On Saturday, fans in attendance at the Gentile Center almost witnessed the upset of the year in the horizon league. Instead they were observers to a heartbreaking defeat suffered by Loyola's woman's basketball team.
The 6-18 Ramblers took on the class of the Horizon League on Saturday giving Wisconsin-Green Bay everything they had in the one-point loss to the first place Phoenix, losing 52-51 on a Green Bay layup with 5.4 seconds left in the game.
The game was tight the whole way with Green Bay unable to shake Loyola in the early minutes of the half.
Green Bay's biggest lead of the half was six points at 14-8. The Ramblers answered with a 9-0 run led by sophomore Jessica Hylton's five straight points. An Elyse VanBogaert layup and a jumper by Keisha Collins put the Ramblers up 17-14 with 7:07 left.
Green Bay quickly answered with a 6-0 run of their own to establish a lead late in the first half.
A Hylton 3-pointer pulled the Ramblers back even with Green Bay with 3:19 left in the half, and Collins' turnaround jumper in the paint with five seconds left made the score 22-22 going into the halftime break.
Loyola held Green Bay to shooting 23.8 percent on five made shots for the first half and was virtually even in every category. The disparity in free throws was the difference in the game, with Loyola only attempting two in the first half while Green-Bay took 14, making 12.
"At halftime, we talked about making skip passes and doing a better drop on connecting on our high-low," head coach Shannon Reidy said. "They play a Gap D, which crowds the lane and makes it difficult to score inside, forcing you to make your shots on the outside."
The second half continued with the same tightness from the first half. A 3-pointer by sophomore Maggie McCloskey gave the Ramblers a three-point lead two minutes into the second half.
Green Bay re-established its lead with a 7-0 run with the Ramblers trailing 32-29 with 16 minutes left in the game.
Loyola continued to fight back and cut into Green Bay's lead with baskets by freshman Brittany Boeke and Hylton to make the score 37-33 at the midway point of the half.
Three times in the second half Green Bay stretched the lead to more than seven points, with the largest at eight. Loyola refused to go away, pushing the Phoenix to the very end.
Loyola's final push came with just less than two minutes to go and down by seven. McCloskey and Hylton traded off on a pair of 3-pointers to pull Loyola within one point with 59 seconds left.
On the next Green Bay trip down the court, VanBogaert made a key steal to give the Ramblers one final shot. VanBogaret then went on the offensive and got fouled with 11 seconds left.
VanBogaert calmly sank both free throws to give the Ramblers a one-point lead.
On the pursuing trip down Kati Harty hit a wide open Lavesa Glover for an uncontested layup to give Green-Bay the lead for good.
Loyola had one final shot to win as Collins brought the ball down but was stopped in the paint by the tough Green Bay defense.
"I couldn't be prouder of these kids," Reidy said. "I told them after the game we beat that team for 39 minutes and 55 seconds. Green Bay averages 75 points a game, and we held them to 52. We just have to stay positive and grow from this."
This was the second close loss of the week for Loyola, who lost 83-78 to Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Thursday night. The Ramblers gave up a Gentile Center record 45 points to Milwaukee center Traci Edwards, but still had a shot to send it into overtime on a Collins 3-point attempt that came up just short.
"We are having problems at the end of games, and I contribute that to our youth," Reidy said. "It's just simple mistakes on defense that you would not see [from] an older team."
Loyola will be on the road next week for its final regular season conference games, traveling to third-place Wright State and last-place Detroit on Thursday and Saturday, respectively.
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