SALEM, Virginia — One more win.
That is all that separates the University of Scranton women’s basketball team from claiming the program’s second national championship. Standing in its way is Denison University in the NCAA Division III final Saturday at 4 p.m. at Roanoke College’s Creeger Center.
Scranton (32-0) advanced to the title game by dethroning two-time defending champ NYU in Thursday’s semifinal, 60-52. The Lady Royals also halted the Violets’ 91-game winning streak, which was the second-longest in NCAA basketball history, men’s or women’s.
Coming off such an emotional win, the concern would be for the Lady Royals to have a letdown. It’s not unlike the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team, which after shocking the powerful Soviet Union team still had to beat Finland to earn the gold medal.
Coach Ben O’Brien, however, isn’t concerned.
“We’re putting all of our attention to the next task at hand,” O’Brien said. “We’re not spending any of our time talking about NYU. It was a great game (Thursday) night, but all of our time, all of our attention, all of our focus is on Denison.
“We didn’t come here to beat NYU. We came here win a national championship. That’s what we’re working toward and that’s what we’re going to look to do (Saturday).”
Having a day off in between the semifinals and the final helps.
“It’s nice to have that extra day,” O’Brien said. “We’re used to playing back-to-back nights the first couple weekends of the tournament.”
A fast start propelled Denison (29-2) to an 82-61 victory over Wisconsin-Oshkosh in its semifinal Thursday. The Big Red never trailed, jumping out to a 20-2 lead and leading by as many as 24 points in the first half.
Five players scored in double figures with senior Brooke Toigo and junior Abby Cooch netting 13 points apiece. Junior Ada Taute followed with 12 points, junior Adelyn Moore had 11 and sophomore Anelly Mad-Toingué contributed 10 points. Taute also grabbed nine rebounds, Mad-Toingué had eight and Cooch dished out six assists along with six rebounds.
Taute was named a Women’s Basketball Coaches Association All-American, while Cooch was selected All-America honorable mention.
“They’re a very well-balanced team. Obviously played a great game against Oshkosh and were in control of the game from the start,” O’Brien said. “It’s going to be important, as always, to lead with our defense and try to make things as difficult as we can for them. Offensively, we have to play our game. Share the ball, attack the paint, find 3-point shooters, play through our post. All the things we’ve done all season long we’re going to need to do at a high level (Saturday).
Denison likes to press and has size. Mad-Toingué stands 6-foot-3, Taute is 6-foot, Toigo is 5-foot-11 and Moore is 5-foot-10.
“Pressure is a big part of what they do and how we handle that pressure is going to be very important,” O’Brien said. “We’ve seen that type of pressure many times this season. We do that a lot to other teams, so we practice against that pretty much on a daily basis. But how well we handle that will be a real key.
“They have good size across the board and good physicality, so that’s definitely going to be a challenge. We have some size as well and some areas where we don’t have size we have tremendous quickness. So it will be an interesting matchup as it relates to their size versus our quickness.”
Like Denison, the Lady Royals started strong in their semifinal win over NYU. Caroline Peper hit a 3-pointer eight seconds in for the Violets, but Scranton’s defense held them to 1-for-13 shooting the rest of the quarter with four turnovers to take a 17-5 lead.
With Meghan Lamanna and Elizabeth Bennett leading the way, the margin grew to 30-15 late in the second quarter. Lamanna had 11 first-half points, while Bennett scored all 10 of her points in the opening 20 minutes.
Brooke Batchelor hit a 3-pointer right before the buzzer to cut Scranton’s lead to 30-18 and give NYU some life heading into halftime. The Violets opened the second half with a 10-1 run that pulled them within 31-28 with 5:47 left in the third quarter.
But the Lady Royals didn’t flinch. Coming out of a timeout, Lamanna hit a 3-pointer to ignite a 16-6 run that pushed the lead back to double digits, 47-31, heading to the fourth.
NYU tried to rally. It closed to within 52-44 with 5:39 left in the fourth on a 3-pointer by Olivia Lagao and had a chance to inch closer, but committed turnovers on consecutive possessions. A layup by Kaeli Romanowski gave Scranton a 54-44 lead with 5:03 remaining.
Consecutive 3-pointers by Peper and Lagao pulled NYU within 56-52 with 45.1 seconds left. But one free throw by Sophia Talutto, two by Lamanna and one by Katie Gorski secured the victory and a trip to the final for the Lady Royals.
Lamanna finished with 18 points, while Romanowski totaled 14 points, 16 rebounds and five steals.
“Collectively for them (the Lady Royals), they move the ball so well, they’re going to find the open player,” NYU coach Meg Barber said. “Lamanna is not going to force a shot if it’s not there. She’s going to find her open teammate and that’s where I thought Romanowski really made quite a difference in terms of attacking the basket and being a little more of a scorer than she normally is.
“Credit Scranton. I knew this was going to be an incredibly tough matchup. They’re an incredible team. We parallel each other in so many ways and that’s a tough team to play. Good luck to them moving on.”
Scranton’s top-ranked defense held NYU, the top-scoring offense in Division III, to a season-low point total and its lowest total since it scored 51 in the national championship game against Smith on March 16, 2024 — a game NYU won, 51-41. The Violets on Thursday night shot just 19 for 67 (28.4 percent), including 10 of 32 from 3-point range. The Lady Royals held a 47-34 rebounding edge, although NYU had a 21-18 advantage on the boards in the second half. Yasmene Clark grabbed 15 rebounds, 10 of which were offensive.
“They’re very hard to guard. They have a lot of weapons out there,” O’Brien said. “It’s hard to get to all of their shooters. We did a good enough job of getting to their shooters throughout the game and making those shots as difficult as possible. For most of the game we did a great job on the defensive glass. Obviously, 21 (Clark) is so good on the offensive glass. She hurt us in the second half. But especially in the first half, we did a great job of holding them to one shot. Then we did enough in the second half to hold onto the lead.”
As a result, the Lady Royals are on the brink of a championship.
“We’re really excited for the opportunity,” O’Brien said. “We’ve put a lot of hard work into getting to this spot, so we’re really looking forward to the game. We’re approaching it like we’ve approached the previous 32 games and put everything we have into playing our best game on Saturday.”
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