The Holy Cross girls basketball team faced a tough challenge on Thursday afternoon inside Springfield College’s Blake Arena in Massachusetts.
The Crusaders were playing Springfield Central, located less than three miles away from where the 2025 Army National Guard Hoophall Classic was being held. Holy Cross got off to a solid start and led, 12-4, after one quarter. From there, it was a battle.
The teams needed overtime, and the Crusaders emerged with a 51-47 win. Holy Cross closed the first half of the season at 10-0.
Senior standout Shania Howard led the way with 23 points, nine rebounds and five assists and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Fellow senior Isabella Lombardo came up with nine key points and added four steals. Senior Maddie Neibel ripped down 11 rebounds.
“We fought really hard to the end. The game was really physical, and we knew it was going to be physical from the start,” Howard said in an interview with Joe Morelli of GameTimeCT after the game on X. “We just had to be really locked in from the jump and play our game.”
Cross and Central were tied, 16-16, at halftime. The Golden Eagles were ahead by two points, 32-30, after three quarters. Central had one-point leads of 40-39, 41-40 and 42-41 in the fourth quarter. Lombardo put Cross ahead, 44-42, with a corner 3-pointer in the final minute. The Crusader bench and cheering section across the court from Lombardo’s shooting location erupted when the shot went in.
Both sides missed key free throws in that final minute, and the game headed to overtime tied, 44-44. Cross held Central to just three points in overtime and came away with the win.
“We responded well, we made a lot of good decisions in tight instances,” Crusader head coach Frank Lombardo told Tyler Paquette of The Springfield Student. “Overall, we had a great game as a team.”
Cross returns to play in the state with a game at Woodland on Friday at 6:30 p.m. The Crusaders, ranked second in the GameTimeCT Top 10 poll, host No. 1 Northwest Catholic of West Hartford next Monday at 5:30 p.m.
Photo credit: Holy Cross girls basketball, Instagram.
