Amherst Moves Past Colby for NESCAC Women's Basketball Championship

Courtesy Amherst Sports Information

Box Score

AMHERST, Mass. – The top-seeded Amherst College women’s basketball team won its second NESCAC title in three years on Sunday with a 69-54 victory over second-seeded Colby College at LeFrak Gymnasium. Amherst stretched an eight-point halftime lead into a 15-point win. The win improved the Jeffs' record to 27-0 on the season and increased their home winning streak to 23 games.

With the win, Amherst joins the 2003-04 Bowdoin women’s team as the only teams in NESCAC basketball history to complete both the regular season undefeated, before winning the conference title. Amherst (9-0 NESCAC) earns an automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Tournament, whileColby (23-4, 7-2 NESCAC) will likely receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Amherst started the game with a score inside by Lem Atanga McCormick (Chicago, Ill.) on its first possession, and then took a 4-0 lead as Caroline Stedman (Walpole, Mass.) found junior co-captain Sarah Leyman (Cincinnati, Ohio) for a transition layup. Colby responded with a free throw and then a post score from Julianne Kowalski (Montville, N..J). Samantha Allen (Bridgton, Maine) hit a step-back three to give Colby an 8-6 lead, but Atanga McCormick scored in the post and Shannon Finucane (Cortland, N.Y.) hit a three at the 15:00 minute mark to put Amherst on top 11-8.

The Lord Jeffs opened up a 17-9 lead on an 11-1 scoring run capped by a nice scoop shot in the lane by Marcia Voigt (Skillman, N.J.) with 13:07 remaining. Diana Manduca (Portland, Maine) closed the gap to 17-11 with 12:38 to play, and neither team scored until Manduca made a pair of free throws at the 10:05 mark. Stedman ended Amherst’s scoring drought on the next trip, draining a long three from straight away.

A put-back by Jil Vaughan (Wareham, Maine) with 8:58 remaining cut Amherst’s lead to 20-17, but Finucane responded with another triple for the Jeffs. After a stop on the defensive end, Voigt got out on the break for a lay-up to put Amherst’s lead back up to 25-17, with 8:04 to play in the first half. Colby head coach Lori Gear McBride called a timeout following the score, but Voigt hit a turn-around as the shot clock was winding down to keep Amherst’s offense going. With 6:35 left in the half, Colby saw Jackie Renner (Newton, Mass.) make a pair at the charity stripe to put Amherst up 29-17.

With just 1:04 to play in the half, Allison Cappelloni (Sudbury, Mass.) made a three from the left wing to close the gap to 34-26. The bucket proved to be the final score of the half for either team, as the Jeffs took an eight-point lead into the break. At the half, Atanga McComick led all players with nine points and eight rebounds, while Finucane had eight points for the Jeffs. Colby was led by Cappelloni with seven points in the stanza.

Colby started the second half with a 4-0 run, closing the gap to 34-30 early on. After a pair of free throws by Stedman gave Amherst a six point lead, Finucane made what has become her trademark play by diving on a loose ball and calling for a timeout. After Colby was able to gain a second possession on an offensive rebound as the shot clock was expiring, Finucane once again poked the ball loose, hit the floor and called for a timeout.

After seven and a half minutes of play in the second half, each team had scored just four points in the frame. Jacky McLaughlin (Medfield, Mass.) ended the scoring drought with just the second field goal of the half on a three pointer with 11:59 remaining. Amherst’s first field goal of the half did not come until the 11:10 mark, as Leyman scored on a nice post move.

With 9:41 remaining, Stedman drained her second three of the game to put the Jeffs back up 45-34. After a turnover by the Mules, Voigt hit a three from the exact same spot on the left wing, before putting Amherst up 50-36 on a strong drive down the lane in traffic.

Colby responded with an 8-0 scoring run, with scores coming from four different players. Around the six minute mark, both Stedman and Leyman picked up their fourth fouls for Amherst, putting the Jeffs in serious foul trouble as they tried to hold off another Colby comeback. Less than a minute later, Atanga McCormick was whistled for her fourth foul.

With 4:50 remaining, Finucane hit a three from straight away after circling the entire half of the floor on the offensive end. The triple put the Jeffs up 55-46, and finally put a stop to Colby’s comeback for a moment. After a block on the defensive end, Leyman scored inside to put Amherst up 57-46 with 3:02 left.

Amherst scored back-to-back buckets following a timeout, but Aarika Ritchie (Lee, Maine) answered with a three from the left side with 1:35 left to leave the score at 61-49 in Amherst’s favor. Finucane made a pair of free throws three seconds later, and then after a steal by Leyman knocked down another pair with 1:19 left.

In the final minute of the game, Colby was forced to foul as Amherst made free throws and ran out the clock for a 69-54 win. Finucane finished the day with a game-high 21 points on a nearly perfect 5-for-6 shooting performance, including 3-for-3 from beyond the arc and 8-for-8 at the line. Stedman (12), Voigt (11) and Leyman (10) all hit double-figures in scoring for Amherst as well, while Cappelloni and Ritchie combined for 24 points for Colby.

2010 NESCAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 20
3:00 p.m. at Higher Seeds
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, February 27
at Highest Remaining Seed
2:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, February 28
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Basketball Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, February 20, 2010 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, February 27 and Sunday, February 28, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The top four seeds will host quarterfinal games with the number one seed drawing the number 8 seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.  Teams will be re-bracketed with the highest remaining seed after quarterfinal action hosting both the semifinal and final rounds.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Saturday, February 13.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.