BABSON PARK, Mass. — 

The United States Coast Guard Academy women's basketball team's 2025-26 season came to an end on Wednesday with a 68-92 loss to Babson College in the first round of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Championship Tournament. The 7-seed Bears were outshot and outrebounded by the 2-seed Beavers throughout the night.

Coast Guard finishes their season with a 13-13 overall record. The last time the program saw a NEWMAC tournament win was 2016, when that year's squad earned a 68-61 defeat of Wheaton College (Mass.), but the team has had little trouble getting there, having reached the conference playoffs in five consecutive seasons. Babson improves to 18-8 and will host 3-seed Clark University (18-8) for semifinal action on Friday, February 27th.

The Bears were led by sophomore sixth woman Olivia Wright (Midlothian, Va.), who racked up 17 points and five steals in just 17 minutes off the bench. Behind her was senior Taylor Lynch (Madison, Ind.), was good for 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting and three assists in her final collegiate game. Fellow senior Dorothy Stotts (Edina, Minn.) added 13 points and three assists. Elliot Geer (Grove, Okla.) pulled down a team-leading five rebounds while Colleen Finnegan (Dover, Pa.) held a share of the team assist lead by matching Stotts and Lynch.

Babson guard Rylie Rosenberg exploded for a career-best 23 points on 7-for-11 shooting from beyond the arc and dished out four assists. Chloe Perreault and Alyssa Hopps both led the game with eight rebounds each. Emily Flynn had a night-high five assists alongside seven rebounds.

Despite shooting 44.4% from the floor and going 7-for-17 on threes, the Bears were left in the dust by their hosts going 56.9% on field goals and 11-for-18 from long range. Babson also dominated the boards with a 42-21 rebounding margin.

Coast Guard's woes in road NEWMAC games continued as they trailed 15-24 at the end of the first quarter. CGA's opening field goal rate of 38.5% was upended by the Beavers' 58.8%. Coast Guard was in it with an 8-10 deficit at 5:37 before Babson closed the opening ten on a 14-7 run.

The Beavers kept it going by draining back-to-back threes to open the second quarter, but Coast Guard was able to get back within ten points by responding with a 6-0 run, capped by a Lynch layup at 6:29. Babson regained their control of the scoreboard, helped in part by a 15-6 rebounding advantage to diminish any chances in transition for the Bears, to take a 41-28 lead into halftime.

Babson went on another 6-0 run out of halftime to extend their lead to 19 points, and despite a pair of 6-0 runs for CGA, the hosts still held a firm lead of 70-55 at the end of the third. The second run, capped by a Finnegan and-one layup and subsequent free throw make, trimmed the deficit down to 11 points, but the Beavers outscored their hosts by a 10-6 margin for the rest of the quarter. Wright shined in the third by contributing 13 points to the cause.

The teams traded buckets to start the fourth before Babson delivered the knockout by going on a 10-0 scoring streak until there was just 44 seconds left on the clock. The Beavers shot 60% in the quarter to outpace CGA's 40%, and outrebounded their guests by a 12-3 margin.

Bears women's basketball will now transition into the offseason. The team will say goodbye to it's impactful senior class of Stotts, Lynch, Farah Peterein (Oxnard, Calif.), and Mackenzie Hilden (Broomall, Pa.) and will look to build upon the leaps experienced by their young core this past season.