By Max Goodwin
In March of 2020 the Avila women’s basketball team was on the verge of finishing its first season with a winning record in seven years.
Avila had just pulled off a stunning conference championship, defeating Sterling College, 67-65, in the tournament championship and punching a ticket to the NAIA tournament.
The last time the team finished above .500, head Coach Torie Murillo was in uniform playing for the Eagles and was the record holder for most steals in Avila school history.
On March 12, with the first round matchup between Avila and St. Xavier University scheduled to tip off, Murillo had to go into the locker room to tell her team that the game had been canceled and so had their shot at making a run in the NAIA tournament.
“The 2020 year we were seriously on a mission,” Murillo said. They had what Murillo felt were three average seasons leading up to that year and finally at that point the team was playing up to its capabilities.
“It was definitely depleting just going into the locker room to tell them everything we had worked for, for four years, as a player and as a coach was just gone. There was nothing you could do about it.”
Murillo said the next year they had to step into a world of change. Just like the business world, some businesses have made it and some haven’t, Murillo says.
For the Avila women’s team, that change unraveled the progress they had made.
Some players decided not to play the next year. Murrillo struggled to adapt to recruiting online and keeping the team together. Consequently, Avila had one of its worst seasons on record in 2020-2021, ending the season with just two wins.
Looking back, Murillo thinks she could have done a better job adapting to the changes caused by the pandemic.
“We didn’t even have a five-on-five practice before our first game because we felt like we were so limited,” Murillo said.
After a difficult year for everybody around the team last year, Avila is back to playing up to its potential this season. The Eagles are now 17-9, in conference they are 15-7 entering the final month of the regular season with five games remaining on the schedule and bunched in the middle of tight conference standings.
Sterling College, ranked ninth in the national NAIA polls, visited Avila for a game on January 29 that was one to circle on the schedule at the start of the season. The Eagles were ready, taking a 8-0 lead over Sterling to start the game.
But Sterling would prove to be too much for Avila by the end, beating the Eagles 61-54 in the end. Avila went cold from three, shooting 13.9 percent from beyond the arc while shooting 35 shots from three.
“Today would have been great to get a win, but those other girls played super hard defensively,” Murillo said of Sterling in the locker room after the game. “We played well enough to win, we just didn’t shoot great.”
“The next four games are huge. That will really determine if we can be in the top three (of the conference), or are we going to settle back to average.”
Avila will face three teams that are right there fighting for the same position in the standings.
Avila traveled to Tabor on February 2 and won 67-64. They won against St. Mary’s at home 78-59 on February 5, but lost to Kansas Wesleyan 72-69 on February 9. Their final game at home will be against Bethany on February 16 and the last game of the season will be away at Bethel College. The Eagle’s current record is .654.
The last time the team finished above .500, head Coach Torie Murillo was in uniform playing for the Eagles and was the record holder for most steals in Avila school history.
This story first appeared in the February 3 issue and has been updated to reflect February 12th standings.