Holy Cross women’s basketball entered the season with high hopes of challenging for the top of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference. While the 15-14 record isn’t anything to scoff at, the Saints will hope to use the year as a jumping-off point for the future. The Saints quickly realized that rising the rankings would be a longer project and that their young, inexperienced side would need time to gel and click. Despite this, Holy Cross was able to improve significantly over the season to secure a record of 15-14.
The Saints got off to an underwhelming start, beginning the year just 1-5. However, they won their last three games in November and went 4-1 in December to head into the new year feeling confident. This run of good play continued into January, with impressive wins over St. Xavier and IU South Bend in the same week. The Saints did falter toward the end of the season, losing their last four to finish No. 7 in the CCAC. Despite this, the team still secured a fifth straight winning season.
The Saints proved formidable at home, with an 11-5 record on their own court. Speaking on their excellent home form, head coach Tom Robbins said, “The players had a lot of confidence at home, you could see it in their shooting, in the way they played together, the risks that they were willing to take, the focus that they had. We had a very competitive mindset at home.”
The season saw some excellent individual campaigns, notably from sophomore forward Allie Caldwell, who finished third in the conference for points per game with 18.7 and earned Second Team All-Conference honors. Speaking on her personal success, Caldwell stated, “Once the team started meshing, I was able to feel less pressure and just perform and do what the team needed.” Freshman forward Sincere Coleman-Francis also had an excellent freshman year, earning CCAC All-Freshman team status, and the Saints’ only graduating senior, point guard Audrey Tallent, recorded 66 steals on the year, the third-highest mark in the conference.
Robbins also spoke on how his program can make the next step from perennial winner to perennial champion. “It’s time to get to 20 wins, it felt like a key for it was the focus we had this year on understanding who we were, that we were young, and this was probably going to be a longer process than we wanted. We wanted to get those 20 wins this year when we started out the season, but it became obvious that we were pretty young for that,” he said.
With Holy Cross returning every contributor sans Tallent, 2026-27 could be the start of the Saints’ upward trajectory toward the top of the conference.
