Aiden Konold ’26
Chief Sports Editor
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Though the No. 15 Holy Cross Crusaders lost to the No. 2 seed Michigan Wolverines three Fridays ago in the 2026 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, the team’s group of four seniors accomplished something rare in the Patriot League.
In their four years on the Hill, Seniors Kaitlyn Flanagan, Meg Cahalan, Simone Foreman, and Mary-Elizabeth Donnelly won three Patriot League Tournament championships. The lone season that they fell short of winning the league championship came last year, in their Junior season, a transition year under then-interim head coach Candice Green.
Foreman also missed nine games last season due to a posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) tear in her right knee. At the time Foreman suffered her injury last season, she ranked top five in the Patriot League in free throw percentage, scoring, steals per game, rebounds per game, double-doubles, and field goal percentage.
It took just two years, though, for Coach Green and this year’s group of seniors to get the Crusaders back atop the Patriot League and into the NCAA Tournament.
***
On Aug. 20, 2024, when Maureen Magarity stepped down as the Holy Cross women’s basketball team’s head coach to spend more time with her family in Vermont, uncertainty surrounded the Holy Cross women’s basketball program.
While Magarity moved to Burlington, Vt. where her husband, John Becker, serves as the head coach of the University of Vermont men’s basketball team, Crusader fans questioned who could fill the void she left behind. After all, Magarity led Holy Cross to two Patriot League titles and two NCAA Tournament appearances in her four seasons at the helm. Plus, whoever stepped in to take over for Magarity would have to do so without Bronagh Power-Cassidy, Cara McCormack, Janelle Allen, and Callie Wright, who all graduated that May. That’s 39.6 points per game gone in an instant.
The day after Magarity stepped down, Holy Cross named Green its interim head coach. Green served as an assistant under Magarity during the 2023-24 season. Before arriving in Worcester, Green served as an interim head coach and an assistant coach at Fordham, and spent four seasons at her alma mater, Colgate, as an assistant and director of operations.
On Crossports, an online message board run by Holy Cross sports fans, users asked whether the Crusaders would be able to keep their ’24-25 commits. In the age of NIL and the transfer portal, it is not uncommon for even a team’s current players to seek out other opportunities when a coaching change occurs.
“Credit them and their camaraderie… I think that team, especially this senior class, really loves each other and really wanted to stay with each other and do the full four years here,” Coach Green said of her team. “We talk a lot about [how] each one of them probably could have left and made some pretty good money… but I think that speaks to… their camaraderie and I think it also speaks to just Holy Cross and the value of that education and the experience they have there. It’s a hard one to want to leave… so I’m super excited that all of ’em stayed together and their legacy at Holy Cross is a pretty big one.”
When Green was promoted in the summer of 2024, only three players on the Holy Cross roster had regularly started in games. But still, Green guided the Crusaders to a 19-12 record, and an 11-7 record in regular season Patriot League play. The Crusaders ended their first season under Coach Green in Bethlehem, Pa. at the hands of the Lehigh Mountain Hawks, the ultimate 2024-25 Patriot League champions, in the league semifinals.
Earlier last season, ahead of the Crusaders’ regular season home matchup against the Colgate Raiders, Holy Cross Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics, Kit Hughes, lifted Coach Green’s interim title and named her the team’s permanent head coach. To that point, Coach Green went 16-10 with a 9-6 Patriot League record.
Hughes addressed the move by celebrating the impact that Coach Green had on Holy Cross student-athletes, while also saying, “The best is yet to come!”
In year two, Green proved Hughes right. Her Crusaders won 23 games, and earned the No. 2 seed in the Patriot League Tournament just a season after finishing fifth. She developed Cahalan and Donnelly into two of her team’s most vital pieces after minimal experience as starters their freshman and sophomore seasons. Donnelly started two games in that span, both coming in her freshman season, while Cahalan made no starts in her first two seasons at Holy Cross.
In their first two seasons, Donnelly and Cahalan soaked in as much as they could from the upperclassmen.
“When we played at Iowa, I remember Bronagh Power-Cassidy, Janelle Allen, and Cara McCormack, they competed with Iowa for 40 minutes. It was definitely a game,” Cahalan said. “Just having that perspective and seeing them and their attitudes towards the game has kind of helped us come in and know that we can compete in these types of games. And obviously, we try to put that on our younger players and inspire them to hopefully continue the tradition of coming to March Madness and competing with these big teams. But, yeah, it’s very interesting for me, and I’m very grateful to now be on the other side of that, hopefully setting the tone for those underclassmen because I know I was once that underclassman looking up to my seniors.”
This season, after revamping herself into more of a post player and relying less on the three-ball, Cahalan averaged 15.1 points and four rebounds per game. She took 46 fewer shots from three-point range this season than she did a season ago, and shot 46.9% from the field, her highest mark as a starter. She scored 20+ points in eight games this season.
Donnelly, meanwhile, averaged 7.8 points and 6.5 rebounds and shot 35.3% from three-point land in 27.8 minutes per game this season.
“She’s somebody that every time we’re on this stage has competed and played really well,” Coach Green said ahead of her team’s matchup with the Wolverines.
But earlier in the season, there were doubts that the Crusaders would even compete for another NCAA Tournament berth. Holy Cross entered the 2025-26 season as the No. 4 team in the Patriot League Preseason Poll.
After taking down Brown at home on November 12 on Foreman’s second game-winner in her team’s first three games, the Crusaders endured a three-game losing streak, which included a 23-point loss to UMass at home.
Earlier this season, Coach Green talked about her team’s struggles rebounding and maintaining energy for the duration of games.
“The whole season, you’re gonna be tired, right? You got to be able to play through that fatigue, so we’ll do a better job of preparing them and preparing their bodies, but yeah, we got to be able to play with that urgency, that pop, that ready to go,” Coach Green told The Spire in November. “We had some really great possessions at the end there of the Brown game, where I’m like, ‘Where was this the whole game?’ If we played like this the whole game, we might not be in this situation.”
As the season progressed, the Crusaders played with more of a spark. The seniors’ desires to cap off their careers with a third NCAA Tournament berth intensified. Holy Cross rode a nine-game winning streak heading into their matchup with Michigan. After starting the season 3-6, the Crusaders won 20 of their last 24 games to secure their spot in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
“Yeah, it means so much,” Flanagan said of having the opportunity to play in her third NCAA Tournament. “Going into your senior year, everybody is like, ‘I want to go out on this high note.’ Everybody that plays basketball thinks that. Not everybody gets to do it. I think that as a group, we were just so, so excited to get to come to Michigan, be a 15 seed, play a 2 seed, and have that super positive ending to what was a really positive four years. You don’t always get to end it the way that it was the whole time, but we got to, and I think we’re all super grateful for that. We’re grateful for each other, and we’re grateful that we got to do it with this team and these coaches.”
During their 20-4 stretch, the Crusaders took down the Vermont Catamounts. It marked the first time in the seniors’ four-year careers that they beat Vermont. Holy Cross’s gritty 46-45 win was a long way from a 34-64 loss during the seniors’ freshman season. The 2025-26 Vermont team that Holy Cross took down was perhaps the best they faced. The Catamounts went 27-8, and earned a No. 14 seed in this season’s NCAA Tournament.
“Those kids are kids that love to have relationships. We’ve built a lot of trust, we’ve spent a lot of time together outside of the court, and I think for me, I think that’s a reason why… we can have hard conversations. We can talk about the things we need to get better at. We can go through adversity together,” Coach Green said of her team. “We were talking pregame, and I was like, ‘Remember Marist? Remember that? That was terrible.’ But this is a group that can fight through adversity and come out the other end because they believe in each other. They believe in me… they’re a great group. I’m super proud of them. We always believed it as coaches, but kids are kids, right? Just to get them to believe was really special for our group.”
In the Patriot League Championship Game at home against Lehigh, the Crusaders’ senior class played perhaps their best collective game.
“I’ll always look back at winning this year against Lehigh, doing it on our home court, doing it as the four seniors. Every senior had a great game that game,” Cahalan said. “I could not have written a better ending for my Patriot League career. So definitely that moment. It was definitely the proudest I have ever been of myself and my teammates in a game. Probably when I look back at my four years, I’ll always just remember that one as a little bit extra special.”
Cahalan, Flanagan, and Foreman scored 16 points apiece and Donnelly added 12. Flanagan, who has started at point guard since her freshman year, notched nine assists. Foreman recorded a double-double with 12 rebounds to go along with her 16 points.
“I think the championship this year against Lehigh, it was just very full circle for us, and we just did everything that we always talked about, and I feel like it was so balanced between the seniors,” Foreman said. “It was just a great win, and it was a great full-circle moment.”
This group will always be remembered for the winning legacy they established on the Hill. Three Patriot League Championships and NCAA Tournament appearances in a span of four years requires a group that is dedicated to their craft.
“They’re just a special group. Let me tell you something. Talk about, each one of those kids brings something different and my love for them goes so beyond basketball. They set standards for us, they come in and work hard, they hold people accountable, they love each other, right?” Coach Green said. “There’s just so many different things that they do down the line. They care about the game as much as we do as coaches. We come up with scouts, and I’ve been on teams where it’s like, ‘Oh, I got to test you, I got to do all these things, right, to make sure that you’re putting in the work.’ These are the kind of kids that are like, ‘Coach, what game should I watch?’ So just dealing with that level of dedication and care is really special for me. And then they’re also fun to be around.”
Featured image courtesy of Holy Cross Athletics
Leave a Reply