| Michelle DeSantis (22 points) and Catholic now sit atop the Landmark Conference after their upset victory at No. 3 Scranton. File photo by Catholic University athletics |
It's too soon to know if Scranton will surrender its Landmark Conference crown in women's basketball, but for now there's a new team sitting on the throne. Catholic upset the third-ranked Royals 82-76 to grab first place in the conference and end Scranton's 50-game regular season winning streak.
- Saturday scoreboard: Men | Women
- Saturday news releases: Men | Women
- Men's recap: Can you believe IT -- Stunning win for Illinois Tech
- Hoopville: Coach Matt Donohue recaps the Cards' great start (Jan 12, 2017)
Catholic jumped on top of Scranton 23-14 at the end of one period and held the lead until six minutes to play in the fourth quarter when the Royals rallied in front 60-58 on an Alexix Roman layup. Roman pushed the Royals' lead to four with 2:29 remaining in regulation before the Cardinals reclaimed the advantage 67-65 on a Michelle DeSantis three-pointer. After Mollie Reynolds hit two free throws to put Catholic ahead by two with 16 seconds left in regulation, Roman was fouled and converted both free throws to send the game to overtime.
Bernadette Launi took over in overtime for Catholic, scoring four points in the final 62 seconds to snap a 76-all tie. After a Scranton turnover, DeSantis added two more free throws to put the game away. Recap
Catholic (15-2, 6-0 Landmark) was led by DeSantis' 22 points and Launi's 17 points. The Cardinals also shot 49 percent from the field. Scranton (16-1, 5-1 Landmark) got double-doubles from Roman (28 points, 11 rebounds) and Sarah Payonk who just missed her second triple-double of the week (15 points, 12 rebounds, nine assists).
The loss is Scranton's first in the regular season since the Royals lost to Catholic in the regular season finale in February 2015.
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Down to Eight Undefeated teams No. 1 Tufts 72, Connecticut College 48 |
No. 9 Mary Washington pulled away from York (Pa.) 66-60 to stay one game back of Christopher Newport in the CAC standings. The Eagles and Spartans were tied at 58 with under three minutes to play when Megan Green made a layup to put Mary Washington in front for good. Brianne Comden scored 20 points for the Eagles (15-1, 8-1 CAC) who went 28-for-39 from the foul line.
The rest of the undefeated women's teams stayed that way with wins on Saturday. No. 1 Tufts built a 38-16 halftime advantage and rolled over Connecticut College 72-48. Kaitlin Langer picked up her 22nd double-double at St. Thomas and the fourth-ranked Tommies blasted Augsburg, 89-63.
Outside the Top 25, Wesleyan (Conn.) coach Kate Mullin reached the 400-win mark as the Cardinals rallied to beat Bates 62-58. Kean's scoring machine Marajiah Bacon posted 34 points including the 1,000th of her career and the Cougars topped TCNJ 71-65. Bacon reached the 1000 point plateau in only 42 games.
The best game of the day was played in Southern California where La Verne topped Caltech 100-98 in quadruple overtime. Karli Kato's three-point play with 30 seconds left in the fourth extra period gave the Leopards the lead for good. Caltech's starters played 273 of a possible 300 minutes with three -- Kate Lewis (32 points), Samantha D'Costa (25 points) and Grace Peng (23 points) -- playing 59 minutes. The Beavers only used seven players, one of which played two minutes. Brianna Bishop scored 19 points and logged 44 minutes off the bench for La Verne. Box score