GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – The Saint Anselm College women's basketball team will play for a Northeast-10 Conference title after picking up a 70-59 victory over the No. 8 program in NCAA Division II, Adelphi University, on Thursday in the NE10 Semifinals.
Box Score | VIDEO: Final Horn Celebration |Complete Video Highlights
The Hawks, ranked fourth in the latest NCAA Division II East Region poll, improve to 21-6 overall on the season and will head to top-seeded Stonehill this Sunday, Mar. 8 at 1 p.m. for the NE10 Championship game. Adelphi (27-3) loses for just the third time in 30 games this season, but does so to Saint Anselm for the second time in 2019-20.
Saint Anselm will make its first NE10 title game appearance since the 1998-99 season in which it fell to Bentley by 10 points. The Hawks won their only league postseason title in the 1990-91 campaign, toppling Bentley by an 81-76 margin.
Senior Shannon Ryan (Plattsburgh, N.Y.) led the Saint Anselm offense with 35 points to her credit, reeling in a game-high 19 rebounds for the Hawks. She now has scored a single-season best 621 points to date this year, averaging 23 points for Saint Anselm across 27 games. She has also established a new single-season team record with 406 rebounds in 2019-20.
Junior Peyton Steinman (Pittsfield, Mass.) contributed 18 points, shooting 7-for-14 from the floor, and classmate Grace Guachione (Pittsfield, Mass.) finished with nine points, seven assists, five rebounds, four steals and three blocks (career-high). Steinman exited play with a career-high 100 rebounds this season.
Tied at 50 heading into the fourth quarter, Saint Anselm opened up a 55-50 lead with just under 7:30 to go in regulation time. The Hawks lead at one point by 10 points with 4:35 to go, thanks to a Steinman three-point basket that created a 62-52 lead. Saint Anselm closed the contest on an 8-2 scoring run, keeping the dangerous Panthers offense at bay in the game's waning minutes
Adelphi jumped ahead by a game-high 12 points at the end of the first quarter, shooting 65% from the floor (13-for-20). The Hawks, on the other hand, managed just five made field goals and turned the ball over three times in the opening stanza.
Near the midpoint of the second quarter, the Hawks fired off a 12-2 scoring run that cut their deficit to two points, 30-28, with 6:15 to go in the first half. In that stretch, Steinman was 3-for-4 from the floor while Ryan capped off a 4-for-5 stretch of her own to force an Adelphi timeout.
The Hawks and Panthers eventually played to a tie score at halftime as Saint Anselm outscored the hosts by a 20-8 margin in the second quarter. The Hawks posted a game-high scoring stretch of 11 points near the midpoint of the quarter, thanks to seven points from Steinman in that span.
Saint Anselm opened up a brief 42-38 lead in the third quarter, but Adelphi re-took the advantage with a six-point run that created a 44-42 advantage for the hosts. The two teams played to a 50-50 score at the end of the third quarter as Saint Anselm limited the Panthers to just six makes on 28 shots between the second and third periods.
Katie Murphy posted 19 points for the Panthers, dishing out a team-leading five assists with four rebounds. Adelphi shot 31.3% for the game, making only eight field goals on the squad's final 47 shots from the floor. The Hawks also won the rebounding battle, 46-to-28.
