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1980 – 1987
The second coach: Mary DiStanislao succeeded Petro in 1980 and coached seven seasons, going 115–79. Her first team, 1980–81, went 10–18 — the losing record of a program stepping up in class, for the media guide's own note on that season marks it as the program's first as a Division I program, one year before the NCAA held its first women's championship tournament in 1982.
The first conference: After three independent seasons the program joined the North Star Conference in 1983, and won the first conference championships in its history there: regular-season titles in 1985 and 1986, both at 13–1 in league play, on teams that went 20–7 in 1982–83 (the year before league play began), 23–7 and 20–8 in the title seasons. DiStanislao was the conference's coach of the year in both title seasons, in the conference's own accounting.
Trena Keys: The star of the North Star years was Trena Keys, the conference's player of the year in 1985 and 1986 in the program's histories of the era, who in 1986 joined Mary Gavin as the program's first national-postseason honorees, both named to the all-tournament team at the 1986 National Women's Invitation Tournament — the NWIT, the established postseason tournament of the pre-NCAA and early-NCAA years, to which Notre Dame's best pre-1992 teams went.
The administrator: DiStanislao's Notre Dame career did not end with her coaching. She remained at the university and rose to senior associate athletics director and senior woman administrator — the program's second head coach administering, among much else, the department her successor would make famous.
Sources:
- University media guide, year-by-year results and notes — the 1980–81 "first season as a Division I program" note; the North Star seasons and records.
- University record book — the coaching table (DiStanislao 115–79); the honors lists (Gavin and Keys, 1986 NWIT all-tournament).
- University and conference histories — the North Star regular-season titles of 1985 and 1986; Keys's consecutive conference player-of-the-year honors; DiStanislao's later administrative posts.