After an impressive year, the season came to an end for the McMaster women's basketball team on Saturday evening, falling 75-64 to the Windsor Lancers in the bronze medal game of the OUA Critelli Cup.
 
Both teams played lockdown defence in the first quarter with neither able to get a sustainable lead. Trading buckets for most of the opening 10 minutes, it was McMaster that held a slim 15-11 lead going into the second.
 
The Lancers started the second quarter on a 7-0 run to give them a three-point lead, but Mac was able to respond closing the quarter on a 6-0 run of their own to enter halftime with a 32-30 lead.
 
Mac's Jelena Mamic went to the locker room with 17 seconds remaining in the half after bumping heads with a Windsor player, but she would return to the game midway through the third.
 
McMaster made just 50% of their free throws in the first half and was 1-7 from deep, but their ability to hold Windsor to just 27% from the field gave them the lead going into the second half.
 
The Lancers started out the third quarter dominating offensively, going on a 10-0 run, before a free throw by Olivia Wilson ended the run. McMaster couldn't get things going, with their first field goal coming with just over four minutes remaining in the quarter, and went into the final frame trailing 54-41.
 
The Marauders went to work to start the fourth quarter, going on a 9-0 run to cut the lead down to four points. Unfortunately, that was as close as the game would get, as Windsor responded with a 14-2 run of its own to keep the lead out of reach.
 
The Marauders made one last push with less than two minutes remaining going on an 8-2 run, but the 17-point Lancer lead was too much for Mac to overcome.
 
This is the second year in a row that the Marauders will return empty-handed from the Final-Four, as Windsor also denied McMaster the bronze in 2016.
 
McMaster was missing backup point guard Erin Burns, who was unable to play in the game after breaking her collarbone on the final possession of Friday night's contest against the Carleton Ravens.
 
Danielle Boiago led McMaster in scoring against the Lancers with 18 points, including 13 points in the second half alone. Linnaea Harper finished with a double-double scoring 17 points and grabbing 11 boards, while Clare Kenney finished just shy of one with 11 points and nine rebounds.
 
While the season did not end the way they wanted, McMaster had a great year, finishing 17-2 in the regular season of OUA play, before defeating Western in the quarter-finals of the Critelli Cup, and then dropping its last two at the Final-Four.

It was  the final game for four graduating Marauders as Rachael Holmes, Vanessa Pickard, Clare Kenney, and OUA Player of the Year Danielle Boiago will be moving on, after providing McMaster fans with years of thrilling play.  
 
With a solid corps of returning players and a couple of recruits already committed, Coach Burns will start preparing for the 2017-18 season in short order.
 
By Jonah Tuck