culture that we have,” Lyons said. “We’ll do those types of things.”

Springfield won both games in Maine to jump out to a 4-0 start. The Pride’s first tough test came right before the Thanksgiving break, when they gutted out a 64-59 win on the road against Williams. They closed out the semester with a 49-37 road win over Connecticut College to improve to 10-0. Springfield started appearing in the national rankings.

“That's when we started looking at the records,” Dzindolet admitted.

Photos by Joe Arruda/The Student
Photos by Joe Arruda/The Student

After spending the holidays at home, Pride players returned to campus on Dec. 27 and began a different kind of streak – one that would, unfortunately, last until the beginning of March. Over the next two months, they averaged two players testing positive for COVID-19 each week.

“The hardest part was having the phone calls and hearing them be emotional and cry,” Graves said. “I'd be like ‘It's going to be okay’ but inside I wanted to hit a wall.”

Although it was a stressful stretch for the short-handed team, the silver lining was that everyone was forced to step up – and did.

“I honestly think it made us stronger because we had to dig in. We were down to eight (players) at one point,” Carr said.

A win at home against Babson on Jan. 12 improved Springfield’s record to 13-0. After the game, tears streamed down Dzindolet’s face.

It was the only time in her career she had beaten the Pride’s NEWMAC rival. Carr and Lyons were both in quarantine and couldn't share in the moment. But the fellow seniors were there in spirit.

“The entire time, Steph and I were on Facetime watching the game,” Carr said. “Seeing Grace win that was huge. I was just tearing up watching it.”

It was one of many short-handed victories for Springfield during the stretch between January and March. It was during that stretch that Graves really saw her team come together.

“The struggle, the emotions,” Graves said. “Through adversity you can either split or come together.”

Following another long bus ride on Jan. 18, the Pride held off Middlebury 69-56 and then crushed Wellesley 73-18 at home four days later to improve to 16-0, the best start in the program’s Division III history.

The win over a tough NESCAC opponent, along with the undefeated streak continuing, was a moment that set up the Posse for the rest of the season.

“We really had a target on our back,” Lyons said. “We knew that they could have beat us so just knowing we were able to win that game gave us confidence for the rest of the season.”

Alas, Springfield’s undefeated season – came to an end in a hard-fought, 76-72 loss at MIT. The Pride then fell short 56-51 in their rematch at Babson. They went 5-1 over the next few weeks before ending the regular season with a win over Mount Holyoke and a 21-3 record – earning the third seed in the NEWMAC tournament and the right to host a quarterfinal-round game.

The Posse was focused on a new goal: the quest for a NEWMAC championship. They drew Coast Guard in a quarterfinal matchup.

It was a back-and-forth, physical game. The turning point came with 3:40 left in the third quarter. Angela Czeremcha came down with one of her 12 defensive rebounds. Hourihan found Lyons in the corner for a three-point shot. Another three, this time by Hourihan, ignited the Blake Arena crowd. “You could feel the floor shaking,” Czermacha said.

The Pride pulled away to win 76-60 and finish the season undefeated at home.

“In my mind we weren’t going to lose,” Dzindolet said. “That game was electric. It was awesome. We earned it.”

A third matchup with Babson in the conference semifinal was not the charm. Springfield lost 70-53 – and lost the chance for a conference championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The seniors and grad students wondered: Had they just played their last game together?

A New Season

On the final day of February, the entire team and coaching staff gathered in a classroom below Blake Arena to watch the NCAA tournament selection show. They sat, eyes glued to the screen, clutching each others’ hands, waiting to find out if their season would continue.

The bracket regions were unveiled, one by one. The first six were revealed. Springfield was nowhere to be seen.

“We were like, ‘Oh, that's it. That was our last game,’” Carr said. “We started to get emotional.”

The final bracket featured Ithaca as the host. Messiah and Catholic would also play at the site. The host of the selection show paused. There was one team left to reveal.

“A big exhale for the Springfield College Pride,” the host said.

Pandemonium ensued. The Posse had received an at-large bid to play in the NCAA Division III Championship.

“We all got up and started roaring,” Lyons said. “It was like, ‘We’re not done yet!’”

Three days later, they got on I-90 going west. After four hours, they arrived in Ithaca, determined to keep the special season going.

In the first round, Springfield faced an experienced team in Messiah, which had won its conference six years in a row and had been to the Sweet 16 the past three tournaments.

“We told the kids ‘We belong [in the NCAA tournament],’” Graves said. “They believed it, but at the same time they hadn’t experienced it.”

The Posse took their coach’s message to heart – and took a 36-29 lead into halftime in the tournament opener. Led by the speed of Vinton, who had 20 points, the Posse out hustled and outplayed the more experienced Messiah squad.

“I don't know if they had ever been down like that,” Carr said.

Springfield hung on to win 73-68 and advanced to face the host team, Ithaca, in the Round of 32 the following day.

“After the Messiah game they were like, ‘Oh my gosh … I think we do belong’” - Naomi Graves

The next day, Springfield had to contend with both Ithaca and its hostile home crowd. Passionate Ithaca students crowded under the opposing team’s basket, hurling insults and creating distractions for the Pride while they shot free throws.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been chirped harder than that game,” Carr said. “They were coming at Coach, our bench, our parents. I told the team, ‘Listen to yourself and listen to the team. Zone everything else out.’”

Springfield stayed focused – and in the driver’s seat – for most of the game. Then, with a little over two minutes left in the fourth quarter, Ithaca staged an 11-point comeback. The lead shrunk to 64-61 with nine seconds left. A buzzer-beating three point shot by Ithaca sent the game into overtime – and the crowd’s volume into overdrive.

“I looked down the bench. Everyone's faces just dropped,” Carr said. “I turned to them and said ‘Pick up your faces. This game is not over.’”

A clutch shot may have taken the wind out of the Pride, but Graves reminded her team in the huddle that they still had five minutes left to play.

“I’m really proud of our kids for holding their focus,” Graves said. “Many players would fold in those circumstances, but none of them did.”

Overtime was a back-and-forth battle. With the game tied again with 11 seconds left, Springfield had the ball – and the opportunity to get the final basket.

After a deflection out of bounds, Springfield set up a baseline play with 1.1 seconds remaining that freed up Hourihan, who hit a mid-range jumper as time expired to lift the Pride into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2005.

“That game felt like we won the championship,” Lyons said. “That was the game that I will always remember.”

The magic finally wore off for the Pride on April 11 in Lexington, Ky. – when they came up short against Trine University. Springfield finished with a 25-4 record. After the game, the players gathered at the middle of the court and hugged each other. The season was over, but the bond that had formed on that warm September day on the Senior Green would live on. And, along the way, the Posse had captured the campus’ collective imagination. “The Springfield community was amazing. It renewed my faith in why we are who we are,” Graves said.

Everyone from President Mary-Beth Cooper to members of the Springfield women’s gymnastics team – who held signs that spelled out P-O-S-S-E in Ithaca – had traveled to cheer them on.

“It was the most support we had ever had,” Lyons said. “The amount of people who reached out on campus was insane.”

“Women’s sports don’t get as many fans as men's sports, and sometimes that's really difficult for us," Lyons said. "But this year it was different. We were good, and people wanted to watch us."