This year, the Holy Cross women’s basketball team came away with a 9-21 overall record, 8-14 in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference. The team was led by first-year head coach Tom Robbins and third-year assistant coach Adam Dobrzykowski. With only three seniors taking the court, the team struggled to match last season’s .500 record.
With that, after one year with the Saints, Robbins attributed a lot of the team’s success to his veterans.
“I was proud of the way our seniors approached the season and the way that they carried themselves throughout the season,” Robbins said. “We had good chemistry and very positive practices and that sort of thing over the course of the season.”
Robbins spoke specifically about the team’s attitude during certain losing stretches over the course of the year.
“We had some losing stretches in there that we never got down. You wouldn't have known that we were struggling, really,” he said. “We just stayed the course and had some good highlights throughout the season because of that. We didn’t miss opportunities because we got buried in negativity or anything like that. We overcame.”
The Saints had their largest win streak of the season in late January. The team defeated the likes of Calumet College of St. Joseph, Roosevelt University and Governors State University. The third of those matches were particularly exciting, resulting in an overtime thriller in which the Saints came away with a 68-63 victory against the Jaguars.
Even with their victories, Robbins expressed his anticipation for a lot of hard work ahead.
“I don’t believe we were ever really satisfied,” he said. “I think the situation where we had a lot of big challenges, we met those challenges. Some of those challenges we overcame, you know. We were very proud of the games we played against [University of Indiana-South Bend]. We didn’t win those games, but really gave a team that was ranked in the top 25 in the country a good run in two games. Beating teams like Roseville University twice this year, finishing whatever it was, ninth or 10th, and the conference was good for us this year. I thought so, and I felt like we fought to get that.”
Looking forward to next season, the Saints are anticipating the addition of a few new signings, both incoming freshman and a Junior College (JUCO) transfer.
“We have some nice players coming in next year. We have another guard coming in from Indianapolis, from Hamilton Southeastern High School,” Robbins said. “We have a nice mobile center coming in from Martinsville High School in southern Indiana. We have got a local player coming in as a JUCO transfer and then a dynamic wing that’s about 5-foot-10, can create her own shot, shoot two, three and guard multiple positions, a player coming in from Kansas City. So, we like what we’ve added this next year. We’re going to get bigger and we’re going to get more athletic, which is something we desperately needed this last year.”
Robbins said he and his revamped squad are looking forward to hitting the ground running come the fall.
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