Expand<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nSALEM, Virginia \u2014 Kaeli Romanowski had another big performance Saturday in the NCAA Division III championship game that earned her a spot on the all-tournament team.<\/p>\n
However, the University of Scranton senior wasn\u2019t in the mood for individual accolades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted the natty,\u201d Romanowski said. \u201cI\u2019m just incredibly grateful for my teammates. Nothing would be possible without them. We wouldn\u2019t even be here without them. I\u2019m just so grateful for the coaches, my teammates and the entire athletic department.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lady Royals came up one win shy, losing the final to Denison University, 55-41, at Roanoke College\u2019s Cregger Center.<\/p>\n
Romanowski had nine points and 17 rebounds, which tied Anne Crossin in 1982 for the fourth-most by a Lady Royal in an NCAA tournament game. That followed up her 14-point, 16-rebound, five-steal game in the semifinal win over NYU.<\/p>\n
Meghan Lamanna and Kaci Kranson scored 10 points each. Kranson also hit a milestone in the game. Her 3-pointer with 38.7 seconds left in the third quarter put her over the 2,000 career-point mark (2,002).<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t matter, either.<\/p>\n
What mattered was the Lady Royals struggled against Denison\u2019s size, particularly 6-foot-3 sophomore Anelly Mad-toingu\u00e9, who had eight points, 16 rebounds and three blocks.\u00a0Her presence inside forced Scranton to look to score from the outside and it shot 14 for 69 (20.3 percent), including 7 of 36 from 3-point range (19.4). Denison also held a 58-50 rebounding edge and outscored the Lady Royals in the paint, 30-10.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was presented to us throughout the game was some 3-point opportunities by some very good 3-point shooters on our team while at the same time you have 6-3, in the middle, making it hard to get shots around the basket,\u201d Scranton coach Ben O\u2019Brien said. \u201cAgainst this team, you\u2019re going to have to make some perimeter shots because of how they defend the paint and the size that they have. It was just one of those games where we didn\u2019t make enough of those to ultimately capitalize on some of the opportunities that we had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two scoring droughts doomed the Lady Royals. The first came in the second quarter where they managed just one point and shot 0 for 17, including 0 of 7 from 3-point range. Their defense kept them in the game and the Lady Royals trailed, 19-11, at halftime.<\/p>\n
Still, that was the largest deficit the Lady Royals faced all season. They were down by seven points 6\u00bd minutes into the season opener at SUNY-Geneseo and won by 25 points. They also trailed the University of Pittsburgh in their exhibition game in November by seven points early in the fourth quarter and rallied for a 69-63 win.<\/p>\n
In the third quarter, though, an early 9-0 run got Scranton back into the game and Lamanna\u2019s 3-pointer at the buzzer gave it a 34-33 lead heading into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cCredit to Denison. Their defense was very, very tough,\u201d Kranson said. \u201cThey came out strong, throwing the first punch. At halftime, we kind of settled in and took a deep breath and went back to the way we played all season. I felt we were taking a lot of open 3s in the first half and they weren\u2019t falling for us. We wanted to get in the paint, maybe draw some fouls. That\u2019s kind of what our mindset was going into the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Bennett\u2019s 3-pointer with 9:06 left in the fourth quarter gave the Lady Royals a 39-36 lead. But that\u2019s when they endured their second offensive dry spell, missing 12 of their last 13 shots and committing four turnovers. Denison closed the game on a 19-2 run to pull away to the title.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a credit to them. They made big shots when they needed to at the right time,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n
While the outcome stung, it still was a remarkable season for the Lady Royals (32-1). There was the upset win over Pitt. An 11th straight Landmark Conference championship. A trip to the program\u2019s 11th Final Four.<\/p>\n
Now, they must move ahead without Kranson and Romanowski.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are two of the best players to ever play at Scranton,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cThere\u2019s a list of some pretty incredible players historically at Scranton and these two are right up there. They\u2019re once-in-a-lifetime type of players on the court, off the court and in the locker room with their teammates and how they lead. \u2026 I\u2019m just incredibly proud of them. I feel very grateful and fortunate to have been along for the ride for two of the best to ever do it at Scranton. They\u2019re going to be greatly missed on the court, for sure, but more missed in the locker room because they\u2019re incredible leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to be rock stars in the next chapter of their life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Jenna Sloan also won\u2019t be back next season.<\/p>\n
However, the Lady Royals will have starters Lamanna \u2014 who played all 40 minutes in both games at the Final Four and totaled a team-high 28 points \u2014 and Katie Gorski back, as well as the first two players off the bench, Bennett and Sophia Talutto. A group of talented sophomores and freshmen, who saw plenty of action in blowout wins this season, will be ready to take their turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to win every game that we play,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cWhenever that next game is, we\u2019re going to put everything we have into it with our group. That\u2019s never going to change. I don\u2019t think it will be a retribution, so to speak. But like this game, we put everything we had into it. We poured it all in and we\u2019ll continue to do that.\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":"University of Scranton\u2019s Sophia Talutto moves the ball during NCAA DIII first-round game against Framingham State at the University of Scranton in Scranton on Friday, March 06, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) Katie Gorski of the University of Scranton goes in for a layup against NYU during the NCAA Division III semifinal game Thursday night in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2342759,"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-2342758","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\/Lady-Royals-look-ahead-after-memorable-season-\u2013-Scranton-Times-Tribune.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342758","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=2342758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2342760,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342758\/revisions\/2342760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2342759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2342758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2342758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2342758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}