Brown’s heroics send Stevens back to Empire 8 Finals
HOBOKEN, N.J. (February 24, 2017) – Junior
Megan Brown scored four consecutive points over the game's final twenty-three seconds sending the top-seeded Stevens Institute of Technology women's basketball team back to the Empire 8 Conference Championship game with a 62-58 victory over the fourth-seeded St. John Fisher Cardinals.
Brown, named Empire 8 Defensive Player of the Year Thursday, finished the game with 14 points and nine rebounds and forced a key turnover to preserve the victory. Junior
Anna Toke recorded her fourth double-double with 15 points and a game-high 11 boards and graduate student
Kaitlyn Astel also scored 15 for the Ducks, who improved to 16-9.
Emily Piacentini led all players with 21 points and Maria Kelleher added 10 points on 3-of-7 shooting for the Cardinals, who closed their 2016-17 campaign at 12-14.
Stevens led by five points with one quarter of play in the books, but the Cardinals would cut the gap to just one point to make it 15-14 in the second quarter. The game would go over three minutes without a field goal before Stevens put together a 7-0 run to jump back out to an eight-point lead, 22-14, but Fisher continued to battle and eventually cut it to a one-point gap on a pair of free throws. With just seconds to go in the half and up by a point, Astel heaved a final second shot that found it mark to give Stevens a 27-24 halftime lead.
Stevens found its groove in the third period and eventually built a 12-point lead after outscoring Fisher, 21-14. The Ducks' momentum continued as the fourth quarter got underway as the hosts controlled the pace of play en route to a 13-point advantage, 57-44, with just 4:07 left to play in the game.
From there, Stevens grasp started to slip as the Cardinals orchestrated an 11-1 run over the next 3:27 fueled by 3-pointers from
Erin Hulbert and
Maria Kelleher to come all the way back to knot things up at 58-58 with 40 seconds left on the clock.
The momentum would fall short, however, as Brown scored the contest's final four points to earn Stevens a spot in Saturday's title game.
Stevens will host the second-seeded Ithaca College Bombers in the E8 Championship, who earned a 63-55 win over Hartwick in the semifinals.