Pride women’s basketball wins the 2023 NAIA Championship

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – For the first time in the history of Clarke University Athletics, a National Championship was won as the Pride women's basketball team earned the NAIA Championship with a 63-52 win over Thomas More University on Saturday night.

The Pride stood tall against the defending NAIA Champion Saints and the three-time national finalist as they finished the final four minutes of the game on a 13-2 run after TMU tied it up at 50-50.

Giana Michels was able to answer a Zoie Barth and-one layup that tied it with one of her own to take it to 53-50 as Skylar Culbertson would hit four of six free throws, Nicole McDermott would knock down a shot late in the shot clock to push it to 59-50 as the only two points Thomas More would score in the final four minutes would be from the free throw line.

Michels and McDermott would knock down all of their free throws to extend it to that 63-52 final as the Pride were able to storm the court and watch the confetti fall to finish a dream season as NAIA Champions.

Those two guards would be the lone players to finish in double figures for the Pride as McDermott finished with a game-high 17 points and a double-double while adding 10 rebounds as Michels finished with 14 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field.

Clarke dominated the rebounding battle finishing with 44 to the Saints' 22 on the game as shooting percentages all favored the Pride as well as they shot 19-of-45 (42.2%) from the field, 5-of-13 (30.8%) from the three-point line, and 21-of-23 (91.3%) from the free throw line as TMU finished at 32.2/22.2/72.7 from those respective areas of shooting.

It was a hot start for CU as well as they got out to a 12-0 lead to open the game as Thomas More didn't score their first basket until the 4:57 mark but did a good job of battling back to finish the quarter down 18-11 and head into halftime down by a single point at 26-25 and even led 23-22 and 25-24 late in the second.

The third quarter played to an even 16-16 to keep it at a one-point game heading into the fourth where the Saints weathered another Pride storm as they took it from a 50-44 Clarke led to that 50-50 tie before Clarke took control to end the game.

The rest of the Clarke's scoring finished with Tina Ubl at nine points, Taylor Haase with six, Mya Merschman with five, then Culbertson, Emma Kelchen, and Izzie Peterson all with four points.

Ubl was name the Tournament MVP for a tournament that saw the senior forward finished with the final site's high scoring game of 28 in the round of 16 game against Lewis-Clark State as she also moved into first place in the all-time scoring list in Clarke women's basketball history, to finish her career with 1,992 total points.

Kelchen, Culbertson, Haase, and Ubl all finished with over five rebounds as Kelchen tied McDermott's game-high with 10 and Culbertson added seven boards and four assists.

For the Saints, Barth led their scoring efforts with 16 points as Courtney Hurst added 13, and Emily Simon finished with 11 and only three other players recorded points as Alex Smith had seven, Kelly Brenner had three, and Sammi Whiteman had two.

Clarke women's basketball finished their National Championship season with a program-best 33-4 record and, as previously state, the first ever National Championship in school history.