Transylvania women fall in Final Four, ending 8th-longest win streak in NCAA hoops history
Transylvania’s women’s basketball season ended Thursday night with a 57-42 loss to top-overall seed NYU in the NCAA Division III Final Four at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and, with it, the Pioneers’ historic 64-game winning streak.
The loss was Transylvania’s first since 2022 — an Elite Eight exit — and ended the Pioneers’ season at 31-1.
That capped a 91-2 record over the past three seasons that also brought the team a 2023 national championship and a spot on the NCAA’s all-time win streak list.
Though Transylvania fell short of its goal of back-to-back national titles, sophomore guard Sierra Kemelgor said the program’s success was, ultimately, about the people — both directly involved and around the Lexington community.
“I think that one day in the future,” Kemelgor said. “It could be a couple of days from now, it could be anytime, we’re going to look back and we’re gonna talk about the national championship. We’re gonna talk about our teammates. We’re gonna talk about these amazing coaches we’ve gotten to be a part of and be under. And looking back, I think that it’s really just about the people. We’ve touched so many people and we’ve gotten to be a part of so many different things because of that. And I mean, I would just tell whoever I know, my kids, whoever it is — ‘Go out there and give it your all.’ Because that’s all we do every single night, and ‘just find ways to be an impact in your community’ and whatnot. Because we sure did that.”
NYU, which will face Smith College in the national championship game Saturday night, built upon a two-point first quarter lead with a dominant 18-5 second period. During that stretch, the Pioneers shot just 9% from the field, with leading scorer Dasia Thornton landing a three-pointer at the buzzer to prevent a second quarter field goal shutout.
The Pioneers outscored the undefeated Violets in the third quarter, and remained competitive in the fourth, but struggled to capitalize on scoring opportunities and contain the fast-paced NYU offense. Head coach Juli Fulks said by the time the team made their adjustments, it was too late.
“Offensively I thought we struggled to get to the rim today and make the right reads,” Fulks said after her team produced its lowest point total since a 50-40 loss to Rose-Hulman in 2017. “And in the third quarter, we kind of figured out some things on the interior. And it was just a little too late at that point.”
However, the Pioneers continued fighting for the full 40 minutes. Fulks laughed as she acknowledged “the reason they were good is they hate losing,” and praised the lack of quit in her roster.
“They’re still just gonna compete and compete and compete,” Fulks said. “And they got a lot of wins and they’ve been down before. Not this year, but in other years they were down 10 or 11 before, and they’ve never quit and they never thought they were out of it. And I’ve seen them in practice, the starting group, be down six with a minute to go and they find ways to win, and things you never imagined. So, in their mind, they are truly never out of it. And so they’re going to compete down to the bitter end.”
Thornton led the Pioneers with 18 points and seven rebounds. She will graduate, officially, as the second player in program history to record 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in her career. Transylvania will also graduate fellow fifth years Laken Ball and Kennedi Stacy, as well as seniors Sydney Wright and Kennedy Harris.
Fulks brought two members of the team’s future, Kemelgor and point guard Sadie Wurth, to the postgame press conference to discuss the game, and Wurth addressed the changing of the guard.
“Every offseason is the same,” Wurth said. “We got to find new pieces. We’re losing a lot, but that doesn’t define us, and this loss isn’t going to define us and we just got to do what we did last year. A national championship is our goal at the end of the day, so if we can do that next year, then we can do that.”
Longest NCAA win streaks
▪ 1. UConn women (Division I) — 111 games, 2014-17.
▪ 2. UConn women (Division I) — 90 games, 2008-10.
▪ 3. UCLA men (Division I) — 88 games, 1971-74.
▪ 4. Washington-St. Louis women (Division III) — 81 games, 1998-2001.
▪ 5. Ashland women (Division II) — 73 games, 2016-18.
▪ 6. UConn women (Division I) — 70 games, 2001-03.
▪ 7. Amherst women (Division III) — 68 games, 2016-18.
▪ 8. Transylvania women (Division III) — 64 games, 2022-24.
▪ 9. Thomas More women (Division III) — 61 games, 2014-16.
▪ 9. Hope College women (Division III) — 61 games, 2019-22.
