Carthage College Athletics

Another year and yet another step closer. This time, the Carthage College women’s basketball team (18-9, 9-5, CCIW) was a mere two hours away from achieving one of its goals—a trip to the NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball Championship

For the first time since the CCIW launched its post-season tournament in 2003, Carthage advanced out of the semifinals. After finishing third in the regular-season conference race, the Lady Reds were paired up with Wheaton College (Ill.) in the semifinals, a team that had already defeated Carthage twice. The third time, however, things worked out a little better. Carthage took a 27-25 lead at 1:02 and led by four points at the half, 29-25. A three-pointer by Katie Jarger to open the second half made it 32-25, and the Lady Reds took a nine-point lead, 34-25, at 19:04 on layup by Heather Gilmore. After that, it was all Lady Reds. Carthage made it a 15-point game, 46-31, at 12:00 on three-pointer by Katie Klemke and a 17-point game, 48-31, at 10:59 on a layup by Dani Ripkey. The lead went to 20 points, 52-33, at 9:37 on a three-pointer by Ripkey. Another three by Ripkey at 8:12 bumped the lead to 23 points, 56-33. Carthage led by as much as 24 points, 60-36, at 5:21, and the Lady Reds went on to win by 15, 65-50.

“It was an interesting game,” said Carthage coach Tim Bernero (89-66, 6 years), “as they usually are when you play a team three times. It’s not that Wheaton didn’t play hard, but we made the adjustments in the second half. and really turned the whole game around. In the first half, their defense was so good, we couldn’t get out offense going. We did a better job in the second half of isolating Lisa Gartelos in the post. Dani Ripkey had a great second half on the outside, and we know she’s capable of that. We knew that winning a tournament game wasn’t out of reach—we just had to put together a solid effort. Now, we’re one win away from the NCAA tournament. If we win, that would be incredible. We’re happy to playing a game that means that much. It’s a dance contest now. If you win, you keep playing.”

The Lady Reds lost to conference-champion, top-seeded and No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan University, 75-55, in the next day’s tournament-championship game. The Titans led by 10 points at halftime, 35-25. Illinois Wesleyan went up by 12, 37-25, at 19:15 second half. The Lady Reds closed to within eight on two occasions, 37-39 at 18:14 and 39-31 at 16:33, before the Titans went back up by 12, 43-31, at 15:43. IWU went up by 17, 50-33, at 13:22, and Carthage got no closer than 12 points the rest of the way, 54-42, at 8:22 and 58-46 at 5:59.

“The game turned the last three minutes of the first half,” said Bernero. “We scrambled around, dug in and got to within four points, but they ran off the last few points to get it to10 at halftime. Once you get behind Illinois Wesleyan by 10 points or so, it’s tough, because they’re so potent, offensively. To get back into a game against them, you have to be flawless, defensively, and execute your game at the other end. While we were never out of it, I don’t know that we were ever in a position to win it in the second half.”

Carthage made its sixth appearance at the CCIW Women’s Basketball Tournament in 2009. The Lady Reds missed qualifying only for the 2005 event. Prior to the 2009 event, Carthage had yet to advance past the semifinals, losing to Wheaton College (Ill.) in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007, and falling to Millikin University in 2008. The closest the Lady Reds had ever been to the tournament-championship game was a 72-71 overtime loss to Wheaton (Ill.) in the 2003 tournament.

Playing as road warriors while the beautiful new Tarble Arena was under construction, Carthage went 7-3 over its non-conference schedule before opening Tarble Arena with a non-conference game against Clarke College on Jan. 5, 2009. The all-new facility, on the site of the former Carthage Physical Education Center, features a parquet floor, arena seating for 2,385 fans with all red seats and theatre-style chairs on one side, a giant video board and state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment. The video board and the ability to darken the house during pre-game introductions added a level of excitement unique to NCAA Division III arenas.

Three Carthage players were named to the 2009 All-CCIW team. Katie Jarger (graduated-senior, Chicago, Ill./River Forest-Trinity) was named second-team All-CCIW. Jarger was ranked eighth among CCIW scoring leaders (12.4 points thru the end of the regular season), first in free-throw percentage (.892), sixth in field-goal percentage (.518), 10th in blocked shots (0.60 per game) and tied for 15th in rebounding (5.4 per game). Carlie Janowiak (graduated-senior, Aurora, Ill./Waubonsie Valley) and Lisa Gartelos (graduated-senior, Lisle, Ill.) earned third-team all-conference honors. Janowiak was tied for second in assists (4.04 per game) and ranked 17th in rebounding (5.2 per game), while Gartelos was eighth in field-goal percentage (.500). Also lost to graduation will be Shana Lieberman (Arlington Heights, Ill./Hersey, 5.3 points, 2.3 rebounds).

Jarger went over the 1,000-point career scoring mark in the Lady Reds’ 77-46 win over North Central College on Jan. 24 at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis. Jarger, the 18th Carthage player to reach that scoring plateau, is ranked 12th on the all-time Carthage scoring list (1,124 points). She also set a CCIW season record with a .915 free-throw percentage (43-47) in conference games and a Carthage mark with an .895 percentage overall (68-76).

“We leaned on our four seniors this year,” said Bernero, “because those are the kind of players the rest of the team can learn from. They were four different personalities, which is what makes coaching fun. It’s always hard to see your seniors go. We have some really good returning players next year. Our junior class is very talented, played a lot this year, and next year, they’ll have the freedom and opportunity to see what they can accomplish. Next year’s team will be a different group of personalities and maybe a different style of play, but our goals every year are to win the CCIW title and get into the NCAA tournament. This year, we got to within two hours of reaching one of those goals.”