A rough start to its second-round MAIS Class AAA South State Tournament was all Cathedral School needed to be thrown out of whack Wednesday afternoon.

The Lady Wave’s lack of momentum was contagious throughout the game, leading to a 48-31 loss to Hillcrest Christian and ultimately ending its season at Adams County Christian School.

“It just wasn’t our day,” Cathedral coach Peter Arnold said. “It’s so hard to overcome a rocky start. You add it all up, and it’s just not a good day.”

Both teams needed lucky shots to begin the game, but Hillcrest never looked back as soon as it found a rhythm.

On the other hand, Cathedral had trouble getting anything to go down.

“We got some open looks at the basket early in the game, but they are a tenacious man-to-man team that made it difficult on us,” Arnold said.

This is the third-consecutive year the Lady Wave (23-9) have missed a trip to the state tournament. Despite the loss, Arnold said this year’s team has something to definitely be proud of.

“Nothing will take away the fact that we won 23 games,” he said. “We had two girls with experience, and we were just piecing the rest together. We did that, and we were able to disguise our weaknesses well enough to get by.”

Cathedral will lose four seniors in Caroline Kaiser, Lessley Dooley, Sema’J Hickombottom and Mary Evans Kelley.

Kaiser ended with 12 points to lead the efforts for Cathedral Wednesday, while Baylee Graning had nine and Dooley followed with seven.

“Caroline is the heart and soul of our team,” Arnold said. “She runs the show and is a great kid. She is invaluable to us, but in a lot of ways so is Lessley. We rely on her to rebound so much.

“Mary Evans and Sema’J are two that have been on the team forever. They are role players that waited for their chance to play. Everyone gets along and the chemistry of our team really started with them.”