BROOKLYN, N.Y. ? The Monmouth University women's basketball team, seeded sixth, upset third-seeded Sacred Heart 75-70 on Saturday evening in the quarterfinal round of the 2008 Northeast Conference Tournament at the Wellness, Recreation and Athletic Center at Long Island University. The Hawks advance to the semifinal round for the second straight season and will take on second-seeded Robert Morris on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. at LIU.
Monmouth led by as many 15 points midway through the first half before battling back and forth with Sacred Heart all second half before pulling away late. This win marks the second straight season that the Hawks have upset a higher-seeded team in the quarterfinal round of the NEC Tournament after defeating fifth-seeded Quinnipiac 63-58 last season.
Saturday's contest marked the second consecutive season that MU and the Pioneers met in the postseason, as Sacred Heart topped the Hawks 50-46 in last season's NEC Semifinals in Fairfield, Conn. The quarterfinal triumph is the Hawk's first win over the Pioneers since 2005 and head coach Michele Baxter's first win against SHU in her tenure on the Monmouth sidelines.
The Hawks came out of the gate on fire as they hit over 75 % of their shots in the game's first six minutes to take a 15-2 lead, led by five early points from All-NEC Second Team selection Jennifer Bender (Staten Island, N.Y./Staten Island Tech). The MU lead held at 25-12, paced by a Veronica Randolph (Deerfield Beach, Fla./Deerfield Beach) fall away three-pointer with the shot clock winding down and a LaKia Barber (Clinton, Md./Gwynn Park) lay up in transition off a no-look pass from Marisa Jimenez at the 9:25 mark of the first half.
The Monmouth advantage was cut slightly to 29-21 after four quick points from Stephanie Ryan with 5:10 left before halftime, but a Randolph spinning lay in after a scrum under the basket pushed their lead back into double digits. Randolph then connected on a three-pointer from the left corner to push the lead to 34-23 with 3:25 remaining before halftime.
The Hawks took a 41-27 lead into intermission, paced by a Marisa Jimenez (Carteret, N.J./Carteret) block and lay up the other way, and a Brianne Edwards Bloomfield, Conn./Suffield) save of a Brooke McElroy (Chesterfield, Va./Thomas Dale) apparent airball inbounds back to the sophomore who scored the lay up with 26 seconds left before halftime.
MU was paced by Bender's 10 first half points while Randolph added eight. The Hawks shot a blistering 64.3 % from the floor while limiting SHU to 34.6 % shooting from the field in the first 20 minutes. The 41 points Monmouth scored in first half was their highest output before halftime since they scored 46 against NJIT on January 24.
Monmouth's halftime lead was sliced in half over the first four minutes of the second half as they held a 44-37 advantage at the 15:48 mark after back-to-back buckets from Sacred Heart's Kaitlin Sowinski. The Pioneers continued their run by cutting the Monmouth lead to 46-41 after NEC Rookie of the Year Alisa Apo drilled a three-pointer with 14:55 left in the game. Apo connected on her second straight triple to draw to 46-44 a possession later, but consecutive Nyaimah Ware (Washington, D.C./Dunbar) baskets pushed the lead back to 50-46.
Sacred Heart drew even at 52-52 after a Sowinski turnaround, and the senior first-team all-conference performer then converted a traditional three-point play to give the Pioneers a 55-52 lead with 9:48 left in the game. Barber responded for Monmouth with a conventional three-point play of her own to knot the contest at 55-55 with 8:42 left in the game. After SHU took a 58-55 lead after a Maggie Cosgrove three-pointer, Monmouth battled back to take a 61-60 lead after two Bender free throws at the 5:21 mark of the second half. The lead was boosted to 64-60 after Bender corralled a Marbely Montas (Cranford, N.J./Elizabeth) missed free throw and scored with 4:40 remaining in the game. The same duo met a similar fate the next time down as Montas missed a lay in before Bender deposited another putback, and Ware and McElroy ran a perfect 2-on-1 fast break to give MU a 68-60 lead with 3:13 showing.
Bender led MU with 20 points and nine rebounds, while Barber added 13 points and seven rebounds and Ware chipped in with 11 points. MU shot 50.0 % for the game, while holding Sacred Heart to 42.4 % shooting.
