As a resigned Maria Marchesano collected herself at a Corteva Coliseum press conference table next to two of her glassy-eyed stars, following Purdue Fort Wayne’s 76-63 loss to Green Bay in Tuesday’s Horizon League championship game, the Mastodons’ head coach couldn’t control the treadmill of repetitive thoughts circulating through her mind.
“It was a good game until it wasn’t,” started one.
That, it was.
Behind Sydney Freeman, who scored 13 first-half points, Jordan Reid, who offered eight in her usual sparkplug-off-the-bench role, and a 7-for-12 effort from three-point range that appeared to be a well-reviewed sequel to Purdue Fort Wayne’s 15-for-28 line in Monday’s semifinal win over Cleveland State, the Mastodons found themselves in a 40-40 tie with the defending champions at the break.
There was also plenty of precedent for Marchesano’s assessment. After all, Purdue Fort Wayne and Green Bay played two of the best, and most consequential, games of the HL’s regular season.
The first, a 67-66 PFW home victory on December 7th, was led by Lauren Ross’ six three-pointers and unofficially announced the Mastodons’ growth from “fun story” to “title contender.” On March 1st, Green Bay took a 68-63 overtime result at the Kress Events Center in what was, essentially, an HL regular season championship game.
Tuesday’s rubber match seemed to be on a similar instant classic trajectory, until late in the third quarter.
After Reid’s free throw gave the Dons a 51-50 edge with 2:56 left in the period, Phoenix center Jenna Guyer scored eight of the game’s next 12 points, including a pair of three-pointers. Roughly nine game minutes later, Green Bay led 72-55 and had begun to plan their on-court championship celebration.
“They just keep doing their job, they keep outworking you, they keep hitting the boards, they keep muscling you down low, and that’s what they did until they pulled away,” Marchesano lamented. “Unfortunately, we didn’t punch back. They made that third quarter run, and they pulled away.”
“It was a great game until it wasn’t,” she repeated.
“They went on that run, and I don’t think we had anything to answer for it, and we kind of let them continue it throughout the end of the game,” all-tournament selection Amellia Bromenschenkel offered. “We needed to bounce back, but we couldn’t.”
Marchesano frequently returned to praising a Green Bay program that she called “a machine,” a status she attributed to the Phoenix’s core “playing together for longer than most programs ever have kids play together.”
Perhaps the most impressive thing about that machine is the way it adapts and evolves, slowly learning its opponent’s pressure points and choking them off. Ross, who starred in Purdue Fort Wayne’s stunner in December? Five points on Tuesday. Bromenschenkel, who led the way during the overtime defeat in Wisconsin? Three.
In other words, if everything goes well, a great team like PFW has a chance of taking down Green Bay. However, they’ll probably have to find a different answer the next time around.
“They contain the ball extremely well,” Marchesano said. “We’re a team that gets downhill pretty easily on most teams. Against Green Bay, we don’t get into the paint too much. Another thing they do, they take away our post entry angles.”
“They’re so well connected because they have great chemistry, they’ve been together so long and they play so hard,” she reiterated. “And they’re strong kids. Those are big, strong kids. So it’s just a perfect storm with their defense.”
For a time, Freeman and Jazzlyn Linbo (11 points) were enough to keep the second-seeded Dons afloat. However, those options also dissolved as the game proceeded, and Green Bay’s 36-20 rebounding advantage didn’t allow that sort of margin for error.
The result was a crushing blow for a veteran-caked program that, by most accounts, has pieced together the best season in its history. PFW enjoyed a school-record 17-game winning streak that spanned from Thanksgiving until February, most of the Mastodons’ 25 victories, a number that also tops the team record books.
However, between Tuesday’s result and the March 1st game in Green Bay, Purdue Fort Wayne’s trophy case remains vacant. Instead, the Dons will need to settle for something that, superficially, resembles their 2023-24 season: close but no cigar in Indianapolis, followed by hopeful progress in a second-tier postseason tournament.
“Take a couple days, relax, get some rest, then let’s get rejuvenated to make another postseason run,” Marchesano said. “We had a lot of fun last year playing in the postseason, and we’re excited to get another opportunity.”
“This was a special season, this game doesn’t define the season that we’ve had,” Reid added. “We’re going to keep growing, and we’re going to keep grinding, and let this season be a foundational piece for legacies to come.”
