The Ball State women’s basketball “Core Four” has been a staple for the past couple of seasons. Now, the four have played their final game in Worthen Arena.
Head coach Brady Sallee said it takes extra focus to just play the game on senior day. He could easily start thinking about the seniors like Ally Becki being a freshman and the process of recruiting Marie Kiefer, Madelyn Bischoff, and Alex Richard, but there was still a game to play.
The Cardinals (24-7, 15-2 MAC) defeated Ohio (6-23, 4-14 MAC) 82-57 to close out the Mid-American Conference (MAC) regular season.
Kiefer and Becki both broke a pair of records in their final performance in the game. Becki had ten assists in the game, getting her to 699, a new career program record. Kiefer notched 58 blocks in the season, another program record. Kiefer said it is everything for them to go out on senior day like that.
“We won, and we got the curtain calls,” Sallee said. “ Everything went perfectly.”
Sallee said there are rare occasions when he is speechless, but when he hugged each senior as they got their final curtain call at Worthen Arena, he did not have much to say.
Becki said she remembers seeing other seniors going through the curtain calls and knowing she wanted to finish her career just as they did.
“It just meant everything to me,” Becki said. “Just seeing everyone get subbed out, I was just like, ‘man, this is really it.’ It hit me, but I am extremely grateful for all these opportunities I was given.”
Senior Marie Kiefer almost had a whole section at Worthen Arena, and her parents did not tell her exactly how many were going to be in attendance. She said she was thankful for how many family members showed up but was unsure how she felt about all of them having her face on a T-shirt.
“It's been crazy. It's been adrenaline all day,” Kiefer said. “...The memories that we're all looking back at, it's been so good.”
When thinking about all the hours spent inside Worthen Arena and the practice facility throughout the years, Bischoff said it doesn’t feel real that the time in those venues is over. She said the seniors have gotten very close over the years, and her senior teammates will be alongside her for the rest of her life.
“It’s very emotional for me,” Bischoff said. “I've been with them for four years now. But I'm just so glad I got to end it with them, and I'm just glad we got to all walk out together.”
Becki said she had been trying to soak everything in during the game, the ceremony, and throughout the day as a whole but still found it hard to put the experience into words because it meant so much to her.
“When you do it with your best friends, it means a lot,” Becki said.
Sallee said every coach would tell people that the 2025 Cardinals are every coach's dream—not just the six seniors but every person on the roster.
“It's just a special group; it’s ridiculous what they've accomplished, but they're such great people,” Sallee said.
Sallee said he would never forget the locker room celebrations and the travel, but most importantly, the genuine smiles.
“It's so hard to grind the day in the day out, but when you see them thoroughly enjoy each other, and those smiles are real. For me, that's more than a net that we cut down, more than a trophy that we got handed. That is everything," Sallee said.
Ball State will travel to Cleveland in just four days to play in the MAC Tournament. Sallee wants the Cardinals to just play ball. Becki said that no matter how many times the Cardinals have played in Cleveland, she always gets nervous for the first game.
“We feel like we're the best team; let's go be the best team,” Sallee said. “We don't have worries. We don't have to worry about, ‘Oh, what if? What if? What? Let's just go play and be the best team.”
The Cardinals will face Western Michigan March 12 at 11 a.m. in Cleveland.
Contact Elijah Poe via email at elijah.poe@bsu.edu or on X @ElijahPoe4.
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