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-á-á-á-á-á-á-á Cleveland -- For years the women's basketball team has been the doormat of the Mid-American Conference. Never, before this season, had the team won a regular-season league title or even advanced to the MAC Tournament championship game.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á This season, all that has changed as first-year head coach Tracy Roller led the Cardinals to their first league title, and with a convincing 77-59 victory over Northern Illinois in the semi-finals of the MAC Tournament, setting up a date with Kent State in the title game.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á "Welcome to our dream," Roller said. "For us, it's a chance to do something that's never been done before at Ball State."
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á For the second time this season, the Cardinals (23-6) held their opponent under 60 points two games in a row as it was the team's defense that controlled the tempo of the game. From the start of the game, the Cardinals pressured Northern (17-13) into turnovers and bad passes as the team built an early lead it would never relinquish.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á "In order for us to have a good start, we had to play good defense," senior Shala Crook said. "We had to pressure the ball a lot and try to get them to turn the ball over."
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á Ball State continually got defensive rebounds-á or steals that led to fastbreak opportunities, which the slower Northern team had trouble recovering from. The 10-point halftime lead the Cardinals amassed was as close as the Huskies would get the remainder of the game.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á "They really worked hard (defensively)," Huskies' head coach Carol Hammerle said. "Ball State hasn't done that in the past. They really caused problems for us in transition...we just couldn't get back fast enough."
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á Freshman Kate Endress sparked the Cardinals off the bench in the first half, hitting three 3-pointers and blocking a shot as the Cardinals kept the Huskies from playing their style of game, slow-paced.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á "(In the first game) my shot was broken," Endress said. "I just needed to relax and focus. The more you play, the more you get used to (the facility). But when you have teammates setting picks like that, it really not that hard."
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á The key for the Cardinals was controlling the post play and rebounding, which Northern excels at.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á "It was tiring," junior Tamara Bowie said. "We knew(Jennifer) Youngblood was a good rebounder and that we were going to have to keep her off the boards. We couldn't just focus on her, because when you put too much emphasis on one player, the rest of the team hurts you."
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á Bowie finished led Ball State with 18 points as she continued her strong tournament play.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á But Bowie said that going into Saturday's matchup with Kent State in the finals, the team remembers what happened when the two teams met earlier this year at Kent State, wanting to exact revenge on the loss.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á Nonetheless, Kent State has been to the last seven MAC final games, and with the Cardinals being inexperienced in that sort of play, but Roller said she was not too worried about the lack of experience.
-á-á-á-á-á-á-á "We don't understand the magnitude of what we're doing right now," Roller said. "We're just playing ball. It's when we get tight that I get nervous and as long as we're loose and playing ball, I will feel good about the situation. We understand the chance to get back at Kent."-á-á
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