Aiden Konold ’26
Chief Sports Editor
ANN ARBOR, MICH. — As the first quarter of the NCAA Tournament game between the No. 15 Holy Cross Crusaders and the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines wound down, Wolverine Sophomore Guard Mila Holloway knocked down a three-pointer to extend her team’s lead to 27-6.
With each Michigan bucket, the home crowd roared. Yellow Wolverine jerseys and hoodies flooded Crisler Center. One fan wore a Michigan-themed stormtrooper costume. A Michigan student dressed in a costume that resembled The Man with the Yellow Hat, Curious George’s dad. Yellow lights shone down the railings after each made three-pointer. Yellow was everywhere, and the fans let their Wolverines know it.
From the start of the game, much like they controlled the crowd, it was the Wolverines who controlled the pace. In the first half alone, Michigan forced 12 Holy Cross turnovers and scored 10 points off those turnovers en route to an 83-48 win over the Crusaders.
The fast pace that the Wolverines played with is something that second-year Holy Cross head coach Candice Green predicted ahead of her team’s matchup with the ninth-ranked team in the country.
“Obviously, they’ve got a lot of talent on that team and they play fast. So for us… it’s going to be hard for us to control the pace. For us, it’s just going to be managing, right?” said Coach Green in yesterday’s press conference. “And then also, it’s understanding they’re going to [cause us to] turn [it] over. It’s how do we respond to those turnovers, how do we not let them bunch up, and basically just how do we keep our composure.”
While the Wolverines outscored the Crusaders by 21 points in the first quarter, Holy Cross equaled Michigan’s 16 points in the second quarter, and shot 57.1 percent from three-point land in that second stanza, a remarkable showing against the ninth ranked team in the country.
“I think that there was definitely a shock in the first quarter, and we kind of came back in the huddle and we said, 0-0. Everybody buys into that,” said Holy Cross Senior Guard Kaitlyn Flanagan. “… I think just having that next-play mentality, that’s definitely something we draw from Mary[-Elizabeth Donnelly] and her leadership. I think that is what we drew on to have a little bit more success in the second and third.”
In the third quarter, Michigan outscored Holy Cross by just two points. The Crusaders shot 40 percent from three, and turned the ball over just three times in the third.
“We had a lot of miscommunications that quarter just in the screening actions, allowing slips, and just not playing hard enough,” Holloway said. “Coach has been harping on us doing the one percent more, diving on the loose balls, doing the extra for the 50/50, boxing out, and we weren’t doing that in the second quarter… that’s something we’ve got to work out moving forward.”
In the fourth quarter, the Wolverines bookended a game that the Crusaders kept near even in the second and third quarters with 26 points. Their goal entering the night was to hold Holy Cross to under 14 points each quarter, and force turnovers to push the pace of their offense.
“I think we sped them up, and really started the game with great pace. We have incredible, incredible scorers in Olivia Olson, who was named an All-American this week. Obviously she’s one of the best scorers in the country, and so was Syla Swords,” said Coach Barnes Arico. “But when you have the balanced attack of Mila Holloway having a night like [that] and Brooke [Quarles Daniels] adding contributions and then Te’Yala [Delfosse] coming in and being another double-figure scorer… our versatility, it’s hard to defend.”
While the Crusaders held Michigan Sophomore Guard and All-Big Ten honoree Olivia Olson to 12 points on six-of-14 shooting, the Wolverines’ balanced attack proved too difficult to match.
Holloway scored 20 points on five-of-nine from three-point range, Swords scored 13 on five-of-seven shooting from the field, and Delfosse scored 10 in the Michigan win.
“When you go down 20 in 10 minutes, it’s, ‘How do we play even?’ That was a big thing for us, is let’s play even. We’re playing scared, we’re playing nervous, and we’re not focused,” said Coach Green. “Again, the environment, the moment, the pressure, right, of being a senior, there’s a lot of things that go into why maybe they started that way. But I was proud of them. They were able to collect, refocus and kind of just go step by step, play by play, and just play together.”
With 2:09 left in the game, Coach Green subbed out Seniors Simone Foreman, Flanagan, Mary-Elizabeth Donnelly, and Meg Cahalan. Their teammates greeted them with hugs and shed tears on the bench. The Holy Cross fans, who traveled over 700 miles to Ann Arbor from Worcester, gave a standing ovation to show their support for a group of seniors that have appeared in the NCAA Tournament in three out of the last four years.
“The four of us always have a little huddle before every game where we all say, ‘This is our senior moment,’ and I think after the championship game, the four of us all came together and did that same exact hug and said the same exact thing,” said Donnelly. “It was like, ‘This is the best senior moment ever.’ ”
Donnelly scored seven points, which Cahalan matched, on three-of-five shooting in the Crusader loss. Flanagan totaled 11, and Foreman added eight. No matter the result, this team will always hold a special place in Coach Green’s heart.
“I think the first thing is just family, like those [girls] genuinely love each other. Accountability, that’s how you know they’re a real family. They can say the hard truths,” Coach Green said. “Then, just their ability to fight adversity. Each of them has their own story, and it hasn’t been easy for any of them, and I’m just really proud that they have kept this team together, and obviously their legacy is going to be up there. Three championships? That’s a pretty good college career.”
Featured image courtesy of WTNH.com
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