By Andrew Bayliss

A season can be made or broken in the postseason. The Warhawks women’s basketball team had a successful regular season, finishing 20-5, and winning the regular season WIAC Championship. But the ‘Hawks’ 2012-2013 season was made special by an unforgettable NCAA Tournament run.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” junior point guard Kaitlyn Thill said. “Coach was like a second mom to us—she brought us all together and made our team have so much chemistry.”

Head coach Keri Carollo was at the helm of D3hoops.com’s No. 2 ranked Warhawks squad. Carollo’s 10th year coaching at UW-Whitewater was her most successful.

She guided the ’Hawks to a regular season WIAC championship, before leading the team to the best NCAA Tournament in UW-W history, finishing as runners-up for the national championship.

“It was very special,” junior guard Mary Merg said. “We accomplished what no other UW-W women’s team has accomplished by making it to the national championship game.”

With a majority of the key contributors returning from the 2011-2012 squad, the ’Hawks entered the season ranked No. 8, according to D3hoops.com. Eight weeks into the season, however, the team dropped outside the nation’s top 25, following a pair of conference losses to UW-Superior and UW-Oshkosh.

Even though the ’Hawks did not live up to preseason expectations during the first half of the year, Carollo helped her team stay positive and use the tough times to band together.

“I could have gone one of two ways at that point in the season,” Carollo said, “and the next day, I walked into practice and said, ‘We’re just going to play and have fun.’”

Her approach worked. The ’Hawks finished the regular season with an eight-game WIAC winning streak and fought back to No. 20 in the rankings.

After the loss to UW-Oshkosh, the ladies returned to their home court and crushed UW-Stout. Merg credited Carollo’s belief in the team and consistent message.

“She always reminded us during practice of our goals,” Merg said, “and even when we weren’t ranked, she kept reminding us that our goals were still a conference and national championship.”

The recurring theme for Carollo’s team this season was family. Merg and Thill said the atmosphere of Warhawks women’s basketball was apparent before they even stepped foot on UW-Whitewater’s campus.

“We really preach that family philosophy,” Carollo said. “It’s critical that our players embrace that family feeling. We want them to graduate from UW-Whitewater and feel like they have a family to be part of forever.”

In her time at UW-Whitewater, Carollo has taken the women’s basketball program to a level of national prestige.

When she recruits, Carollo sells the Warhawks’ family atmosphere, which Merg said “makes good players want to come here.”

Aside from on the basketball court, Carollo focuses on making her players feel comfortable in school and as a part of the team and community. To help ensure her players’ success in every aspect of college, Carollo has an open-door policy.

“To a lot of us, she’s a second mom,” Merg said, “And it just makes our team better knowing that we can trust her. That open door policy and that chemistry has really helped us.”

While the ’Hawks knew they had the talent to go deep into the postseason from early on, team chemistry is what led them to the brink of a national title.

Such great chemistry could not have been achieved without the family atmosphere and strength of the program’s tradition, Carollo said.

“We’ve always built our program on hard work, from the coaches to the players,” she said. “The crucial part is recruiting great kids with great families who continue to push them in the offseason to grow as individuals.”

From the coaching staff to the players to their families, the Warhawks women’s basketball program is building a family tradition.