HOLLAND, Mich. - The Illinois Wesleyan University women's basketball team saw its season come to a close with a heartbreaking 72-69 loss to No. 1 Hope College in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday night, March 7, at DeVos Fieldhouse. The Titans finish the season with a 20-9 overall record and are set to return 13 of the 14 players on this year's roster.

"I am incredibly proud of the young women that played tonight," Head Coach Mia Smith said. "Our team played with everything they had, for as long as they could against the No. 1 team in the country."

A crowd of over 2,000 got behind the Flying Dutch with the Titans holding a 65-58 with 4:41 to play, and Hope responded with an 11-3 run to even the score at 67 all with 2:19 remaining. Junior Kendall Sosa (Normal, Ill.-Normal Community) hit a jumper with 1:59 left, but Hope responded with a jumper at the 1:11 mark to even the score at 69-69. 

The Flying Dutch went up 71-69 on a layup off an inbounds play and later added a free throw to go up 72-69 with 12.5 seconds to play. The Titans put up a game-tying attempt, but it was blocked as the buzzer sounded.

Illinois Wesleyan finished the game 24-for-54 from the floor, 7-for-18 from three, and 14-for-16 from the free throw line. The Titans' 69 points were the most allowed by the Flying Dutch this season. Hope finished 27-of-64 from the floor, good for a 42.2 clip, and hit eight threes in 26 tries.

Sosa poured in 32 points, the most allowed to a single play by Hope this season, and finished the year with the third-highest scoring average by a Titan in program history (21.3 ppg). Senior Sydney Shanks (Bloomington, Ill.-Central Catholic) scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds in her final game donning the Green and White, while junior Samantha Munroe (St. Charles, Ill.-St. Charles East) added 11 points. 

Junior Riley Brovelli (Oglesby, Ill.-LaSalle-Peru) grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds to go along with four assists, three blocks, and two assists. 

Hope got the crowd going early, taking a 13-4 lead with 5:53 to go in the first period, before sophomore Kaia Bowen (Rantoul, Ill.-St. Thomas More) found Brovelli for a bucket to get the Titans on track. Sosa followed with a three-pointer and Shanks added a jumper on a dime from Munroe before another Sosa triple gave IWU its first lead of the game, 14-13, with 3:18 remaining in the quarter.

Illinois Wesleyan's two-point lead carried over into the second period, where the Titans and Flying Dutch traded runs before going into the break with the score 34-32 in favor of IWU.

The Titans used a 6-0 run over a two and a half minute span to move ahead by four midway through the third period. Hope caught a few breaks to cut Illinois Wesleyan's lead to three, 55-52, into the final quarter.

Bowen swiped a pass and layed it in, before Brovelli kicked out to sophomore Brooke Lansford (Leawood, Kan.-Blue Valley West) for three to give IWU a 65-58 advantage with 4:41 to go.

Illinois Wesleyan ran out of steam over the final minutes, as Hope closed out the game on a run to survive the upset-minded Titans.