It was quite a weekend for St. Norbert basketball. Both the men’s and women’s teams captured Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference tournament championships to earn automatic bids to the NCAA Division 3 National Tournament.
On Saturday afternoon at the Mulva Sports Center, the St. Norbert women defeated Wisconsin Lutheran 48-42. The regular season league champs trailed 24-20 at the break but outscored the Warriors 14-5 in the third quarter, sparked by senior Olivia De Cleene. She scored 14 of her game high 16 points in the second half. The 5-4 guard also pulled down a team high 9 rebounds, dished out four assists and had three steals. Chloe Gruszynski added 10 as SNC won it’s 16th straight game to improve to 24-3 on the season. Head Coach Amanda Leonhard-Perry has guided the Knights to the D3 tournament in her third year at the helm and it’s the first national tournament appearance for St. Norbert since 2017.
The St. Norbert men also defeated Wisconsin Lutheran but had to do it on the road Sunday afternoon. Trailing by 9 at the break, the Green Knights put up a big second half to secure the 71-59 victory. Carter Gebler scored 16 of his 20 points after the break. Michael Payant, Nikolai Jamison and Evan Glaser all chipped in with 14 as the Knights picked up their 12th straight victory to reach 19-7 on the year. This was the first time St. Norbert won a conference tournament title on the road since 1984. They earned their 10th trip to the Division 3 tournament, the 8th under Head Coach Gary Grzesk.
Both teams will learn who and where they’ll play when the D3 brackets are released on Monday afternoon.
In hockey, the season has come to an end for the Green Knights men’s team as they fell at Aurora 4-3 in the NCHA Peters Cup Semifinals. SNC led 2-0 after the first period but couldn’t hang on finishing the year at 17-9-2. The women’s team will play on after sweeping Marian in the NCHA Harris Cup quarterfinals, winning 7-1 on Friday and 3-2 on Saturday. The 14th ranked women are now 19-5-3 and travel to regular season champion Adrian for a semifinal game this Friday.
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