The women’s basketball team (26-7) is headed to the NAIA National Tournament in Sioux City, Iowa, following its WHAC Tournament Championship victory over Davenport on Monday.

 

But the Golden Eagles still have their eye on one more tournament championship trophy.

 

“We’ve beaten Davenport who (was) the No. 3 team in the county,” head coach Carla Fles said. “If we can beat them twice, I don’t see why we can’t beat (No. 2) Shawnee State or (No. 1) Morningside.”

 

No. 7 Cornerstone, a No. 2 seed in the national tournament, will face Cardinal Stritch (Wis.) in the first round on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.

 

The last time Cornerstone and Cardinal Stritch met up was earlier this season on Dec. 6 at Cornerstone when the Golden Eagles won 78-57.

 

“They always are a good program,” Fles said. “We got a lot of fastbreak opportunities [last time]. We just played very well against them to get the win. We can go on a little bit of confidence that we beat them the first time too. I thought that our experience outplayed them, but now it’s two months later and I’m sure they’ve improved. Having to beat a team for the second time around isn’t easy either.”

 

Cardinal Stritch (20-10)  won the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament, beating Trinity International 80-71.

 

Until this season, Cornerstone had not beaten Cardinal Stritch since Nov. 13, 2004. Last season Cornerstone lost at Cardinal Stritch, 68-63.

 

Cornerstone is 2-1 against Davenport this season, and after Monday’s conference championship victory, assistant coach Mike Riemersma is confident the Golden Eagles can stack up with any team in the nation.

 

“Any time you play that caliber of competition, it’s going to make you better,” he said. “So I feel that playing teams like that will help us.”

 

“The question is which team is going to put the best five games together in a row to make that run, and we want to be that team,” Riemersma said. “In the tournament one team gets hot, and that’s all it can take sometimes.”

 

Heading into the tournament, Cornerstone has won five games in a row and is 16-2 since January. And Fles thinks the Golden Eagles may still have room to improve.

 

“I’m not sure if we were peaking yet going into the WHAC Tournament,” she said. “I’m still not 100 percent sure if we’re playing our best basketball. I think we kind of saw that against Davenport. I think we’re about there now.”

 

Late in the season, Cornerstone racked up an impressive resume of wins that came down to the final moments of each game, including a game-winning runner in the lane by Jenna Plewes against Aquinas recently.

 

“We’ve had close games down the stretch,” Riemersma said. “Those are games earlier in the year that we were losing that now we are winning, and I feel that our preparation in being in those games early in the season has prepared us that now we know how to win those close games. That’s very important particularly when you get into any tournament situation.”

 

Riemersma said he believes Cornerstone’s 66-54 loss at Aquinas on Jan. 28 was the turning point.

 

“Sometimes when it goes bad, it just goes really bad, and out of that, you can turn it around,” he said. “That was probably the worst that we played all year, and I think that it woke us up a little bit and gave us a sense of urgency.”

 

Cornerstone’s three senior captains – Jenna Plewes, Kara Overbeek and Tami Thelen – have been the driving force behind the team all season long.

 

“The seniors are not just satisfied with getting to the tournament, and they won’t let the team be satisfied with getting to the tournament,” Riemersma said. “They want to make a deep run.”

 

The coaching staff expressed its complete confidence in these three players.

 

“I think there comes a point when you’ve played in enough games and you’ve been in situations at this level that you know what you need to do,” Riemersma said, “and they know what they need to do.”

 

“They want the ball in their hands at crunch time, and they’ve come through,” he said. “That’s what

you expect seniors to do, and I think that type of attitude is going to carry over to the tournament because they’re hungry, and this is their last shot.”

 

Fles said she is confident her team can compete well against any style of basketball, including up-tempo teams like Davenport and half-court-grind-it-out teams like Aquinas.

 

“We’ve played a wide variety of teams and have done well against the majority of them,” she said.

 

Furthermore, Riemersma said Fles is the best in the business at preparing her team for its next opponent on a game-by-game basis.

 

“The girls will be ready,” he said. “I think that her track record proves that.”

 

Riemersma indicated the team will take it one step at a time.

 

“All we need to do is win five, and you do that by winning the first one and you just play game-by-game, one game at a time,” he said.