As the 2018-2019 college basketball season comes to a close, the regular season is complete and seniors have played their final home games. Now, it’s conference tournament time. For the Cabrini Cavaliers women’s basketball team, that means a shot at winning the first ever Atlantic East Conference (AEC) championship.
In past years, the Cavaliers have hosted their conference title games, then in the Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC). After a tough loss on Feb. 16 at Marymount, however, they face an uphill battle to claim the top spot in the AEC’s inaugural year. According to coach Kate Pearson, that doesn’t mean all that much.
“The biggest change is now you have to go on the road to win,” Pearson, in her ninth year at Cabrini, said. “The last couple years when we’ve won the conference championship, we’ve had the luxury of hosting the second round and championship. It’s just a bit more comfortable when you are in your own gym.”
Experience is a key point for this Cavaliers team, who returned 10 players from last year’s CSAC championship-winning team. That includes their leading scorers, Nomi Washington, a senior guard/forward and sophomore forward Kate Lannon. Almost their entire roster has been through this before, so they know what needs to be done.
“We talked about really coming from the defensive end first,” Pearson said. “So when we can play strong defense we can let our offense generate from there. So, no matter what opponent we’re facing we want to take them out of their offensive rhythm and then we just have to be the aggressors and play together. When our team plays together at both ends of the court I think we’re a really tough team to beat.”
The Lady Cavs struggled a bit to start the 2018-’19 campaign, going 5-8 in non-conference play. In the new year, however, they caught fire, running off a 10-game winning streak before losing at Marymount to close the regular season. With a conference win/loss record of 11-1, they head into the tournament as the number two seed.
“We had a couple injuries early that I think affected consistency. At practices we didn’t have our full team and had different lineups going on, and that affected the chemistry at times,” Pearson said of their slow start. “We really really upped our non-conference schedule this year, so with some of the teams we faced, without the consistent play against really tough opponents, it hurt us but I think that playing those really tough opponents also prepared us to go into conference play and win 10 straight.”
While they may not have home court advantage for the whole tournament, they feel they still have the advantage.
“We just played down at Marymount, so if we get through the first round we have that experience under our belt,” Pearson said. “We know what we’re walking into, and hopefully we can come out more aggressively than this last weekend.”
The Cavaliers will host Marywood University in the second round of the AEC tournament on Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. at Nerney Fieldhouse.
