A season filled with hard work, blood, sweat and tears has come to a disappointing end.

On February 25, 2014, Penn State Brandywine Women’s basketball team lost in the championship game of the Penn State University Athletic Conference to Penn State Beaver.

It was a heck of a ride.  The Lady Lions headed into the PSUAC conference quarterfinals as a four seed.   The Lady Lions beat Penn State York 77- 69 in the quarterfinals to move onto the semifinals. In the semifinals, the team faced off against the number one seed Penn State Fayette.

Brandywine was down 15 points at one point in the game, but that deficit did not keep them down. The team battled back and tied the game at 80 with around one minute left in the second half. Freshman forward Stacey Macarthur lead the team with a whopping 31 points. Macarthur went 13 for 13 from the free throw line.

No matter the level of basketball, free throws will either make or break a team when it comes to winning games.  The final score: Brandywine 86, Fayette 84.

With their big win in the semifinals, Penn State Brandywine women were off to State College to play in the PSUAC championship. The opponent standing in their way: Penn State Beaver.

Penn State Beaver came into the PSUAC tournament as the number 3 seed. They beat the number two seed Penn State Greater Allegheny in their semifinal game.

The championship game did not go the way Brandywine wanted it to go. Penn State Brandywine fell to Penn State Beaver 100 to 74.

Junior guard Myeisha Matos said nerves didn’t help.

“I think that we were way too nervous for the game and we beat ourselves because we were so nervous,” Matos said.  “We focused more about the mistakes and less about the actual game and just playing.”

Senior guard Amanda Congialdi believes the team was lacking one characteristic and that’s why they fell short.

“We needed height,” Congialdi said.  “Last season, we played Greater Allegheny who had the same team. We had good sized big women to get rebounds and for defense and we beat them. If we one decent sized girl to get rebounds this year, there is no doubt that we would have beaten them and won the championship.”

Penn State Brandywine women’s basketball team finished the season with 19 wins and 8 losses. Even though the season did not end with a championship, it still was overall a great season.  The team will return  8 out of its 9 players, so a return to the PSUAC finals will certainly be the goal.

Alex Hunt

Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, ajh5474@psu.edu