March 8, 2020, was the last time Cabrini’s women’s basketball team played a game with fans. Now over 600 days later they played their first game with fans on Nov. 10.
The team opened their season at home against Eastern University in front of a crowd of around 418 fans who were in attendance. Everything was going right for them in their victory despite going down seven to two early in the first quarter. They finished the quarter with a 12 to 3 run. The Cavaliers had an impressive second quarter with a 21-10 run to lead 35-20 after the first half.
The third quarter ended with a 17-8 run and by that point, the game was pretty much decided. The night ended with Cabrini getting a convincing 74-41 victory over Eastern University.
Cabrini dominated in most categories, their substitute players outscored Eastern’s substitute players 27-0. They outscored Eastern in the paint 38-to-16. They also held Eastern to 21.4 percent shooting from the field and from beyond the arc by playing great all around defense. Cabrini was able to force 17 turnovers resulting in 27 points along with scoring 15 points in transition.
On Cabrini’s side, they shot a red hot 56 percent from the field as well as 50 percent from three point territory. Cabrini’s top players were junior forward Miranda Liebtag with 17 points which included three 3-pointers, graduate student guard Ahsley Tutzauer with 14 points, three 3-pointers as well as two steals, sophomore forward Katie Rodriguez with an efficient 14 points, six rebounds, three assists, two blocks and one steal and junior guard Hannah Fenstermacher and sophomore guard Brielle Fitzpatrick both had a big impact on the game scoring seven and 11 points respectfully. Freshman guard/forward Giano Rullo was also able to have a good impact on the game scoring six points and grabbing 11 rebounds in just 18 minutes of playing time.
“There is a lot of excitement and anxiety,” Kate Pearson, head coach, said after the game. “Last season was really tough because we lost the team aspect of the game; there was no real flow of it.”
Due to not having a real season last year, some of the aspects Pearson mentioned she and the team missed was having team dinners, team bus rides and team bonding in general. Pearson is entering her 12th season as the head coach and has been with the team since 2004. Under Pearson, the team has gone 201-98.
A lot of the players are really excited to start the season because they haven’t played as a team in a really long time. One of the team captains, Ashley Tutzauer, said she is really excited to bring a championship back to Cabrini.
“It was really exciting because we had a lot of fans, and it was a great win to start the season,” Tutzauer, said.
Another one of the teams’ captains, junior Miranda Liebtag, is excited about the start of the season because she has yet to experience a full season at Cabrini since her freshman season in 2020 was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was exhilarating,” Liebtag said. “We had a lot of people with my family, support system, and fans that came to the game.”
At the time of writing this article the team is 2-3 and is sixth in the conference standings.
