UNIONTOWN, Pa. – Freshman Sarah Saba (Lancaster, N.Y./Lancaster) totaled 20 points and 10 rebounds and sophomore Natalie Galus (Hamburg, N.Y./Frontier) drilled four three-pointers and totaled 16 points, as the Daemen College women's basketball team rallied for a 63-57 victory over Concordia College-Alabama here today in semifinal round action of the 2015 United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) Division I Tournament.
Daemen, the tournament's No. 5 seed, improved to 13-15 on the year and advances to face either third-seeded Berea College or seventh-seeded Alfred State College in the tournament championship game tomorrow (Mar. 7) at 3:15 p.m. Concordia, the tournament's top seeded and defending champion, saw its 24-game winning streak come to an end and closed out the year with a 24-4 record. The tournament is being hosted by Penn State Fayette.
Complete tournament results and box scores can be found HERE.
Daemen, which claimed the 2013 USCAA championship but did not qualify for last year's tournament, is now a perfect 15-0 against USCAA teams since joining the association three years ago.
Championship Saturday at the USCAA Tournament will be an all-Daemen affair, as the top-seeded Daemen men earned a spot in tomorrow's men's championship tilt with a 68-63 win over fourth-seeded Concordia-Alabama last night. Daemen will face third-seeded Rochester College (Mich.) in the men's Division I title game at 12:30 p.m. It will mark the second time in three years that both the Daemen men and women will play for a USCAA title in the same season. The Daemen women claimed the title in 2013, while the men finished as runner-up that same year.
Saba, a second-team USCAA All-America selection, made 7-of-18 shots and also totaled three blocks and two steals. It marked the seventh double-double of the year for Saba and the sixth time she has scored 20 or more points in a game. The 20 points gives her a team-high 400 points on the year and makes her the first freshman since Hall-of-Famer Sarah Soroka in 2007-08 to score 400 points in a season. Galus scored eight of her 16 points during a game-changing rally late in the second half, and also totaled six rebounds and six blocks.
Junior Raeann Stilwell (Cheektowaga, N.Y./St. Mary's of Lancaster) added eight points, 10 rebounds and a career-high eight assists, while sophomore Leah McDonell (North Tonawanda, N.Y./Cardinal O'Hara) chipped in six points and nine rebounds. Senior Shy Britton (Rochester, N.Y./Niagara University), Daemen's other USCAA All-America selection, played just 24 minutes due to foul trouble, but still managed to record six points and seven rebounds. Britton also registered a block in the game and has now totaled 90 blocks on the year, making her just the fifth player in program history to register 90 or more rejections in a season.
Senior Erica Ousley paced the Hornets with 25 points, seven rebounds and five steals. Senior forward Tykeria Johnson, the USCAA Division I Player of the Year who entered the game averaging 18.0 points and 8.1 rebounds, connected on just 3-of-17 shots and totaled just seven points.
Concordia held a 15-8 lead five minutes into the game, but the Wildcats outscored the Hornets 18-9 over the next nine minutes. A layup by Saba with 5:46 left in the half capped the run and gave the Wildcats a 26-24 lead. The Wildcats went scoreless the rest of the half and Concordia took advantage with nine unanswered points. Daemen was off the mark on its final 10 shots of the half and turned the ball over six times over the final five minutes of the frame. A layup by Jennifer Rosado just before the halftime buzzer closed out the first half scoring and gave CCA a 33-26 halftime lead.
The teams traded baskets early in the second half and Concordia held a 35-31 lead when the Hornets strung together a 9-3 run. Ousley made one-of-two free throws with 12:36 left to cap the run and give CCA its largest lead of the game, 44-34. Galus (8 points) and Saba (4 points) then sparked the Wildcats on a 12-4 run over the next three minutes. A triple by Galus started the rally and her three-pointer with 9:18 left capped it and cut the CCA lead to two points, 48-46. Neither team scored again until junior Samantha Wozniak (Lancaster, N.Y./Lancaster) drilled a three-pointer with 6:37 to play to give Daemen a 49-48 lead.
The teams traded baskets a minute later and the score remained 51-50 Daemen until Saba scored with 4:23 to play. There was another two-minute span without any scoring until Stilwell canned two free throws with 2:31 remaining to give the Wildcats a 55-50 lead. CCA cut the lead to two points when Ousley hit her second three-pointer of the game with 1:21 remaining, but Galus answered with a clutch three-pointer 20 seconds later to give Daemen a 58-53 lead. Daemen left the door open by missing the front end of one-and-one opportunities at the 0:42 and 0:34 marks, and Ousley made one-of-two free throws with 0:26 left to make it 58-54 Daemen. Britton canned two free throws three seconds later, and after CCA came up empty on its next possession McDonell made two from the charity stripe with 0:16 remaining to seal the win.
Daemen connected on just 9-of-33 (27%) shots in the first, but made 11-of-27 shots (41%) in the second half and canned 5-of-11 three-point attempts after halftime. Concordia, which entered the game shooting 44-percent from the field, made just 8-of-41 shots (20%) after halftime and shot just 25-percent (20-of-79) from the field overall. The Wildcats finished with a 59-51 edge in total rebounds and Daemen also posted a 24-22 edge in points in the paint. Concordia forced 22 Daemen turnovers and the Hornets took advantage with a 14-3 edge in points off turnovers. The Wildcats registered 10 blocks in the game, marking the third-straight game and eighth time this season Daemen has recorded 10 or more rejections in a game
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