NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — After two straight years of heartbreak, the Loyola women’s basketball program successfully defends its home court in the opening rounds of the NAIA Tournament.
The No. 6 Wolfpack defeated No. 3 Georgetown College 79-74 in the second round begind a career night from Caitlin Travis.
The freshman scored a career-high 25 points in 30 minutes of action, knocking down 50% (8-16) of her shots.
Travis powers Loyola to its first Round of 16 appearance since 2014.
“It’s this awesome feeling, and they’ve worked so hard and this is a is a journey. They start working in August and they know how hard it is from the beginning to the end and I just told them today, I just said, ‘You just got to fight, you’ve just got to fight.’ I said, ‘I think we’re built for this kind of situation.’ And when you got to play multiple games and the fatigue is wearing on you and we have a lot of depth, but we’re built for this and we fortunately proved that, said Loyola head basketball copach Kellie Kennedy.
Taylor Thomas followed with 17 points and 7 rebounds while Sandra Cannady added an 11 point, 11 rebound double-double in their final games at The Den.
Loyola improves to 26-4 overall.
The Wolfpack now advances to the Round of 16 where they will face the winner of No. 2 Carroll and No. 7 Oregon Tech Thursday night at 8 p.m.
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