Last night, the Oglethorpe women’s basketball team beat #21 William Smith. Tonight, they made it four in a row in the NCAA D3 tournament, knocking off #11 Kean University, 98-86, on its home court. Friday, they were led by Katie Kulavic’s 23 points on 10-14 shooting, this evening by Anna Findley’s 44 points (including 8 of 10 from 3-point range). They travel next to Holland, Michigan, to join a field that already includes #4 Messiah College and will feature the winners of two highly competitive games (#1 Hope vs. #2 Howard Payne, and #6 DePauw, the defending national champs vs. #8 Wisconsin-Whitewater).

Oglethorpe has profited this season from a number of things--above all, five starters who have played together for three years, an excellent coach, and the experience of playing the defending national champs three times (twice during the regular season and then for the conference championship; the lost all three times, but twice by only two points).

I’ll be on tenterhooks all next weekend.

Update: Here’s a generous story from the Kean website, and you can read its Oglethorpe counterpart here. Howard Payne (with whose President I had the pleasure of working a few weeks ago) and Wisconsin-Whitewater join Oglethorpe and Messiah in the D3 Final Four. The Stormy Petrels (the first "e" is long only on our campus) are the Cinderellas here.