Undefeated Transylvania women set for DIII Championship on Saturday

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The Transylvania women’s basketball team is down in Dallas, Texas, getting ready to play in their program’s first national championship game on Saturday.

The Pioneers are in a battle of the unbeaten on Saturday. Transy sits at 32-0, while Christopher Newport is 31-0.

Transy made history last season too. They went 27 and 1, making the program’s first Elite 8 but falling in that round.

After that, they say they made up their minds, “we’re not losing again.”

Their season started in Dallas in November in the Texas-Dallas tournament, and they planned all along to be back this weekend.

“What coach Fulks wrote on the board it was ‘Texas to Texas.’ We’re going to start in Texas, and we’re going to finish in Texas, and so we always had that mentality of, like, where we went to the Elite 8 and made history last year, and we really wanted to go even further along, so we all thought that we were going to go to Texas, and so we just from game one, to throughout the season, to the conference, to Connecticut like we all knew where we wanted to go. We’ll have that mindset of it,” said sophomore guard Samantha Cornelison.

The team says they’ve adopted a phrase we’ve heard from another Lexington basketball team, John Calipari’s “Refuse to lose” mentality, and so far, they’ve done just that.

The Transylvania campus was buzzing on Friday. Transy passed out commemorative t-shirts for students and fans to wear in support of the big game.

“Transylvania’s got the only team in the state that’s still dancing at this point, and we absolutely want all of Lexington and all of Kentucky to keep cheering us on!” said Transylvania Vice President of Marketing and Communications Megan Maloney.

Maloney says, with all the excitement, there’s a reason why campus hasn’t been as full.

“Today’s a little bit quiet because we have so many students that are on the way to Dallas and will be at the game cheering on the women,” Maloney said.

The women’s volleyball team has gone to all of the basketball team’s games this season, and they weren’t going to miss this one either.

“We’re super excited to go to the game. We’ve gotten streamers, face paint, so were going all out for it,” said Transylvania student Madison Davis.

Ryann Tharp plays softball for Transylvania, and is not surprised the womens team has made it to this point in the tournamant. the only game she has seen them lose in her two years at Transylvania was in the Elite Eight last year.

“Throughout the whole season I could see them getting better and better and getting to the national championship,” said Tharp.

Davis is confident in the teams abilities to pull out a win on the court.

“They’re great. Their team, their chemistry is great they can do it. They definitely have the team chemistry to do it the skill they’ve just go to show out and do it,” said Davis.

The Pioneers and Captains tip off from the American Airlines Center, Home of the Dallas Mavericks, Saturday at noon eastern, and we’ll be there bringing you coverage.

If you are in Lexington, there will be a big watch party downtown at the Kentucky Theatre.

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