CHICAGO — The Loyola girls basketball team wasn’t playing its best coming into this week’s GCAC Red tournament.
With his team on a two-game losing streak, Ramblers coach Jeremy Schoenecker said he talked to the players about wiping the slate clean before the tournament.
But Loyola, the second seed, found itself trailing seventh-seeded St. Joseph early in the fourth quarter on Wednesday in the opening round at Mother McAuley. It wasn’t until Liz Satter’s three-point play with 4 minutes, 47 seconds remaining that the Ramblers found themselves in control. They went on to earn a 44-39 win and advanced to the semifinals at 7 p.m. Thursday.
“It got dicey there,” said Satter, the team’s leader in scoring and rebounding. “We lost our energy in the second and third quarter. I don’t know why. But we ended strong.”
The 6-2 Satter scored 12 of her game-best 17 points in the fourth quarter, and the junior forward’s layup off a pass from senior forward Sarah Elston gave Loyola a 40-32 lead with 3:38 left.
“We have some phenomenal passers on our team, and they were all able to get me the ball,” Satter said. “We sometimes struggle to make the extra pass, but we did that well [Wednesday].”
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Satter said Schoenecker’s message after the team’s 48-31 loss to Maine South on Jan. 28 was to start fresh.
“We didn’t want to focus on the losses,” she said. “He told us we were 0-0, and [the conference tournament] was the beginning of a new season. No one remembers you for the regular season, only what you do in the playoffs.”
Schoenecker said several of the Ramblers’ losses were to teams they should have beaten.
“We’ve been very up and down,” he said. “We would get on a roll, play with some of the better teams in the area. Then, we would lose a game to someone we have no business losing to.
“Our hope for the tournament was for a fresh start.”
Notes
* Elston, who missed three weeks with a concussion and was playing only her seventh game in 2015, finished with seven points. She had two assists in the final four minutes Wednesday. Junior guard Maeve Stanton added six points.
* St. Joseph junior forward Amber Brooks scored 16 points.
* The GCAC Red will have a new look for the 2015-16 season. The division will feature conference veterans Loyola, Mother McAuley, St. Ignatius and Trinity as well as league newcomers Fenwick, Providence and Montini.