The Southwestern women’s basketball team won the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) tournament title on Sunday, March 1, with a 71-58 victory over Trinity University. This is the Pirates’ first conference title since the 1997-98 season, and earns them a spot in the NCAA Division III Women’s National Championship.

In the first half of the game versus Trinity, the Pirates were shooting 60.9 percent from the floor and 63.6 percent from three point range while holding the Tigers to below 25 percent from both distances. Trinity was also held to just eight field goals and 22 points in the first 20 minutes. Southwestern closed the game shooting 56.4 percent from the floor, 47.1 percent from three-point range, and 79.2 percent from the free throw line. And, as the league’s leading rebounding team, dominated the glass with a +15 rebounding margin. All told, the Pirates were confident until the end and ultimately sealed the championship.

With the victory, Southwestern improved to 15-12 on the season and will represent the SCAC in the NCAA Division III National Tournament as the league’s automatic qualifier. On March 6, the Pirates will face The University of Texas at Tyler, in first round play at The University of Texas at Dallas Activity Center in Richardson, Texas.

In addition to the team’s success, Head Coach Kerri Brinkoeter was named SCAC Coach-of-the-Year and senior forward Annie Bourne was named SCAC Defensive Player-of-the-Year.

In her eighth season at Southwestern and fifth after returning from a short hiatus, Brinkoeter has guided the Pirates to an 11-3 conference mark (13-12 overall), a share of the SCAC regular season title, and the top seed at this year’s conference tournament. She has a career record of 117-93 (.557) at Southwestern, and holds the most conference victories (73) of any active women’s coach and the fourth most all-time. Her 2014-15 squad is the first to earn the overall top seed in the SCAC tournament and the first to earn a share of the conference regular season title since the 1997-98 squad.

Brinkoeter’s Coach-of-the-Year honor is her first and the second for the Southwestern program; former coach Ronda Seagraves was awarded the honor after guiding the 1997-98 team to the SCAC title. Brinkoeter received the most votes from her peers in exclusive Coach-of-the-Year voting by the head coaches of the SCAC.

Annie Bourne earned SCAC Defensive Player-of-the-Year honors—the second SU student-athlete in the last three years to do so. Bourne will finish her career as the SCAC’s all-time leading rebounder, with 1,135 rebounds entering the conference tournament. In the current season, Bourne leads the conference with an average of 12.5 rebounds per game and her 313 total rebounds are the third-most in a single-season in league history. In the history of SCAC women’s basketball, a player has grabbed 21+ rebounds 22 different times; Bourne has four of those performances.