As much as a boisterous home crowd and five determined seniors tried, the Hope College women's basketball team could not muster up another memorable comeback at DeVos Fieldhouse.
Wartburg College (Iowa) ended the Flying Dutch's bid for a repeat national championship, winning their second-round game in the NCAA Division III Tournament, 81-67, on Saturday.
Wartburg (23-6) dashed Hope's title hopes for the second time in four years after breaking open a close game with a 26-point second quarter.
The Flying Dutch answered with a 26-point third quarter of their own but could not pull closer than six points and finished the season with a 26-3 overall record. Wartburg advanced to sectional play next week.
Despite the disappointing ending, Hope head coach Brian Morehouse was glad he coached the group of Flying Dutch he did this season.
"I would not have wanted to go on this journey with anybody but the five women up here," Morehouse said during the post-game press conference that featured all five seniors who went 103-4 over the past four seasons: Claire Baguley, Savannah Feenstra, Kate Majerus, Ella McKinney and his daughter, Meg Morehouse.
"I know it sounds cliche,". Every coach says at the end of the year," Brian Morehouse said. "Not every coach gets to go through it with their daughter and four of her best friends. This journey has been one of the greatest experiences of my life as a coach. These five made it that way."
The five seniors combined for 55 of Hope's 67 points.
McKinney (DeWitt, Michigan / DeWitt HS) netted a game-high 23 points. Baguley (Ada, Michigan / Forest Hills Central) finished with 14 points. Feenstra (Osceola, Indiana / Northwood) added eight points and 10 rebounds.
While shooting 46.4% from the floor for the game (26-56), the Flying Dutch could not overcome 19 turnovers and 30% shooting from 3-point range (6-2).
Wartburg eclipsed the Flying Dutch with 53.8% field-goal shooting (28-52) and 58.3% 3-point shooting with 14 3-points in 24 attempts.
Wartburg sank 6-of-8 3-pointers during the second quarter and raced to a 41-25 halftime lead.
The deficit for Hope grew to 19 points twice early in the second half before the Flying Dutch heated up and trimmed down to six at 58-52 on a Feenstra layup with 52 seconds remaining. Wartburg held off Hope from there.
Five Wartburg scored in double figures, led by Sara Faber's 16 points and 15 apiece for Jaedon Murphy and Britney Young.
"I have so much respect for Coach Morehouse, his program and the way they do it," Wartburg coach Bob Amsberry said. "We thought we might not get into this thing. When the pairings came out, we were really excited. I told our group we get through Friday and have a chance to play the defending national champs on their court, 'What more could you want?' This group just believed in themselves. Our kids executed (the game plan) really, really well."
The loss snapped Hope's nine-game winning streak in the NCAA Tournament that dates back to the 2020 season that was halted in the sectional round by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I'm incredibly proud of this team: the fight, the comeback," Brian Morehouse said. "The crowd was unbelievable. They put us on their back. That's one of the loudest crowds I've ever heard at DeVos. They gave us energy and we needed them. I don't even know how these kids were even walking at the end. They played so many minutes. They played so hard. They went to places I didn't know they could get to cut it down.
"That is a microcosm of their college career, meaning I've never had a group of players improve more as basketball players than the five people up here. I've never had a group that fought harder and really put their imprint on this program: on what fun looks like and what having a work ethic looks like."