Jessie Ruffner drives to the rim for the three-point play that sealed Smith's victory over Wartburg in the national semifinals. Photo by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com

By Gordon Mann
D3hoops.com

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- In the final seconds of the fourth quarter, during Thursday night’s national semifinal game against Wartburg, Smith College took what is proverbially called a gut punch.

• NCAA Tournament coverage: Men | Women
• D3photography.com galleries: Smith/Wartburg | NYU/Transylvania
• Semifinal coverage: Violets' stellar defense ends Transy's title defense
• Updated Tournament bracket
• All-Region awards: NYU dominates Region 4 | Smith's Ruffner Player of Year in Region 2
• NYU feature: Bruns burns for two more wins
• Smith feature: Pioneers lean on their experience

The Pioneers had led Wartburg for much of the second half and were poised to reach the national championship game, holding a 48-45 advantage with 13 seconds left.

Wartburg called a timeout to set up a final play, but the Pioneers denied the inbounds pass and forced the Knights to call a second timeout.          

Then came the gut punch.

Wartburg inbounded the ball to Sara Faber who passed up an initial open look, faded back toward the Smith defender, and drained a game-tying three pointer. The Wartburg crowd and bench erupted. Smith called timeout to advance the ball and got an open look from guard Ally Yamada that fell short.

Instead of heading to the national title game, the Pioneers were headed to overtime.

Wartburg had the momentum, and the Knights certainly had fresher legs.

Smith’s starting lineup – Yamada, Jane Loo, Jessie Ruffner, Sofia Rosa and Hannah Martin – had played all but five seconds in the fourth quarter and logged a combined 186 out of 200 possible minutes.

But the Pioneers had resilience.

On Smith’s first possession in overtime, Ruffner got the ball and found Yamada in the corner for a contested three pointer that found its mark. The Pioneers took a 51-48 lead and exhaled.

After Wartburg tied the game at 51-all, Yamada struck again, hitting her sixth three pointer in 16 attempts, giving the Pioneers another three-point lead. And then, Ruffner, who has emerged as one of the best players in Division III, took over.

With 1:02 to play, the Pioneers called an isolation play for Ruffner. She calmly drained the shot clock, bolted for the rim as it was about the expire,  blew past her defender, settled her feet to absorb contact and scored a layup, with the foul.

A few moments later, Ruffner calmly splashed home the free throw and Smith had a 57-51 lead and the eventual victory.

“What I love about this team is we’re so resilient,” said Ruffner after the game. “We will battle as much as we can, we’re going to give it our all. Wartburg played a great game, they had a four-point lead going into halftime, and they threw some punches. What I love about us is we’re going to throw a couple back if we can.”

On Saturday night, Smith College will face undefeated and top-ranked New York University (30-0) for the national championship. While New York University was expected to be here, and the Violets title run has looked inevitable at times, Smith was not.

Last season, the Pioneers made their deepest NCAA Tournament run yet, advancing to the national semifinals where they faced undefeated Transylvania. The Pioneers fought hard but came up short, falling to the eventual national champions, 76-65.

From the outside, it looked like the Pioneers chance to win a national championship had passed. Smith was ranked 11^th in the preseason poll, which is still very good but far behind the two favorites, Transylvania and NYU.

That’s because the Pioneers had graduated three players – All-American Kateyln Pickunka, guard Dashelle Gleissner who started all 32 games in 2022-23, and 2023 Player of the Year Morgan Morrison. One of the best low post players to play Division III basketball in recent years, Morrison graduated from Smith with an undergraduate degree in engineering and decided to use her fifth year of athletic eligibility at NYU, where she’s studying electrical engineering.

Entering this season for Smith, Loo and Yamada returned and joined Ruffner in the starting lineup. Sofia Rosa, who had been a top player at Tufts in 2021-2022, joined the Pioneers for her fifth year. Hersey added first year guard Hannah Martin, who was named Region 2 Rookie of the Year.

And that starting lineup, with some support from Selam Maher and Jazmyn Washington off the bench, has the Pioneers 40 minutes away from the national title.

Yamada embodies Smith’s resilience.

At 5-foot-3, Yamada is a small guard who is unafraid to shoot, even if the shots aren’t falling. In the sectional weekend games against UW-Oshkosh and Bowdoin, Yamada scored three points total on 1-for-17 shooting. That slump carried over into the first half of Thursday’s semifinal game, when she scored three points on 1-for-8 shooting. But Yamada was not deterred and finished with 22 points, including eight in overtime. Her two 3-pointers in overtime kept Smith in the driver’s seat during overtime.

“What I love about us is that, Ally missed that three at the end of regulation that was more open than the corner three she hit in OT,” Ruffner noted. “Shooters shoot. You’re just going to keep shooting.”

“We’ve been in this position before, down at halftime, maybe not playing our best basketball offensively,” Yamada agreed. “Going into the second half, we wanted to focus and shift our mindset to play for each other. When we play for each other, we play more free, and it’s more fun to play with each other.”

Ruffner also embodies Smith’s resilience, but differently.

In the last four Tournament games, Ruffner has averaged 25 points and played 160 of 165 possible minutes, including 45 against Wartburg. She is a strong ballhandler with a smooth stroke and plays hard, clean defense.  She led the Pioneers in steals and rebounds in Thursday night’s victory.

She also had three plays in the semifinal victory where she took the ball in isolation, ran down the clock, got her shot and scored, which are gut punches to the opponent.

“Jessie had a good matchup in those actions we went to. She’s strong, she’s powerful, she was determined, and she really finished down the stretch,” head coach Lynn Hersey explained. “Those are actions we go to a lot, and she’s come through a lot for us in those sets.”

Hersey has also come through for Smith basketball a lot.

She has quietly built Smith into one of the top programs in the country, now reaching the national semifinals twice with two very different rosters, and finding a budding star in first year guard Hannah Martin. Hersey was named the WBCA coach of the year last season when the Pioneers went 30-3. Her work this year has arguably been even more impressive.

Her recap of Thursday night’s victory can be applied to her own success.

“You’ve got to show up. You’ve got to be willing to take some risks. It’s going to be hard. It’s not going to be easy. You’ve got to be able to be resilient. You’ve got to keep your mindset steady.”

When Smith plays NYU for the national championship, the Violets’ rotation will likely go eight or nine players. They will start four All-Americans and bring an All-American-in-waiting off the bench in Caroline Peper. They will sub throughout the game.

Smith will likely play its starting lineup for almost the entire game. The Pioneers’ starters scored all 61 points on Thursday night and took all but two of their 60 field goal attempts.

And that starting lineup – which looks very different from the one that Morrison led to the Final Four last year -- will now try to beat Morrison and NYU to complete their resilient run to the title.

“We’ll take whatever storyline that’s going to land with this group, and we’ll use it to get ourselves focused, prepared, confident and ready to battle,”  Hersey said on Thursday, before knowing that her team would face NYU in the final.

“Those are controllables we have. It has nothing to do with NYU or Transy. Those are the things that are part of the character here, part of our belief in what we’re capable of doing.”