MARION, Ind. - The 2024-25 Goshen women's basketball season came to an end on Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the Crossroads League tournament. As the eight-seed, Goshen lost on the road to the one-seed Indiana Wesleyan Wildcats. The Wildcats, ranked #4 in the NAIA, won 89-55.

The Maple Leafs finished the season with an 11-17 overall record and 5-13 regular season conference record.

The Wildcats scored 27 seconds into the game and kept their lead the rest of the way. Lilli Frasure was playing in her first game with the Wildcats in over a month due to injury. She proved to be a large factor, scoring 15 points in the first half and finishing with 21. The Maple Leafs were moving down the floor quickly to start, but had to use a timeout after an early 16-5 deficit. The Leafs had seven first quarter turnovers to Indiana Wesleyan's three.

The Goshen defense looked stronger in the second quarter, holding IWU to 19 points. GC was getting contributions from a multitude of players, with eight scoring in the first half compared to six for Indiana Wesleyan. All eight Goshen scorers had between two to five points at the break.

Goshen did well on getting rebounds, and they were outrebounding the Wildcats 25-22 through three quarters. Turnovers proved to be a costly difference, though. Goshen had 23 in the game, similar to the 20 and 23 turnovers they had in their other two matchups with the Wildcats this season. Indiana Wesleyan had 13 rebounds in the game and scored 18 points off Goshen turnovers. IWU also made eight more free throws than the Leafs.

The 2024-25 team has been notable for its sizable senior class, and they got a chance to be recognized with 2:43 to go in the game. Head coach Tyra Carver put in seniors Zion Neat, Emme Boots, Zoe Zellers, Kiana Oelling and Syanne Mohamed to play for ten seconds before getting a formal sendoff off the court. Ava Lickliter, Paula Ferrer Nolla, Hannah Clark and Ellie Fausnaugh were the other seniors that got playing time as well in the quarterfinal.

Zion Neat scored with 16 points. She finishes with 1,203 career points in her three seasons as a Maple Leaf, passing Dawn Gerber '88 and Sophia Sears '17 during the quarterfinal game to move up to 12th all-time in program history. She is fifth all-time in three-pointers made with 135 and fifth all-time in free-throw percentage at 80.3%. Her 490 points this season is the fourth-most in program history and the most since 2004, when Erin McDugle had 705 and Candice Williams scored 529.

Syanne Mohamed scored ten points and collected ten rebounds. She also recorded three blocks and a steal. Her 1,107 points as a Maple Leaf puts her at 18th in program history, her 843 rebounds ranks fourth and her 92 blocks is second all-time only behind Keyaira Murff '21. She finishes her career with five straight games of 10+ rebounds, which ties the longest streak of her career.

A flurry of players scored between three and seven points for Goshen - Zoe Zellers, Ava Lickliter, Lillian Null, Ava Egolf, Emme Boots, Paula Ferrer Nolla, Carrie Hiler and Hannah Clark. Oelling finishes her career ranked ninth in blocks and fourth in free-throw percentage at 82.0%.

Indiana Wesleyan will face the four-seed Spring Arbor on Saturday at IWU. The two-seed Saint Francis will take on three-seed Marian at Saint Francis. The championship will be on Tuesday, March 4, at 7:00 pm.