Quinnipiac University
Marist - MAAC Championship
Quinnipiac Women's Basketball Punches Ticket to 2015 NCAA Tournament; Bobcats Down Marist in MAAC Championship, 72-61
3/9/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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ALBANY, New York – 364 days ago the journey began. Days and weeks turned into months as the journey to redemption was well under way. After rolling through a grueling non-conference slate and then sweeping all 20 MAAC games, perfection was achieved in the regular season but there was still one massive hurdle left to break through.
The journey to redemption culminated for the Quinnipiac women's basketball team as the top-seeded Bobcats claimed the MAAC Championship with a victory over second-seed Marist, 72-61, from the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y. Quinnipiac (31-3) sets a new program record for wins in a season on the way to earning the league's automatic bid into the 2015 NCAA Tournament and now await their seed and opponent which will be announced on Monday, March 16 at 7 p.m. live on ESPN.
In a rematch of the 2014 MAAC Championship, a game in which the Bobcats fell to Red Foxes, 70-66, the Bobcats overcame a Marist squad that had won nine straight conference titles and 28 straight MAAC Tournament games heading into play on Monday.
Jasmine Martin (Sicklerville, New Jersey) continues to shine in big spots as her 18 points led the way for Quinnipiac and garnered MAAC Tournament MVP honors for the senior guard. Martin's 18 points came on 7-for-15 shooting and 3-of-5 from long range. Through the three-game tournament, the 1,600+ career point scorer was on her A game, averaging 19 points to lead all MAAC scorers while shooting 40.9 percent (18-for-44) from the floor, 43.8 percent (7-for-16) from downtown and 93.3 percent (13-for-14) at the line.
Nikoline Ostergaard (Vedbaek, Denmark) came up big in huge spot all night as the Red Foxes continued to have no answer for Ostergaard as she finished with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists. In three games against the nine-time defending champs Marist in 2014-15, Ostergaard averaged 16.7 points on 50 percent shooting with 6.3 rebounds per game. Marist designed a gameplan around perimeter shooters and Ostergaard certainly came to the rescue as her drives from the wing and dazzling array of post moves could not be stopped all season.
It's tough to look at a player who finished with nine points as being significant to the victory but those nine points in nine minutes from Brianah Ramos (Montgomery, New York) were about as crucial to the Bobcat victory as any scored throughout the 40-minute game.
The situation was all too familiar for Bobcat fans as Gillian Abshire picked up her fourth foul with a little less than 14 minutes remaining. With the nation's assist-to-turnover ratio leader on the pine saddled with four fouls, Coach Fabbri turned to her slight sophomore point guard Ramos in the later stages of a four-point conference championship game.
With the building pulsing with energy from the Marist faithful after Sydney Coffey drained a layup to make it just a three-point game, Ramos received the ball at the wing and didn't hesitate on her way to converting a game-changing three-point play.
The Ramos heroics continued later in the second half as she was the one to put a dagger in the MAAC Championship, finishing off two great plays from Ostergaard, first on a pass off a double team and second came after the Denmark native made two diving efforts before coming away with a steal and finding Ramos wide open on a leak out for the easy basket that gave the Bobcats their biggest lead of the game, 67-51.
Averaging a mere 2.0 points per game entering the contest, Ramos' career-high nine-point performance right in the midst of Abshire foul trouble was a turning point that created much-needed separation for the Bobcats down the stretch run.
Coach Fabbri's decision to use her vaunted bench unit consistently throughout the 2014-15 season certainly paid big dividends on Monday as her bench contributed 19 points and outscored the Marist reserves, 19-0, for the game.
One of those key Bobcat reserves that stepped into a starring role was none other than the 2015 MAAC Sixth Player of the Year Maria Napolitano. Often used as the captain of the Bobcats' "Gold Rush" reserve unit that subs five players in-and-out at a time, Napolitano was needed alongside the Quinnipiac starters to captain the defensive effort on the Marist three-headed monster of Coffey, Tori Jarosz and Madeline Blais.
With heavy foul trouble all across the Quinnipiac lineup in the first and second half, Napolitano's 23 minutes were crucial as she gave Blais nothing on the offensive end. With Napolitano guarding Blais a majority of the second half, the Marist junior and one of the top three-point shooters in the country, was held to just two shots (both misses) until the final two minutes of play. Locked in a tight game throughout a majority of the stanza, Blais was nowhere to be found as Napolitano and Samantha Guastella face guarded the lethal shooter and gave her no easy looks at the rim.
Guastella's defense was big on Monday and helped her earn a spot on the 2015 MAAC All-Tournament Team as she also scored six points with seven rebounds against Marist. For the Tournament, Guastella averaged 11.7 points while shooting 47.8 percent (11-for-23) from three to go along with 6.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game.
Even though Abshire was limited to just 14 minutes due to foul trouble, the senior point guard still racked up eight points, five assists and no turnovers in the day's action.
The first 20 minutes of play was a heavyweight back-and-forth battle as Marist would fight off every attempted QU run with a look inside to Jarosz or an open shot for Blais.
Quinnipiac's lead grew to as many as eight points with 4:49 remaining in the first half but Marist used a 9-1 run to claw even with the Bobcats before freshman Sarah Shewan (Russell, Ontario) hit the biggest shot of her young career to give QU the 33-30 halftime lead.
Marist had a three-point heave from halfcourt swish through the net that would have tied the score at 33 waved off because the shot from Natalie Gomez-Martinez didn't leave her fingers until fractions of a second after the halftime buzzer sounded.
Martin and her devastating jab step opened up some looks which she buried for 11 first half points. Jarosz owned the painted area for Marist as the redshirt senior tallied nine points and 11 rebounds in 17 minutes to lead the Red Foxes.
The two mid-major powerhouse programs traded runs to start the second half and with the lead cut the three close to the midway point in the stanza, the stage was set for the momentum-changing three-point play from Ramos to give QU the late game advantage.
After fighting for 30+ minutes to gain some sort of separation, Quinnipiac finally broke through as the lead grew to 10 points and eventually 16 with the Ramos fastbreak make after Ostergaard dove to steal the ball away from Allie Clement.
As the last seconds wound down, an exhilarated Quinnipiac bench mobbed one another at center court as the final horn sounded with Quinnipiac victorious, 72-61.
The conference championship marks Quinnipiac's second in three years, as the Bobcats won the Northeast Conference Championship in 2013. That year, the Bobcats entered the tournament with a 30-2 record, earned a No. 13 seed and faced fourth-seeded Maryland in the First Round.
Marist falls to 21-11 overall and will likely accept a bid into the WNIT Tournament. The Red Foxes were playing in their 12th consecutive MAAC Championship game looking for their 10th straight title and 11th in the last 12 years.
The first round of the tournament is set for Friday, March 20 and Saturday, March 21 with the second round scheduled for Sunday, March 22 and Monday, March 23. Sites have not been determined but will be revealed during the selection show. Tickets for the NCAA Tournament can be purchased online at http://www.ncaa.com/tickets/basketball-women/d1.
Contact: Maxx McNall; maxx.mcnall@quinnipiac.edu
