The Chargers went down fighting last night, ending their season with a loss at Tiffin University in the quarterfinals of the GLIAC tournament. The No. 3 seed Dragons of Tiffin topped the No. 6 seeded Hillsdale, 68-58.
Junior Lea Jones led the Charger’s offensive effort with 12 points. Senior captain Chelsea Harrison and sophomore Angela Bisaro each added 10.
The Chargers held a slight lead for most of the first half until the Dragons tied the game and went ahead with 2:26 left in the period on a pair of foul shots. Besides one more tie, Tiffin led for the rest of the game, but the Dragons couldn’t put the Chargers away until the end of the game.
“We gave it all we had against Tiffin and played our hearts out,” senior captain Katie Bildner said.
Hillsdale scored more points in the paint than Tiffin (24 to 16), while Tiffin barely out-shot them from the 3-point line (4 to 3). For the most part, the teams were evenly matched, and it was a closely-fought game on both sides of the ball.
However, one area in which the Chargers were obviously outplayed was points off turnovers Tiffin scored a whopping 21 compared to Hillsdale’s six. The Dragon’s scored 15 points off turnovers in the first half alone.
“We played our hearts out and we played extremely hard, but the biggest reason they won was that they converted. We scored more in the paint than they did, and neither team was great form the free throw line, but they converted turnovers into layups,” head coach Claudette Charney said. “I am so proud of how hard we played. It was a war and a very hard-fought battle up until the end.”
The Chargers also missed key foul shots when they were down by five, six or seven points that could have changed the momentum of the game, Charney said.
Hillsdale had a successful season, despite last night’s tournament loss. They finished tied for third place in a very competitive South Division. Despite losing starter sophomore guard Marissa DeMott to a knee injury a few weeks ago, the Charger women have improved and fought hard in the last leg of the season,
“We definitely had some highlights,” Charney said. “Beating then-25th-ranked Michigan Tech at home was one that comes to mind right away. Going into this game we were without one of our starters [DeMott]. We had a lot of freshman step up and contribute, which was a bright spot.”
The Chargers will graduate three starters in seniors Bildner, Liz Brannick, and Harrison.
“It will be hard to lose our seniors because they were part of a conference championship team [in 2009] and they will be hard to replace,” Charney said.
Likewise, it will not be easy for the seniors to leave their team and a memorable final season of basketball.
“It hurts to lose and hurts even more to end a 14-year career,” Bildner said. “But I ended it with an amazing group of girl that have become my family away from home.”
The future looks bright for Charger women’s basketball. Jones will lead next year’s team with another new recruiting class. Three girls have already signed.
