COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. — No. 3 seed Ursinus defeated No. 6 seed Washington, 53-47, in the opening round of the Centennial Conference women’s basketball tournament here on Tuesday night, Feb. 24.
This was a rematch of the regular-season finale three days earlier, when the Shore ladies won, 58-55, led by 6-foot-2 senior center Kaitlyn Boggs’ game-high 24 points.
Ursinus (16-11) and Washington (13-13) split the home-and-away series, each prevailing on the other’s court.
The Bears won the rubber match last week at home, scoring nine unanswered points to break a 2-2 tie and lead the rest of the way.
They boasted three players in double figures — senior Madison Smith (six rebounds, three assists) with a game-high 16 points, senior Ava Possenti (four steals, three rebounds) with 11 points and junior Erin Glanz with 10.
Senior guard Abby Meredith was the top scorer for Washington with 12 points.
Freshman guard Ellie Carter-Soriano contributed 10 points in 17 minutes off the bench.
Senior guard/forward Emma Robinson (four points) led all players with 14 rebounds and six assists.
Boggs, who came into the game averaging a team-leading 17.3 points, was held to seven — all in the forth quarter — with playing time limited due to foul trouble.
Her inside presence on both ends of the court was irreplaceable.
Boggs sat out the remaining 5 minutes, 54 seconds of the first half after picking up her third foul, and played only 25 seconds of the third quarter before being whistled for a fourth foul.
Ursinus’ Smith and Washington’s Robinson traded layups for a 2-2 draw with eight minutes and change remaining in the first frame, before Ursinus pieced together the decisive 9-0 run that ultimately made for a futile game of catch-up for the No. 6 seed.
The Bears regained the lead for good at 5-2 on Possenti’s three with 6:05 to play in the opening quarter.
Possenti had a pair of threes and Smith totaled five points as Ursinus pushed its lead out to 11-4 with one quarter gone.
Carter-Soriano and Meredith collaborated on a 5-0 start to the second quarter, shrinking the deficit to 11-9 with 8:45 remaining in the half as Ursinus went nearly six minutes — a scoring drought that spanned the first and second quarters — without a point.
The Bears responded with an 11-3 flurry that extended the spread to double digits, 22-12, on a Smith layup with 4:24 to go before intermission.
The halftime score was 27-16.
Ursinus led by as many as 13 points twice in the third quarter, 29-16 on a Smith layup less than a minute in that put her over the career 1,000-point milestone and 31-18 on an Emma Afflerbach shot from close range with 6:40 to play in the period.
Meredith’s layup at 6:24 started an 8-0 run for Washington as part of a larger 11-3 run that closed the gap to five points, 34-29, with just under three minutes remaining in the third quarter.
Ursinus would get back to a double-digit lead, 40-30, on a pair of Ruth O’Keefe free throws to punctuate a 6-1 run with 34 seconds on the clock, and would take a 40-32 lead into the final frame.
Boggs re-entered the game to start the fourth quarter and made an immediate impact, drawing a foul on a fast-break with only five seconds elapsed. She drained the back end of a two-shot foul for her first point of the evening.
Her third field goal of the quarter brought Washington to within 51-47, but with only 18 seconds to play.
Forced to foul in hopes of getting the ball back, Washington sent Glanz to the stripe six seconds later; the Ursinus junior made both free throws to salt away the win.
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No. 2 seed Gettysburg (21-6) eliminated Ursinus in the semifinal round Friday, 63-48, to earn a date with No. 1 seed John Hopkins on Sunday in the championship game.
Four-time defending conference champ Gettysburg upset previously unbeaten JHU, 68-59, while avenging a pair of regular-season losses.
Hopkins (25-1) came into the game as the No. 3-ranked team in NCAA Division III, but had needed overtime to get past No. 5 seed McDaniel (20-7) in Friday night’s other conference semifinal, 62-60.
As the Centennial champ, Gettysburg automatically qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The Bullets will travel to a regional hosted by Washington and Lee this weekend.
Hopkins earned an at-large bid and will host a four-team regional March 6-7.