Expand<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nJenna Sloan typically is the player on the University of Scranton women\u2019s basketball team who does her job with little-to-no fanfare. The senior guard is more of a defender and a playmaker than a scorer.<\/p>\n
Yet during the Elite Eight game Saturday against Concordia-Moorhead, it was hard not to notice Sloan at key moments.<\/p>\n
On the opening possession of the second half, with the shot clock winding down, she hit a foul-line jumper to beat the buzzer. On the next possession, she put back a Kaci Kranson miss, part of a 7-0 run to open the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Then, to open the fourth quarter, with the Cobbers trying to mount a comeback, Sloan made back-to-back steals. Finally, with 2:21 remaining, she found herself wide open behind the 3-point line on the right wing. She shot and made it \u2014 her first three of the season. When the ball swished through the net, the John Long Center crowd erupted, knowing the Lady Royals were on their way to the Final Four.<\/p>\n
Sloan finished with a season-high seven points, along with two rebounds, four assists and three steals in a 67-42 victory that advanced Scranton (31-0) to the NCAA Division III semifinals against fellow unbeaten and two-time defending national champion NYU (29-0) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Roanoke College\u2019s Cregger Center in Salem, Virignia. The first semifinal features Denison University (28-2) against Wisconsin-Oshkosh (28-3) at 5 p.m. The winners advance to the championship game Saturday at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been an unsung hero for our team all season long,\u201d Scranton coach Ben O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n
Right before she shot her 3-pointer, Sloan hesitated before releasing the ball, almost in disbelief at how wide open she actually was.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally I\u2019m just know for my defense, getting assists and getting my teammates the ball where they can be in position to score,\u201d Sloan said. \u201cNow that we\u2019re so far into the season, 30-something games in, everybody\u2019s guarding me as not a scorer and not somebody who\u2019s looking to shoot the ball. So I know if I take a shot when it\u2019s wide open, that\u2019s going to make my teammates\u2019 jobs easier and help make them more open. I was only looking for my shot with the thought in the back of my mind that my teammates will get more open because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She averages just 1.8 points, but Sloan\u2019s contributions are elsewhere. She is second on the team with 96 assists and fifth with 36 steals. Committing only nine turnovers, her assist\/turnover ratio of 10.67 leads Division III.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way she passes the ball, her court vision, her defense, she can guard everybody, her calmness with the ball, with her and Kaeli (Romanowski) as a ball-handling duo, it doesn\u2019t get any better than those two,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cJenna\u2019s been a huge contributor for our team all season. It\u2019s been difficult for Jenna to stay on the court. She\u2019s been struggling with some knee issues and things like that. Just to be able to be to be healthy enough to play on a consistent basis has taken a lot for her off the court to do that. She\u2019s someone who has just made huge plays for us all season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scranton leads Division III in scoring defense, giving up just 42.6 points, and Sloan is a big part of that. The Lady Royals will need that defense against NYU, which has 91 straight wins. That is the second-longest streak in NCAA basketball history, men\u2019s or women\u2019s. UConn women are first at 111 games from Nov. 23, 2014 to March 31, 2017.<\/p>\n
The Violets own the No. 1 scoring offense in Division III with 88.2 points (Scranton is second with 81.0). Senior guard Caroline Peper leads the way with 18.5 points and 108 3-pointers, which ranks second in Division III. Junior Brooke Batchelor adds 13.5 points and 42 3-pointers. Sophomore Zahra Alexander chips in 12.3 points and 20 threes, while freshman Alia Kaibara contributes 10.1 points and 55 threes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to start with our defense,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cOur ability to guard them, bother them and rebound the ball. Those things are going to be important. Put some pressure on them, try to only give up tough shots and hold them to one shot. That\u2019s the most important thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very talented, they have a lot of shooters. They average close to 12 threes per game, so they\u2019re able to spread you out with a lot of different shooters. You have a lot of players that you have to concern yourself with on the perimeter. And they also have players that can use that space to attack you off the dribble. So trying to find that right balance of being able to take away their 3-point shooters and their drivers is very challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thetimes-tribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scranton\u2019s Jenna Sloan (12) is covered by Johns Hopkins\u2019 Lauren Knudson at the University of Scranton\u2019s Long Center Friday, March 14, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) JENNA SLOAN Scranton\u2019s Jenna Sloan dribbles the ball down the court during a basketball game on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (JASON ARDAN \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) Show Caption 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2334451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[350851,21848],"class_list":["post-2334450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-college-sports","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sloan-quietly-contributes-for-Lady-Royals-\u2013-Scranton-Times-Tribune.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2334450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2334452,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334450\/revisions\/2334452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2334451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2334450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2334450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2334450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}